The Rise of the Unbound Sovereign Sect Chapter 31: Chapter 31

Read chapter 31 of The Rise of the Unbound Sovereign Sect by Magic on NovelPedia.

"The desperate man does not build a wall to keep the world out; he builds a grave for it to fall into." With pain touching every nerve in my body, I looked to my right. Pendra was still unconscious, the rain washing the acidic black blood from her cracked carapace. She wouldn't wake up in time, and wishing would change nothing. I was alone, deaf, missing the use of my left arm, and bleeding out internally. The fact my arm was still there was probably the most interesting part of everything that had happened. I smacked my left check hard and shook my head. I didn’t have time for stupid transient thoughts right now. What I needed was a wall, or some way to protect us. I dragged myself through the mud using my one good arm, my breath coming in jagged, bloody wheezes. I crawled toward the wreckage of the smashed workbench, digging fingers through the wet earth, bypassing the ruined clay jugs until my hand closed over a small, intact glass vial. It was the Jötnar spinal fluid. Out of everything, this was my only hope. A talisman wasn’t going to cut it drawn on a wet rock. The downpour would dissolve the spiritual ink before the first stroke could even manifest Qi. I needed a medium that defied the elements. Biochemically, spinal fluid is a cocktail of heavy proteins and dense, hydrophobic lipids. It’s naturally thick, greasy, and completely insoluble. If I mixed it with my own iron-rich blood and a bit of Pendra’s, the lipids would instantly encapsulate the crimson cells, creating a viscous, waterproof gel. Most likely. This was the first part of my plan. But the real magic was hopefully going to be Jing within all of it. The Jötnar weren't just dumb beasts; they were descended from ancient mortals who spent ten thousand years engorging their bodies with worldly energy until they grew into giants. Their spines weren't just bone—they were the foundational pillars of a massive, evolved meridian highway. This fluid was packed with millennia of heavy, earth and rock Qi. Essentially, by combining this dense giant viscous extract with my blood and Pendra's, I could create a bio-electric circuit. The waterproof Jötnar gel wouldn't just block the physical rain; it would act like a biological Faraday cage. It would insulate our fragile human signatures from the outside world, grounding the array's Qi inward so the chittering horrors outside couldn't track our spiritual bleed. I didn't have ink. I didn't have acidic fern sap. I had minutes before the first centipede crawled into the hollow. I crawled the last two feet to Pendra’s unconscious form. Her cracked body was leaking black blood from a deep gash on her shoulder. Perfect. I slammed the glass vial of Jötnar fluid down against a stone right over her wound, shattering the glass. The thick, clear, gelatinous fluid poured out, mixing instantly with her pooling blood and resisting the heavy rain. It was incredibly viscous. My right hand was already deeply lacerated on the edges where my energy hadn’t protected me fast enough from shattering the Jing vial a moment ago. Blood poured from gash below my thumb, thick with whatever residual energy my body was desperately trying to cycle to keep me alive. Highly conductive. It should work. I plunged my bleeding hand directly into the puddle, stirring my own lifeforce into the mix. A small part of my brain was mentally coughing up blood from the number of illnesses I was about to contract from doing this, but life waited for no one, and death came for us all. The gross puddle created a clear gel that the rain rolled off of, creating a waterproof, highly conductive crimson resin. Now that I had some ink, I needed to work fast. I couldn't draw a passive shield or it would just use whatever Qi I fed into it. I didn't have the energy to last any amount of time that would help, and a passive wall would just be battered down by the sheer weight of the swarm. I needed a closed-loop thermodynamic grinder. I needed a bastion that killed whatever came close