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Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Pretty Prince and the Beast King: Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

94 Kabanata

BOOK 2-1

"Malachi, you shouldn't be here. This place is sealed. It's off the maps."Aradaa’s voice cracked, the sound thin against the sudden, heavy silence of the Highland farm. He stood on the porch, his fingers twitching toward the space where his holographic HUD usually hovered. Nothing appeared. No scrolling lines of blue light. No bone-code barriers. Just empty air and the smell of ozone.Malachi didn't answer with words. He stepped through the treeline, but he didn't walk across the grass. He seemed to bleed out of the shadows of the pines, his midnight silks trailing like ink in water. His skin was the color of a drowned man’s—translucent, marble-pale, mapped with faint violet veins. He stopped ten feet from the porch, his amethyst eyes locking onto Aradaa with a predatory stillness."Seals break, Scholar," Malachi said. His voice was a dry rasp, cold as a tomb. "And I didn't need a map. I just followed the pulse of the earth. Your blood is very loud in a world this quiet.""Stay back!

2

"Kaelor, wake the f**k up. Kaelor!"Aradaa’s voice scraped against the damp stone of the cellar, sounding like dry leaves on a grave. He tried to move, but his wrists were pinned. Heavy iron shackles bit into his skin. He didn't see the usual blue overlay of his HUD. No diagnostic pings. No bone-code status bars. The silence in his head was a physical weight, a hollow ringing that made his skull throb."Ugh... Aradaa?" Kaelor’s voice was a low, broken growl from the darkness across the room. The sound of shifting metal followed. A chain rattled, then a sharp hiss of pain. "My skin... what the hell is on my skin?""Don't move! There's something etched into the walls. It’s dampening everything." Aradaa looked down at his own arms. He didn't see the silver-glass sheen of his digital skin. Instead, he saw pale, bruised flesh. But underneath the surface, his veins weren't blue. They pulsed with a soft, internal gold light. Every breath he took felt like he was inhaling liquid lead. His lun

3

"Move, Aradaa! Don't look back, just f**king climb!"Kaelor’s voice was a ragged whisper, muffled by the roar of the wind whipping through the skeletal remains of the 50th-floor rafters. He shoved Aradaa toward a rusted I-beam that vibrated with every gust. Below them, the new city was a jagged landscape of overgrown cathedrals and neon-streaked slums. The "Wilds" weren't forests; they were the vertical graveyards of the old world."I can't... my lungs... they're burning!" Aradaa’s fingers slipped on the wet metal. He didn't have the bone-code to stabilize his grip anymore. His skin, once a masterpiece of bio-digital engineering, felt thin and cold. Underneath, that golden Muse-light flickered like a dying bulb. Every breath tasted like rust and wet ash."Shut up and grab my hand!" Kaelor reached down. His silver-burned wrist was a mess of raw, weeping flesh where the runes had bitten deep, but his grip remained a vice. He hauled Aradaa up, his muscles bunching and trembling. He didn'

4

"Aradaa, stop! You’re going to burn your damn heart out! Pull back!"Kaelor’s roar was nearly drowned out by the screeching of the Harvesters' bat-steeds. He lunged, his claws catching the edge of a vampire’s obsidian chest piece, the metal shreiking as he ripped a jagged line through it. Blood—dark, smelling of old copper—sprayed across his face.Aradaa didn't look at him. He couldn't. His palms were pressed flat against the moss-slicked bark of a dying Gaea-tree. His jaw creaked, teeth grinding so hard a molar chipped."I have to... keep them... back!"Aradaa’s voice was a shredded whisper. His knuckles turned a bloodless white. The internal gold light in his veins didn't just pulse now; it surged, turning a violent, blinding white. The surrounding weeds shriveled in seconds, turning to grey ash. The trees groaned, their leaves curling and blackening as Aradaa siphoned the raw life force directly from the earth."Mother-Code... witness me," he gasped.A massive blast of white energy

5

"Look at me, Kaelor. Focus on the colors, not the stone. Every one of them is screaming."Aradaa’s voice didn't just carry; it vibrated through the floor of the ruined library. He stood by the shattered window, his eyes no longer a stagnant blue. They were prismatic, bleeding edges of violet and gold that traced the air. He saw the city differently now. The gothic cathedrals weren't just rock; they were a Glass Menagerie. Thousands of souls trapped in a grid of amethyst light, their auras flickering like dying candles behind frosted glass."I’m looking at the door, Aradaa. And I'm looking at my hands." Kaelor stood behind him, his bare chest mapped with fresh, pink scars where the silver-burns were knitting shut. He flexed his fingers, the knuckles cracking in the silence. "The 'colors' aren't going to get us past the gates. We need that dagger. Seraphina said it’s the only thing that bites deep enough to kill a First-Born.""The Lunar Dagger," Aradaa murmured. He turned, the light in

6

"Fenris, get the hell down! The rafters are rotting through!"Kaelor’s boots skidded on the algae-slicked iron of the catwalk. He didn't wait for an answer, lunging forward to catch the collar of Aradaa’s tunic. Below them, the Drowned District exhaled a thick, sulfurous mist that tasted like copper and stagnant runoff. The water wasn't still; it churned with the wake of things that shouldn't have been breathing in the dark."I can see them, Kaelor. They’re not behind us anymore. They’re underneath." Aradaa’s voice carried a strange, melodic resonance. His prismatic eyes cut through the fog, tracing the heat signatures of the Harvesters as they glided through the black water on bone-white skiffs. He gripped the obsidian hilt of the Lunar Dagger so hard his knuckles turned a bloodless white."Underneath?" Fenris landed beside them, the impact making the rusted metal groan. The massive hybrid’s breathing was a wet, guttural rasp. He wiped a smear of black sludge from his snout, his red-

7

"Don't move, Kaelor. Just keep your hands where I can see 'em."Fenris’s voice hit like a hammer against the stone walls of the subway tunnel. He didn't look at Aradaa. He kept his red-gold eyes locked on the Alpha, his massive frame blocking the only exit out of the Drowned District. The Drowned King—that bloated, needle-toothed nightmare—wasn't attacking. It was waiting."What the hell are you doing, Fenris?" Kaelor’s hand tightened around the hilt of his blade, his knuckles turning a bloodless white. "The Knight is right behind us. Move!""Can't do it, wolf." Fenris stepped forward, his chains rattling with a heavy, final sound. "Malachi made a better offer. Freedom. Real freedom. No more cages, no more experiments. All I gotta do is hand over the Muse.""You backstabbing piece of sh*t!" Kaelor lunged, but the ground beneath him suddenly surged.A dozen Harvesters dropped from the shadows of the ceiling, their bone-white skiffs hitting the water with a violent splash. One of them f

8

"Malachi, you really think these silver bars can hold a man who writes the code for reality?"Aradaa’s voice didn't just echo; it vibrated the obsidian floor of the throne room. He didn't look like a prisoner anymore. His hair was a shock of bone-white against the dark stone. Prismatic light leaked from his tear ducts, tracing jagged lines down his cheeks. He stood in the center of the hall, his shadow stretching toward the Vampire King like a living stain."You're bold for a man whose pet is currently bleeding out in my pit," Malachi sneered. He lounged on a throne carved from a single block of dark crystal. He raised a hand, and the silver-lined chains around Aradaa’s wrists jerked tight. "You’re nothing but a battery, Scholar. A fountain of youth I intend to drain dry.""You have no idea what I am." Aradaa’s jaw creaked as he ground his teeth. He didn't pull against the chains. He leaned into them. "You think this palace is a fortress? It’s a circuit. And I just found the ground wi

9

"Kaelor! Get up, we’re moving! Now!"Aradaa’s voice sliced through the heavy, iron-scented dark of the pit. He didn't wait for a reply. He slammed his palms against the silver-etched bars of the lower cage, the prismatic fire in his veins surging until the metal groaned and liquidized under his touch. The smell of ozone and melting iron filled the cramped space."Aradaa?" Kaelor’s rasp was barely a ghost of a sound. He hauled himself toward the light, his fingers clawing at the dirt. His skin was a ruin of silver-burns and jagged crimson welts, the salt of his own sweat stinging the open meat of his shoulders."I've got you. Grab my hand." Aradaa reached through the steam.Kaelor’s hand locked around Aradaa’s wrist—a desperate, bone-crushing grip. Aradaa hauled him upward, his own muscles bunching and trembling with the sheer weight of the Alpha. As their skin met, a violent spark of gold and violet erupted at the point of contact. The Muse-fire and the Alpha-code slammed together, a

10

"Drop the lever, Fenris! Move your ass or the stone’s gonna crush us both!"Kaelor’s roar bounced off the weeping obsidian walls of the lower vents. Dust choked the air. He didn't look back to see if the hybrid was following. He just shoved his shoulder into the heavy iron grate at the end of the crawlspace, his muscles screaming under the strain. The metal screeched, then buckled."I'm right behind you, Alpha! Just... keep the damn ceiling up!" Fenris hauled himself through the opening, his matted fur grey with pulverized rock.They tumbled out onto the wet moss of the mountain’s base. Behind them, the Sanguine Palace didn't just fall; it folded. A low, tectonic groan shuddered through the earth, followed by the sound of a thousand glass windows shattering at once. The "Bio-Digital" lights flickered one last time, a sickly violet glow that died into total darkness.Aradaa slumped against a tree, his skin still humming with a faint, receding prismatic light. His bone-white hair was pl

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