All Chapters of Marked From Birth: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

Audrey spent her days in the "Nursery of the Dark," watching the Aethel-Native children. They were the most affected by the transition. Without the natural light of the twin suns, their golden skin began to dim. They became "Pale-Seekers," their eyes growing even larger to catch the faint violet light of the Glow-Lamps. They were evolving again, adapting to a world of permanent twilight."They’re becoming 'Cave-Dwellers'," Audrey whispered to Lucas as they walked through the silent, crowded corridors. "The stars gave them gold, but the dark is giving them silver. We’re changing them, Lucas. Every time we solve a technical problem, we create a biological one."As the Geothermal-Needles reached the core, the Spire groaned with a deep, subsonic power. The Glow-Lamps flickered to life, bathing the crowded halls in a warm, artificial amber. They had electricity. They had heat. But as Audrey looked at the external sensors, she saw a new threat: the "Ice-Spikes." The frozen nitrogen outside

"We aren't falling toward a sun," Mara explained, her voice trembling as she projected the new trajectory onto a map of the sector. "We are being pulled toward a 'Singularity-Anchor.' Someone has placed a massive, high-density object in the void—a 'Dark-Star' or a 'Black-Hole' with a controlled event horizon. They are using Novus as a 'Gravity-Sling.' They want to pull us into their territory without firing a single shot."The Union was powerless against the sheer physics of the pull. To stop the descent, they would need more energy than the "Engines of Eternal Night" could ever provide. The city felt like a hooked fish being dragged into the deep, dark water."We need to know who is on the other end of the line," Audrey decided. She ordered the activation of the "Deep-Probe"—a high-velocity drone powered by a "Miniaturized Fusion-Spark." The probe would travel ahead of the planet, into the heart of the darkness, to see what was waiting for them at the anchor-point.As the probe moved

A massive plume of obsidian-colored ash erupted from the Western Trench, lancing five hundred miles into the sky. It didn't just block the suns; it created a "Static-Cloud" so dense that the Curators' sensors couldn't penetrate it. The planet disappeared from the "Galactic Museum’s" view, replaced by a chaotic, roiling mass of lightning and dust. They were "Filthy" again, and for the first time in months, the invisible pull of the gravity-anchor slackened. The Curators didn't want a broken toy.The sky over New Aethelgard, already choked with the obsidian ash of the "Entropy-Injection," suddenly flared with an impossible, sickly violet light. High above the atmosphere, the rings of the Curators’ World-Ship had aligned, forming a massive "Lens-Array" that was focusing the raw energy of the galactic core into a single, coherent stream of "Tachyon-Radiation." It wasn't a projectile; it was a "Thermal-Drill" designed to pierce the planet's crust and ignite the pressurized pockets of hydro

The "Knocking" was not a monster, but the planet itself. Without the Great Engine to regulate the "Thermal-Expansion," the Spire was buckling under the extreme temperature difference between the geothermal core and the liquid-nitrogen exterior. The "First Manual Winter" began not with a storm, but with a "Structural Crisis.""The bronze-wood is 'Spalling'," Vane reported, her hands covered in frostbite as she inspected the primary support struts. "The outer layers are freezing and snapping off in sheets. We’re losing the 'Ablative-Shielding.' If we don't insulate the hull manually, the cold will reach the residential decks in hours."CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE: THE FIRST MANUAL WINTERThe "Knocking" was not a monster, but the planet itself. Without the Great Engine to regulate the "Thermal-Expansion," the Spire was buckling under the extreme temperature difference between the geothermal core and the liquid-nitrogen exterior. The "First Manual Winter" began not with a storm, bu

The ascent of the Aethel-Dawn II was the slowest, most agonizing space-launch in history. There were no roaring boosters, only the haunting, metallic creak of the bronze foil as it expanded in the thinning atmosphere. Inside the sphere, Lucas and a team of "Silver-Eyed" engineers sat in a pressurized gondola, surrounded by hand-cranked oxygen scrubbers and "Coal-Fired" heaters."We’re at 40,000 feet," Lucas reported over the crackling radio. "The 'Liquid-Air' is sheeting off the hull. We’re hitting the 'Gravity-Shear' from the Net. The sphere is starting to 'Egg'—the vacuum pressure is trying to collapse us. I need more 'Internal-Bracing'!"The Curators’ World-Ship was still visible in the distance, a silent watcher in the void. At any moment, it could fire a "Cleaning-Beam" and pop the bronze bubble like a soap film. The Union had to rely on "Low-Signature Stealth"—the balloon was so primitive and moved so slowly that the Curators’ high-frequency sensors mistook it for a stray piece