Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 155 - 154 - The Penalties.

Smoke sizzled off Raven’s scaled shoulders as he stood atop the mound of demon corpses.

The glowing rivers of magma running through his obsidian-black body pulsated with chaotic energy. His claws flexed slightly, twitching.

The demons were coming, and Raven was thinking about how he should kill them this time.

But then—

His breath hitched.

"Ghh!"

He groaned in pain.

Omni, who had been marveling at the scene, finally broke out of his thoughts when he saw Raven wince.

"Is it the pain?" He asked quickly. "That slight discomfort the system warned about—it’s hittin’ now, ain’t it?"

"Yeah," Raven nodded. "But it wasn’t that bad."

"See?" Omni chirped with a smug little pulse. "Told ya you were stressin’ for nothin’, man."

Raven paused at those words, his voice coming out low. "...Did you just jinx—"

He couldn’t complete his words as a flicker of static flashed across his vision.

The world twisted.

His senses distorted, and time seemed to melt like wax over fire.

Then came the voices.

Not from the outside but from within.

"Rip them open."

Raven shook his head, trying to swat the thoughts away.

But they didn’t stop.

"Feed. Break. Burn. Scream."

"Bro?" Omni asked carefully, his voice quieter than usual. "What’s happenin’, man? Talk to me."

Raven, however, couldn’t hear Omni’s voice. The only voices he could hear were the whispers in his head.

"You don’t deserve your power. Let us take control."

"Devour the weak. You are evolution incarnate."

"These demons taste good. Eat them."

"Raven!" Omni yelled in his head, voice cracking with urgency. "Man, talk to me!! Don’t go quiet on me now!"

He knew Raven couldn’t hear him.

Heck, the blade, capable of reading Raven’s mind, could tell what he was seeing.

Raven’s eyes widened, those glowing molten-red orbs flickering erratically.

For a breath, he forgot where he was.

Who he was.

The power that surged within was not just dragonic. It was void-warping, soul-churning, and identity-devouring.

"Raven. We’re mind buddies, man—you gotta give me something!" Omni pleaded with worry. "Say the word, anything. Maybe I can help!"

He felt like he was responsible for this, as it seemed like he jinxed it.

In response, however, he got nothing.

Raven’s mouth opened. Smoke curled out.

His hand trembled slightly, claws twitching like a broken machine trying to reboot.

"Ah, yeah!"

Omni’s voice flared with sudden excitement, an idea sparking to life in his sword mind.

"Try channeling your soul energy to shield your mind! C’mon, it might actually work!"

Then, as if Raven had heard his words, a light shone within his chest.

Red, blue, green, black—souls.

The orbs he’d absorbed moments ago spun around his core like stabilizing gyroscopes, forming an ethereal ring inside his soul.

It was a system of harmony amidst chaos.

"Stabilize."

His will surged back like a hammer slamming shut a door.

Raven blinked, clarity snapping in.

A thin trickle of blood slid from his nostril.

"...Damn, Omni," Raven muttered, wiping the blood off his face. "Didn’t know you could come up with such good ideas."

"BROOOO!!! That’s the first thing you say?!" Omni practically screamed inside his head.

"Do you have any idea how freakin’ worried I was?! And you could hear me this whole time?!"

His mental voice cracked like a betrayed best friend.

"Man, I was about to write a eulogy!"

"Haha," Raven chuckled. "My bad, and yeah, I could hear you but couldn’t respond."

However, they couldn’t continue the conversation because the flicker of his instability hadn’t gone unnoticed by the demons that were rushing toward him.

They saw the tilt of his stance. The blood. The twitch.

They mistook it for weakness.

They charged.

All of them.

Magic flared from clawed hands and mutated staves. Blades glinted. Demonic howls surged.

A war cry in unison.

Over seventy demons, all level six or above, surged at Raven from all sides.

"RAVEN!" Clara shouted, panic lacing her voice.

Selena stood, her hand already glowing with shadow energy. "We have to help—!"

Jessy’s mouth dropped. "He’s surrounded—!"

Jake summoned his scythe, ready to dive into the shadows.

But before any of them could move—

CLANK.

Dozens of weapons and spells collided with Raven.

Blades scraped his scales.

Fireballs burst on his skin.

Spears of shadow pierced his chest—or at least that’s what it seemed.

In reality, nothing happened to Raven.

Not a single scratch.

Raven, standing dead center of the storm, didn’t flinch.

His head tilted slightly. Slowly.

His glowing eyes narrowed.

"...Did you just..." His voice came out distorted, deepened, and laced with reverb, like ten ancient dragons speaking in chorus. "...poke me?"

A beat of silence.

Then Raven twitched.

BOOM.

He kicked the ground.

The earth exploded beneath his foot.

A crater formed where he once stood while he ascended.

It seemed like he was flying, but he wasn’t.

He was merely propelling himself upward.

He shot straight toward the sky like a meteor in reverse—smoke trailing, flames flaring, like a crimson comet tearing through the heavens.

His body glowed midair, spinning once with a flourish.

From below, it looked like a god rising in defiance of gravity itself.

Then, about fifty meters up in the air, he paused.

He hovered.

Eyes closed.

His mouth opened just a little.

A hiss of smoke leaked out from between his jagged teeth.

The air warped around him. The pressure shifted.

Time itself seemed to halt.

Raven’s eyes snapped open.

Then—

He exhaled.

"RAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

It was a dragon breath.

But what came out was not just fire.

It was judgment incarnate.

A colossal beam of molten black-red flame, tainted with the void, crashed down from the heavens.

It didn’t just burn; it destroyed.

The forest, once green, was now turning into a hellish plane.

Everything below vanished in a wave of divine, unholy, atomic obliteration.

Demons screamed for less than a second before they were gone—burned partially from existence.

The earth below was scorched into obsidian. Trees disintegrated. Even the clouds above trembled.

The group could only watch in stunned silence.

Even Siris, who had just moments ago wanted to be stepped on by Raven, could only whisper, "...He’s too cool. I can’t breathe."

Lia had almost fainted standing up. Her eyes were swirling hearts.

Clara’s hands were on her cheeks, completely red. "I love him. Again. And again."

Selena muttered, "This must be what the sun feels like... if it decided to date me."

Jessy just stared, her voice flat. "So... we’re just background characters now. Got it."

...Says the one who can now manipulate magnetic fields.

Jake nodded. "Respect."

Alex wiped a tear. "That’s my boy."

Nibbles squeaked like he was praising a god.

Even Rufus, still scribbling notes, paused mid-sentence and wrote, ’I am witnessing history.’

Raven, on the other hand, couldn’t hover in the air any longer.

Smoke trailed behind him like divine robes as he fell toward the ground.

Woooooooo—BOOM!

He crashed into the ground with a loud explosion but remained unharmed.

"Well, that was a nice landing." He dusted himself and stared at the surroundings.

A massive crater surrounded him, corpses reduced to ash. No demon remained.

But it seemed like one was still alive.

"Lucky fella," Raven muttered, approaching the guy.

The demon tried to crawl away since its legs were shattered, but Raven moved faster, blinking before the guy, and crouched down.

"Where are you going, man?" He asked, poking the demon like they were buddies.

"You came here without asking, and now you want to go without a word?" Raven grumbled like a friend who wanted to play more.

"You gotta tell me that you’re running away, right?"

The demon, on the other hand, gasped, "Wh... What are you...?"

It already knew it wasn’t going to live, so it might as well get some answers before dying.

"Me?" He said, tilting his head.

"I’m just a guy who hates tiresome tasks yet ends up doing them anyway."

The demon tried to speak again, but Raven touched its head with a claw.

"You don’t get to ask questions."

Then, with a whisper of heat, the demon twitched and burst into flames.

Raven stood up, stretching.

However, he wasn’t done yet.

"Soul harvest," he muttered.

All the leftover souls rose.

Hundreds of them.

Wisps of color.

They spiraled toward Raven like comets caught in orbit.

He extended one hand lazily.

The souls sank into his body like drops of water absorbed by a drought-stricken field.

His cracks glowed. His aura shimmered. His scales gleamed brighter.

"You don’t have to say that every time, do you?" Omni’s voice rang out, laced with genuine confusion.

"Like, seriously—doesn’t that make you cringe just a little?"

Raven paused, his jaw moving as he tried to say something but decided that keeping quiet would be in his best interest.

That was until he saw another horde of Demons coming toward him.

"Huh..."

He frowned. "Now, this isn’t normal."

He turned toward the rest of the group and made a hand gesture as if telling them that he was going forward.

Before the others could even react to it, he was gone, a streak of red left in his wake.

The group, left behind, merely stared at the red streak for a second before—

Selena adjusted her hair calmly, eyes glowing faintly violet. "If I could bottle that moment, I would, but I suggest we follow him for now."

Clara nodded, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. "I agree."

Siris giggled, twirling a strand of hair. "He moved like a stab. I love stabs. I love him more."

Lia was so stunned by the dragon’s breath a few seconds ago that she couldn’t even speak.

Graye had stars in her eyes and flexed her biceps. "I WANNA FIGHT HIM. AND HUG HIM. THEN FIGHT AGAIN."

Jessy deadpanned before she shook her head, deciding that silence was the best treatment for everything.

Rufus unexpectedly wasn’t scribbling. He tapped his nanocore, and the nano suit covered his body.

"I’m ready," he said.

Jake, with his scythe clenched in his hand, also nodded in agreement.

Alex, still staring wide-eyed at the dragon breath’s effect on the forest.

"Blargh," he whispered silently. "Can you do that?"

Blargh’s voice muttered from his chest. "A mini version of that is possible."

"...cool," Alex nodded.

Nibbles, on the other hand, had already instructed his subordinates to move, and within seconds, the rest also moved.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel