All Chapters of Rise of the Masked King: Chapter 141
- Chapter 150
171 chapters
Chapter 139: The First Liquidation
The silver eyes in the jungle did not blink. They hung in the humid darkness like low-hanging stars, swaying slightly with the rhythmic breathing of the men who carried them. Anthony stood at the edge of the torchlight, the silver coin in his hand feeling less like currency and more like a live coal. The sub-sonic hum Mark had identified was no longer a mere reading on a meter; it was a physical vibration in Anthony’s marrow, a low-frequency growl that made his teeth ache."They aren't attacking," Sloane whispered, her rifle leveled at the nearest pair of glowing orbs. She had her back to a sturdy palm tree, her eyes darting between the jungle and the villagers huddled behind her. "They’re waiting. It’s a standoff, Anthony. They’re waiting for an invitation.""They’ve already been invited," Anthony said, looking back at Elias and the other villagers who held the silver. "Every time a coin changed hands, the door opened a little wider."One of the figures stepped out of the ferns. He w
Chapter 140: The Under-Current
The transition from the sun-drenched beaches of Solace to the cold, rhythmic hum of the "Under-Current" felt like a descent into a mechanical underworld. They weren't traveling by ship; they were traveling by the very thing the Traveler had mentioned—a submersible raft that Mark had spent the last six hours reverse-engineering. It was a sleek, needle-like craft, composed of a material that felt like leather but was as hard as titanium. It didn't move by propellers; it moved by "Pulse-Induction," hitching a ride on the sub-oceanic energy lines that the Actuaries had laid across the seabed."It’s a literal pipeline," Mark said, his face illuminated by the green glow of the raft’s internal monitors. "They’ve used the 'Zero-Alloy' to create a network of superconducting cables beneath the tectonic plates. They’re not just moving data, Anthony. They’re moving Vitality. They’re siphoning the biological surplus of entire continents and funneling it toward a central hub.""Where?" Sloane asked
Chapter 141: The Grand Audit
The figure behind the glass desk didn't just look like Julian Jodah; he moved with the same infuriating, rhythmic grace that Anthony remembered from a thousand childhood dinners. The way he tilted his head, the slight, dismissive twitch of his left eyebrow—it was a masterpiece of biological or digital mimesis. But as Anthony stepped further into the Vault, the air didn't carry the scent of his father’s expensive tobacco or the cedarwood of his office. It smelled like a server room: sterile, chilled, and devoid of the messy pheromones of a living being."You aren't him," Anthony said, his voice echoing against the Zero-Alloy walls. "My father died in the first purge. I saw the ledger entries myself. You’re just a 'Residual Image.' A high-fidelity playback.""A 'playback' implies a loop, Anthony," the man said, standing up and smoothing the front of his charcoal suit. "I am a 'Contingency.' When the physical Julian Jodah ceased to breathe, his intent was uploaded to the Levant Core. I a
Chapter 142: The Inheritor of the Void
The first spray of the Atlantic was not a flood, but a needle-fine jet of freezing mist that hissed through a hairline fracture in the Vault’s pressure hull. It struck the glowing console with a sound like a dying viper, but the red light of the re-indexing prompt did not flicker. It pulsed with a rhythmic, sickening intensity, synchronized perfectly with the new throb in Anthony’s knuckles."Anthony, we have to move! The hull is shearing!" Sloane’s voice cracked through the roar of the "Void" sequence. The static field that had frozen her was gone, neutralized by the vacuum of energy Anthony had unleashed, but she couldn't reach him. The air between them was warped, a shimmering heat-haze caused by the massive data migration occurring in the room’s invisible architecture.Anthony stared at his hand. The silver scars weren't just patterns; they were moving. They looked like liquid mercury threading beneath his skin, weaving a complex, geometric lace that climbed toward his wrist. It d
Chapter 143: The Isle of the Dead
The raft breached the surface of the Atlantic with a violent, gasping lurch, shedding the weight of the deep like a skin. For a moment, there was only the sound of the freezing wind howling across the Irish Sea and the frantic, rhythmic thump-thump of the bilge pumps fighting a losing battle against the brine. Anthony sat on the floor of the cabin, his head between his knees, watching the seawater swirl around his boots. It was no longer just water; in his vision, it was a stream of fluid variables, each droplet assigned a kinetic value and a salt-density coefficient.The "Local Sync" was deepening."Don't look at me, Anthony," Mark said, his voice cracking. He was huddled in the corner, clutching his portable rig as if it were a shield. "I can see your eyes. They’re... they’re silver again. Not the pupils. The iris. It looks like clockwork.""I can't turn it off," Anthony whispered. He looked up, and the cabin was suddenly a wireframe of structural stress points. He saw the "Yield St
Chapter 144: The Guardian of the Empty Page
The white light was no longer just a visual phenomenon; it was a physical weight, a pressurized atmosphere that threatened to crush the air from Anthony’s lungs. As he uttered the word "Me," the word felt less like a choice and more like a final entry being stamped into a ledger. The silver light flowing from his skin intensified, arcing toward the brass sphere of the Foundation Stone in jagged, flickering branches."Anthony, no! Get back!" Sloane’s voice was a ragged scream, nearly lost in the mechanical thunder of the vault. She lunged toward the pedestal, but the energy barrier—now a swirling vortex of kinetic data—hurled her back. She slammed against a shelf of metallic vellum, the ancient books clattering to the floor like the bones of a dead giant."Sloane, don't!" Anthony yelled, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. "If you break the circuit now, the Migration will backtrack. It’ll find a new host in the nearest viab
Chapter 145: The Give-Back
The iron-bound door did not reappear. Where the entrance to the First Ledger had been, there was now only a smooth, cold expanse of granite, as if the mountain itself had swallowed the Jodah legacy whole. Anthony stood in the damp darkness of the manor’s cellar, his fingers tracing the stone where the threshold had once vibrated with the weight of centuries. Behind that wall, Seraphina was suspended in a golden amber of infinite calculation, her mind the only thing keeping the world from sliding back into the Levant’s parasitic grip."She’s gone, Anthony," Sloane said softly. She didn't touch him this time; she knew the boundaries of his grief were as brittle as the scorched vellum upstairs. "The signal is locked. The vault is sealed. We have to move before the tide cuts off the Calf."Anthony didn't turn around. "I spent my life trying to find a way to balance the books, Sloane. I thought if I reached the bottom of the ledger, I’d find a zero that meant peace. I didn't think the zero
Chapter 146: The Bell of St. Paul’s
The Thames was a vein of black glass, reflecting a city that had forgotten how to breathe. London, once the thrumming heart of global commerce, was now a cathedral of silence. As Anthony, Sloane, and Mark navigated their scavenged RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) up the river, the only sound was the rhythmic slap of the water against the hull and the distant, haunting hum of the "Give-Back" spheres.They passed the silent skeleton of the London Eye, its pods hanging like teardrops in the misty air. On the embankments, the "New Commoners" stood in motionless rows, their silver headsets glowing with a soft, rhythmic pulse. They looked like statues in a gallery of the forgotten. There was no violence, no shouting, no sound of breaking glass. The "Give-Back" had achieved what every empire in history had failed to do: perfect, absolute order through the total surrender of the soul."It’s 11:15 PM," Mark whispered, his eyes glued to his flickering screen. "In forty-five minutes, the 'Global Sync
Chapter 147: The Midnight Tally
The first chime of the Great Paul did not ring; it bruised.The sound wave that erupted from the belfry was a physical wall of pressure that sent a shudder through the very foundations of the cathedral. But as the note hit the nave, it didn't find the perfect, sterile resonance the High Clerk had engineered. Instead, it collided with the "Rust" Anthony had introduced—the jagged, unpredictable frequency of a rusted iron key and the weight of ten thousand unfiled memories.The result was a discordant shriek that sounded like the earth's crust grinding against itself.The silver cables snaking up the pillars didn't just vibrate; they buckled. The iridescent light in the dome flickered from a calm, divine white to a chaotic, bruised purple. Anthony stood his ground at the obsidian console, his hands vibrating so violently he could feel the calcium in his bones hum. The rusted key was glowing cherry-red, its impurities acting as a poison in the "Common’s" perfect bloodstream."You've broke
Chapter 148: The Reconstruction Audit
The rain in London didn’t feel like weather anymore; it felt like a baptism. It washed away the metallic tang of the "Common" signal and the sterile scent of the "Give-Back" spheres. As Anthony stepped out from the Great West Door of St. Paul’s, the city didn't look like a global capital. It looked like a shipwreck.The iridescent glow of the headsets had vanished, replaced by the flickering, orange light of small fires lit in trash cans and the pale, natural moonlight filtering through the clouds. Thousands of people were still standing in the streets, but the statuesque stillness was gone. They were swaying, shivering, and—most significantly—clutching themselves."They’re cold," Sloane said, her voice barely a whisper. She stood beside Anthony, her ruined rifle slung over her shoulder like a piece of useless scrap metal. "They’ve spent hours, maybe days, in a trance, ignoring their bodies. Now the check is coming due."Anthony looked at Thomas, the man he had forcibly disconnected.