All Chapters of System Of Blood: To Crave Survival: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

CHAPTER 81Camryn's POVThe Chancellor looked down at his own shadow. Saw how it moved independently of his body for just a moment. Saw how it pulled away from Amon’s power.When he looked up, his expression had changed.The mild curiosity was gone. The perfect composure had cracked.“Clever,” the thing wearing the Chancellor’s face said. Its voice was the same, but the cadence had shifted. Flatter. Missing some quality that made it sound human. “I didn’t expect shadow manipulation to be a detection method. That’s a significant oversight in our infiltration protocols.”Someone gasped. Multiple people actually stepped back.The Masquerader stood slowly. “How long have I been compromised?” it asked, its tone conversational. “Genuinely curious. The Host’s memories suggest at least eight months, but I can’t be certain.”“Eight months,” Miranda breathed. “You’ve been making government policy for eight months while….”“While optimizing for our species’ survival. Yes.” The Masquerader tilted

CHAPTER 83Camryn's POV“Whitney…” Amon started.“Don’t.” I couldn’t. Not yet. Not while we were still in danger. “We need to keep moving. She bought us time. We had to use it.”He nodded and pushed off the wall. He took one step and almost collapsed.I held onto him. “New plan. You lean on me. We move slow, but we move.”“Camryn…”“No arguments.”Fabian was already ahead, checking passages with grim efficiency. Blood streaked his coat from a dozen small wounds.“This way,” he said quietly. “Passage slopes upward. Should lead toward the government district.”“What about Miranda?” I asked.“She knows the tunnels better than any of us. If she’s alive, she’ll find a way out.” His voice was flat.“If she’s not… knowing won’t change anything right now.”We moved through darkness lit only by failing gas lamps and bioluminescent fungi. Every shadow felt like it might hide another Masquerader. Every sound made my heart slam against my ribs.“How are your shadows?” I asked quietly.“Gone.” His

CHAPTER 85Camryn's POVDawn broke over the corrupted landscape in shades of dark blood and copper rust.I watched it through the safehouse window while Miranda checked our supplies one last time. The sun rose through air that had been poisoned by decades of anomaly activity. It was too red and swollen, like something diseased trying to burn through toxic clouds.“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Amon said quietly from beside me. “In a terrible sort of way.”“I’m not sure ‘beautiful’ is the word I’d use.”“No. But it’s something.” He was testing his shadows, letting them coil around his fingers in weak wisps that kept flickering out. “Still not back to full strength. Maybe sixty percent recovered.”“Will that be enough?”“It’ll have to be.” He let the shadows dissipate. “How are you doing? Really?”I wanted to say I was fine. That I was ready for whatever came next. That leaving Whitney behind wasn’t eating me alive from the inside.Instead I said, “I keep thinking about what we’re walking into.

CHAPTER 87Camryn's POVI followed her, my exhaustion momentarily forgotten. The equations on the walls were complex, dense with terminology I didn't understand, but some of it was familiar from the journals we'd found at the Chancellor's estate. Frequency calculations. Molecular disruption patterns. Notes about parasitic cellular structures.And in the center of the largest wall, carved deeper than everything else, was a single location name: St. Belladren."That's where we were deployed," I said, touching the carving. The stone was cold under my fingers. "Where I fought the Lamenting Mother.""No," Fabian said, reading something on the opposite wall. "This says St. Belladren is where they tested the shutdown protocol. Successfully. Three times." He traced the carvings with his finger."Eugene conducted live trials on a Class C anomaly they'd captured. Each test worked. Each time, the parasites died and the host survived.""So the device exists," Amon said. "Not just in theory. They

CHAPTER 89Camryn's POVI wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that the five of us could actually challenge a system that had been entrenched for centuries. But belief felt like a luxury I couldn't afford anymore, so instead I focused on what I could control—the immediate next steps, the tactical decisions, the concrete actions that might lead somewhere better.We spent the rest of the morning copying Eugene's research. Miranda's handwriting was precise and clear, turning complex equations and diagrams into something that could be reproduced. Fabian helped check her work, his years of forbidden knowledge making him surprisingly good at understanding the technical aspects. Whitney kept watch, her crossbow ready despite her injured leg, her senses stretched to detect any threats.And I sat with the original documents, reading through Eugene's notes about the Lamenting Mother tests. He'd been meticulous in his record-keeping, documenting every aspect of the trials. The anomaly had be