Chapter 1073: Gelled Fuel
The laboratory was thirty square meters of controlled disorder.
Milky-white rubber had dried in streaks across every horizontal surface. A row of buckets along the wall held fresh worm secretion — pale and faintly iridescent, still warm from extraction. Something black and caramelized was cooling in the bottom of a large pot that had been pushed to the corner of the main workbench, leaving a pungent chemical ghost in the air that Roland’s eyes registered before his lungs did. Long-handled spoons, glass stirring rods, an array of graduated containers that had clearly been repurposed from medical storage — the whole room had the look of a place where one man had been working without sleep for a long time.
Kyle Sichi glanced up from his notes when Roland entered. “Your Majesty.” A brief nod — the greeting of a man who considers social ceremony a rounding error. He looked pale. One finger was wrapped in gauze.
“Are you injured?”
“Minor.” Kyle waved the hand with the gauze as if dismissing a proposal he’d already rejected. He picked up a cup from the bench — filled with something the color of diluted blood, a light, uncertain red. “Look at this.”
He turned the cup upside down.
The liquid did not fall. It slid — slowly, with the resistance of something that had decided what shape it wanted to be — and formed a soft hemisphere against the rim of the cup, clinging there, trembling faintly when Kyle shifted his grip.
Roland reached toward it.
“Your Majesty.” Kyle pulled the cup back. “It’s corrosive.”
“Corrosive? The worm secretion is non-toxic.”
“It is.” Kyle set the cup down and touched the gauze on his finger. “The secretion changed after it made contact with blood.”
Roland looked at the gauze again.
“You didn’t—”
“An accident,” Kyle said quickly. Something in his expression tightened — not guilt, exactly; more like the professional embarrassment of a man who dropped a calculation. He smoothed his beard. “I’m committed to the chemistry, but I haven’t reached the point of deliberate self-harm in service of an experiment. There’s too much left to explore. I intend to keep this body intact for some time yet.”
He had been testing solidification methods for weeks, he explained. The worm glands produced a secretion that gave their mucus its particular tackiness — it was this component, in varying concentrations, that determined how quickly the secretion set and how hard the resulting rubber became. Once set, it could not be liquefied again. The question was whether something analogous could be produced from outside: a reagent that would drive the liquid rubber into a gel state without losing its chemical character.
Kyle had tried elementary substances first. Then pure acids and alkali solutions. Then inorganic salts in sequence, working through the periodic logic he had assembled from Roland’s notes. Several of these combinations produced interesting gels — but none with the right properties. Too rigid, too brittle, too slow to ignite, or simply inert when mixed with fuel.
Then he had cut his finger over a cup.
“The blood hit the secretion and the reaction was immediate. A large volume of white smoke. The Bird Beak Mushroom trace in the liquid — used to stabilize the suspension — melted into yellow residue within a few seconds. When it cleared, the liquid had become this.”
He lifted the cup again and carried it to the furnace. He opened the door and dropped the gel in.
The fire changed. It did not simply grow larger — it moved, roaring upward with a sound Roland felt in the back of his throat, the flames running blue-white at the base and orange at the tips, consuming the gel in seconds. The air above the furnace shimmered.
“I added a single spoonful of oil to it before the test,” Kyle said. The light from the flames was still moving in his eyes when he turned around. “Burning the gel alone doesn’t achieve that. The gel holds the oil in suspension and releases it into the flame at exactly the right rate. It’s better than what you described. Considerably better.”
Roland had been thinking about napalm since the moment he first heard of the rubber worms.
In his previous life, napalm was the product of a gelling agent mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel — not particularly sophisticated, but devastating in application. The gel prevented the fuel from flowing away from its target. It burned long and hot and stuck to everything it touched. A conventional incendiary weapon, even a large one, produced a brief fire that a disciplined force could survive if they moved fast enough. Napalm produced a fire that followed them. The oxygen consumption alone — in an enclosed space, in a defended position, in a reinforced outpost — could be lethal independent of the burns.
He had intended to use it against the demons’ forward positions.
The Taquila records described the outpost problem in terms that felt clinical until you understood the scale of death they were summarizing. A Red Mist installation was not just a fortification — it was a denial weapon that removed the ability of common soldiers to operate anywhere near it. The Union’s Blessed Army, those rare and irreplaceable survivors of the God’s Punishment ritual, had been required to screen and clear every approach. Every assault on an outpost had consumed Blessed Army soldiers the Union could not replace. The Union had won individual engagements and still lost ground, because the math of attrition ran against them and the outposts made the math worse.
Napalm, delivered correctly, solved the outpost problem from outside the Red Mist envelope. Fire did not breathe. It did not require a witch to clear a path through contaminated air. It was not stopped by stone walls and it could not be surrendered to — once inside a position, it found everything, consumed everything, and left the Red Mist dispersed by its own heat.
Alethea had complained about the rubber worms when they first arrived at the Third Border City. She had described them in terms that suggested the ancient senior witch had preferences about what kinds of creatures existed near her. Then someone had explained what the worms were for, and her complaints had ended overnight.
Roland turned the question he had been holding back.
“Does it require human blood specifically?”
“No.” Kyle had anticipated this. “Animal blood produces the same result. The only requirement is that it be fresh. Stored blood loses the relevant component within hours.”
“Why blood at all?”
”…” Kyle spread his hands — the gesture of a man who has looked at this question and found only the shape of his own ignorance.
“The worms’ origin may be relevant,” Pasha said from the doorway, where she had followed them from the breeding farm. “The Multi-Eyed Monster used them to capture and preserve its subjects. Blood is a plausible trigger — it signals the presence of living prey, and the worm’s instinct converts accordingly. Even separated from the monster, the biology persists.”
“The monster collected information,” Roland said, following the logic. “Not food. So preservation made sense. The gel would hold a sample intact.”
“That’s our working assumption.”
He considered this — the worms designed as specimen jars, the gel as biological fixative — and found the horror of it less interesting than the utility. Whatever the purpose had been, the mechanism was his now.
“Start production immediately. Bring the alchemists from the old king’s city into the process — they have the capacity and Kyle needs to rest.” He glanced at Kyle’s gauze-wrapped finger. “You’ve done the hard part. Let them do the scale-up.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Kyle placed a hand on his chest, the gesture of a man who knows when to be formal and chooses it deliberately.
“I have a suggestion,” Pasha said.
“Go ahead.”
“When you test the weapon,” she said, “we could invite a particular guest to observe.”
Roland understood immediately. “The demon is still alive?”
Kabradhabi’s soul, transferred into a damaged human body to disorient it — the interrogation had produced useful information until the demon had adapted to the body and simply stopped responding. They had left it with the Taquila witches expecting that it would either take its own life or be consumed by the witches’ accumulated grievances. It had done neither.
“Alive and eating well,” Pasha said. “It accepts all the food we bring. Every meal.”
It refuses to break. Refuses to confess. Refuses to die.
Waits, with complete confidence, for the day when humanity fails and its patience is vindicated.
Certain that anything as small and slow as a bug beneath a human face could not be the thing that unmakes it.
Roland’s mouth curved — not warmly. “That’s a good idea. Bring it to the test.”
Chapter 1073: Gelled Fuel Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
After leaving the rubber worm farm, Roland came to the lab.
He felt as if he had come into a wizard’s lab. In this 30-square-meter room, many places were smeared with milky white solidified rubber liquid. Along the wall, stood a row of buckets filled with fresh worm liquid. Some rubber blocks seemed to have got burnt in a big pot, emitting a strong pungent smell. Like a wizard, Kyle also used long-handled spoons and stirring sticks in this lab.
Seeing that, Roland could not help thinking, “If there’re some toads and bats in this lab, it’ll look exactly like a wizard’s lab.”
“Your Majesty,” Kyle Sichi simply nodded to greet Roland. “I think I’ve found what you wanted.”
The alchemist looked very pale, and one of his fingers was wrapped in gauze. Seeing that, Roland became a little worried and asked, “Are you injured?”
“Don’t worry. It’s just a minor injury,” Kyle waved his hand and said. He picked up a cup filled with light red rubber liquid and continued, “Your Majesty, look.”
The next moment, he turned the cup upside down, but the liquid did not spill out at all. Instead, it just slowly slid down and then formed a soft hemisphere clinging to the rim of the cup.
Roland was intrigued. He stretched out his hand, wanting to touch the jellylike substance, but the Chief Alchemist immediately stopped him.
“No, Your Majesty!” He took back the cup and explained, “This gel is corrosive.”
“I remember that the worms’ rubber liquid is non-toxic and harmless,” Roland said with one eyebrow cocked. He had already used the liquid to manufacture food bags and straws.
“But it changed after mixing with blood.”
“Blood?” Roland was startled and looked at Kyle’s wounded finger again. “Did you hurt yourself for experiments…”
“Of course not, it was just an accident,” Kyle said smilingly while stroking his beard. “Yeah, I’m crazy for chemistry, but I can’t as yet go so far as to deliberately hurt myself for an experiment. There’re lots of things waiting for me to explore in the chemistry world. I need to take good care of myself.”
After that, Kyle explained to Roland how he had found this gel.
Something secreted by the rubber worms’ glands could make their mucus become sticky. That was how the worms produced the rubber liquid. Due to the difference in the proportion of the secretion in the liquid, it could solidify into biological rubber blocks with different hardness. Once it solidified, it could not be melted back into liquid.
Given that, the Chief Alchemist had used lots of materials and had done lots of experiments, trying to find a way to solidify the rubber liquid into a gel. In the beginning, he tried to add various types of elementary substances, pure acids and alkali liquids to the rubber liquid, but none of these mixtures could achieve the desired effect.
Afterwards, he had tried many inorganic salts and even organic matters, and had discovered quite a few interesting gels during this process. However, none of them were what the king wanted.
Things had begun to change when an accident had happened to Kyle.
One day, when he had been cutting a rubber strip, he had inadvertently cut his own finger. His blood happened to drop into a cup of rubber liquid and reacted violently with the liquid. Instantly, a large amount of white smoke
rose from the cup and the Bird Beak Mushroom in the liquid quickly melted into yellow water.
In the end, the liquid in the cup had somehow turned into a light red gel.
“This gel’s biggest feature is that it can keep the chemical structure of the things added to it,” Kyle said and then threw the light red gel into the furnace. Suddenly, the fire burnt much more violently. The flames roared high into the air, and the gel was swiftly burnt into ashes. “I only added a spoonful of oil to it. Burning the gel alone can’t achieve this effect. I can say that it’s even better than the gel you asked for!”
The alchemist looked tired, but he sounded excited. Seeing the reflection of the raging fire in his eyes, Roland somehow felt his bursting feelings and guessed that he must have been thinking about how powerful this thing would be in the forthcoming war.
Roland needed this jelly-like substance to make napalm bombs.
In his previous world, napalm usually referred to a mixture of a gelling agent and either petrol or a similar liquid fuel. Compared to inflammable liquid fuel, which had a low flash point and high volatility, gelled fuel was more convenient and safer to use. Meanwhile, they could also be very destructive. A napalm bomb was able to set a large area on fire. No one within this burning area could get rid of the thick, sticky fuel quickly, and at the same time, they would be suffocated, as the burning would consume a great amount of oxygen.
Since the moment he had heard about the worms’ rubber liquid, he had been thinking about using it to develop a gelling agent, which could be used to make napalm bombs.
He planned to use these bombs to destroy demons’ outposts, which had given the Union lots of headaches in the past.
Back in the Taquila age, the Union’s Blessed Army had not been able to move freely around an outpost without being protected by witches who had been able to block off or clean out the Red Mist. Given that, the army
consisting of the common people had been responsible for demolishing the demons’ mist storage towers. Every time the Union had launched an attack on an outpost, the Blessed Army would have suffered a heavy loss, and all the common soldiers would have been killed in the battle.
The Union could not have afforded to launch lots of such attacks which would have quickly consumed its strength and resources. Once they had been surrounded by lots of outposts, they would have abandoned their land and run for their lives.
With napalm bombs, the demons’ outpost would no longer be a major threat to the city. The fire could not only destroy their facilities but also dispel their Red Mist.
Hearing that rubber worms could provide raw materials for making napalm bombs, which could easily burn down a demons’ outpost and clean out the Red Mist around it, Pasha had immediately agreed to raise these worms in the Third Border City. Alethea, who had complained a lot about these strange worms in the beginning, showed great enthusiasm in them after knowing their use.
In fact, Roland already had enough weapons for long range attacks by now. Even without napalm bombs, he could also let his army shoot down all the moving things in an outpost with those firearms before sending them there. However, he still hoped that the alchemists could successfully produce some napalm bombs. If they did, he would not have to prepare that much gunpowder for the battle, which could significantly reduce the burden on the chemical plants.
He was really delighted to see the light red gel, but he still had some concerns about it.
“Does it have to be a human being’s blood?”
“No, Your Majesty,” replied the alchemist. “Please rest assured. An animal’s blood also works. I’ve tested it. The only requisite for the blood is that it has to be fresh.”
Roland felt much relieved hearing that, but soon he thought of another question. “Why does it have to be blood?”
“Well…” Kyle was speechless.
“I think the reason lies in the worms’ origin,” said Pasha. “The Multi-Eyed Monster used them to capture and store its preys. Blood may be one of the triggering conditions causing them to react. Although they were left behind by the monster, their instinct still exists.”
“That’s a reasonable explanation,” Roland thought. “The monster apparently didn’t store its preys as food. It’s more likely that it was collecting information about the other species. Given that, it’s possible that it would let the worms store them as jelly.”
‘No matter what, let’s start to develop the new weapon as soon as possible,” said Roland. “Now that we have the ideal gelling agent, the remaining work will be easy. You can let the alchemists from the old king’s city take care of it. After all, you need to take a good rest now for your future exploration into the chemistry world.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Kyle said with a hand on his chest.
“I’ve an idea,” Pasha said suddenly.
“Oh, what’s it?” Roland looked at her and asked.
“We can bring a special guest to the weapon test,” she replied while swaying her main tentacle cheerfully.
Roland immediately realized who she was talking about and asked. “Is that demon still alive?”
They had transferred Kabradhabi’s soul into a crippled body to confuse its mind and had taken the chance to interrogate it and get much useful information. Unfortunately, since it had gotten used to the human body, it had remained silent. Apparently, it would not give them any more information. Roland had left it to the Taquila witches, thinking that it would either kill
itself or get tortured to death by the vengeful witches. Surprisingly, it was still alive.
“Yes, it’s alive and well. It eats up all the food we bring to him every day.” Pasha said.
It seems that it doesn’t want to die at all.
It refuses to surrender or confess.
It’s confidently waiting for the complete failure of humanity, believing that it’ll be free sooner or later.
It’s so ambitious and determined.
Is it because it thinks being killed by some bugs is a huge humiliation?
Roland thought and smirked mockingly. “That’s a good idea. Let’s take it to the weapon test.”