All Chapters of Marked by the Enemy King: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"Nikos, look at the frequency dampeners," Aris whispered, his voice trembling as he pointed to the oscillating monitor. The green light wasn't just flickering; it was pulsing in rhythm with the violent, erratic contractions of Nikos’s own heart. "They aren’t tracking us. They’re locking onto you."Nikos slumped against the damp, algae-slicked wall, his breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches. "I know. Every time the city’s power grid surges, it pulls a sliver of my life force into the Ledger. If the General pulls any harder, I’ll be nothing but a hollowed-out husk before we even reach the sector exit.""We have to sever the connection," Aris said, his hands moving with desperate, jerky precision as he rerouted the secondary power lines from their environmental suit batteries to the stasis pod. "If I cut the link now, Andreas stays in stasis, but you… Nikos, you’ll lose the auxiliary support for your own biology. Your body is already struggling to maintain two heartbeats.""Do it," Ni

"Fine," Aris hissed, his thumb hovering over the jagged, rusted lever of the shunt. The flickering amber light of the subterranean tunnel cast long, skeletal shadows across his sweat-streaked face. "But if your heart stops, I’m not digging a grave. I’m leaving you to the rats. It’s too much work."Nikos leaned his head back against the weeping concrete, his breath hitching in his chest. A sharp, rhythmic throb pulsed behind his eyes, a phantom echo of the city’s massive, dying generators hum. "I appreciate the sentiment, Aris. Truly. Just do it before the proximity alarms start screaming again.""They're already screaming, you idiot. You just can’t hear them over the sound of your own blood boiling," Aris muttered, his eyes darting to the proximity sensor clipped to his belt. The device was glowing a steady, ominous crimson. "They’re at the bulkhead. Three levels up. Kalos isn’t walking; he’s breaching.""Then we don't have time for a clean severance," Nikos rasped, his hand trembling

"Don't let you die? Nikos, look at yourself!" Aris barked, the wrench vibrating in his grip as the metal groaned under the tension of the primary coolant coupling. "Your skin is literally ghosting. You're phasing in and out of the frequency of this room. I’m not a goddamn medic; I’m a scavenger with a wrench and a bad attitude. You’re asking for a miracle with a blunt instrument."Nikos slumped against the cold, damp concrete of the tunnel wall, his chest heaving. The faint, bioluminescent glow under his skin flickered like a dying lightbulb—rhythmic, frantic, and sickly. "I’m not asking for a miracle, Aris. I’m asking for the shunt to blow. My nervous system is already screaming. The Ledger… it’s trying to rewrite my marrow. If I don’t dump this energy into the ground, it’s going to turn my internal organs into a hard drive for the city’s grid."Aris spat on the floor, the sound echoing in the narrow, claustrophobic corridor. "And when the surge hits? You’ll be a vegetable. Or a pile

"You're right," Aris muttered, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the wrench. "I’d hate that more. I’d hate the silence of this place even more if you weren't here to keep the misery alive with your half-baked heroics."Nikos leaned his head back against the weeping concrete, the sensation of the cold dampness a stark contrast to the inferno currently ravaging his nervous system. "Then stop talking and swing the damn tool. The feedback loop is tightening, Aris. I can feel the Ledger shifting. It’s trying to map the city’s district grid directly onto my frontal lobe.""If I swing this," Aris said, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper, "I’m not just breaking a coupling. I’m shattering the stability of this sector. You realize the ceiling in this tunnel is held together by the same magnetic suspension this conduit provides?""It’s already collapsing," Nikos wheezed, his vision blurring as white fractals of light began to bloom across his field of vision. "Listen. Do you hear that? Th

"A mountain is exactly what we need," Nikos gasped, his words coming out in ragged, stuttering bursts. "Let them dig for it. Let them waste months clearing the rubble. By the time they find the Ledger, I’ll be long gone, and the data will be nothing but corrupted scrap. Do it, Aris. Now."Aris didn’t move. He stood poised with the industrial wrench, his chest heaving, his eyes fixed on the vibrating conduit. "You're asking me to commit mass murder for the sake of a ‘maybe.’ There are maintenance crews in the tunnels above. There are families hiding in the lower ventilation shafts. If I collapse this sector, I’m effectively sentencing them to be crushed by the weight of their own history.""They're already ghosts!" Nikos screamed, the sheer volume of his outburst causing a spike of feedback in his ocular implants, flashing blinding crimson static across his vision. "The city doesn't see them as people, Aris! They are just variables in an algorithm. You want to save them? Then break the