All Chapters of The Mate I Never Chose: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The front door didn't creak; it sighed, a long, weary exhalation of rotted wood and stagnant history as Arung shoved it open with the muzzle of his rifle. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sickly gray light piercing through holes in the roof. The air inside was freezing, smelling of ozone, mildew, and something sharper—the metallic scent of dried blood.Rangga stepped inside, his boots crunching on broken glass and discarded, yellowing papers. The house felt sentient. It was breathing, its rhythmic pulse echoing the thrumming in his own chest."Don't touch the walls," Arung warned, his voice low, vibrating with tactical caution. He gestured toward a mountain of overturned bookshelves in the corner. "Search the records. We need to know what they were hiding, and we need to know it fast. If those mercenaries regroup, this estate will become our coffin."Rangga ignored the warning, his gaze locked on a portrait hanging above the mantle—a man with his own high chee

The air in the archive turned into a swirling vortex of pulverized wood and blinding white light. A flashbang detonated just outside the shattered window, turning the interior of the Buntu estate into a strobe-lit nightmare of smoke and shadows. Rangga felt his eardrums scream, the pressure dropping so rapidly that his nose began to bleed."Move!" Arung roared, his voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a deep lake. He gripped Rangga by the back of his tactical vest and hauled him up from the floor.Outside, the darkness of the jungle was lit by the rhythmic flickers of muzzle flashes. The mercenaries weren’t just surrounding the house; they were systematically erasing it. An incendiary round tore through the roof, igniting the tinder-dry thatch. Within seconds, a tongue of orange flame licked across the ceiling beams, casting long, hungry shadows that danced against the walls."The courtyard!" Arung shouted, shoving Rangga toward the open do

The heart of the cavern was dominated by a monolith of obsidian-black stone, wrapped in bands of shifting, liquid gold light. It looked like a finger of the earth had pierced through the crust, scarred with the same archaic script that now throbbed beneath Rangga’s own skin. But the sacred silence of the chamber had been violated. Massive, portable drilling rigs—industrial-grade hydraulic beasts—were already anchored into the floor, their diamond-tipped bits pressed against the base of the monolith."They aren't just mining, Arung," Rangga whispered, the realization tasting like bile. "They're siphoning.""They're killing the mountain," Arung countered, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. He was counting the security personnel—six men in tactical gear, their faces hidden behind matte-black visors. "Stay behind the pillar, Rangga. Do not move unless I give the word. If that script on your chest starts to glow bright enough to be seen, you&rsquo

The cavern floor shuddered as Arung’s final, concussive blast of raw kinetic energy buckled the stone beneath the primary drilling rig. The massive apparatus groaned, metal screeching against metal, before tilting violently into the rising, sulfurous floodwaters that surged from the base of the monolith. A deafening roar filled the space as the heavy machinery plunged into the abyss, taking the foundation of the mercenaries’ advantage with it.Hendra screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated fury, as his men were thrown off balance by the sudden instability of the ground."Kill them!" Hendra roared, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. "The boy is worth more dead and harvested than alive! Get the samples!"Bullets ripped through the damp air, the sharp crack of gunfire punctuating the cavern’s heavy, low-frequency hum. Rangga didn't think; his body moved with an instinct that defied his own limited combat training. The

The air in the chamber had turned into a pressurized, suffocating medium, thick with the scent of ozone and ancient, crushed minerals. Rangga’s vision was narrowing, the world collapsing into a singular, agonizing focal point: the monolith. Its surface was no longer inert stone. It had become a translucent, pulsating membrane of raw geothermal pressure, and every tremor of the earth was being funneled directly into Rangga’s nervous system."It’s too much," Rangga gasped, his legs buckling. The amber runes etched into his skin were glowing so brightly they cast a harsh, clinical light against the cavern walls, throwing Arung’s panicked face into high, jagged relief. "It’s tearing me apart, Arung. It’s trying to rewrite my marrow."Arung didn't hesitate. He didn't offer comfort or platitudes; he offered his own flesh as a conductive conduit. He lunged forward, closing the space between them in a single, desperate stride, and slammed hi