Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot
Chapter 154 - 153 - The Transformation.

Chapter 154: Chapter 153 - The Transformation.

While the others sighed at Graye’s repose, meters away from them, staring at the horde of demons rushing at him, Raven didn’t feel scared.

He felt excited.

"Omni," Raven whispered to his sword companion. "Ready to break some boundaries?"

"Hell yeah, baby." Omni crackled, his blade glowing with an ominous violet hue. "Time to show ’em why your boy’s the main damn character."

With that, Raven mentally confirmed the tier-up.

[Confirm Skill Tier-Up: Dragonification → Voidborne Variant]

[Warning acknowledged: "Minor discomfort, slight temporary psychosis, and an intense need to scream like a kaiju."]

"Alright," Raven whispered as his shadow turned reddish. It twisted unnaturally behind him, spiraling outward like a vortex of fiery ink.

A moment later—

CRACK.

The earth around Raven fractured like shattered glass under pressure.

It was as if Raven’s weight had suddenly increased by folds.

BOOOOOOOM.

The next second, his body was consumed in black and red flame as the air exploded outward, tossing dirt, ash, and even demons like leaves in a hurricane.

A pulse followed—a shockwave that made demons trip over themselves mid-charge, made Clara’s and Selena’s hair whip back, and made Siris smile with silent, horrifying approval, her eyes wide, glinting with awe.

"What... What is that mana?" Rufus muttered, instinctively taking a step back while Jake remained unblinking beside him.

Alex covered his face, eyes wide. "I think he just upgraded his existence."

"For real," Jessy nodded as she tried to keep her hair steady.

Graye blinked slowly. "...I feel like my crush just became hotter."

Within a second, the center of the explosion cleared.

Raven stood there.

His body was slightly buffed now, covered in obsidian-black scales etched with glowing lava-red cracks like magma veins pulsing with raw power.

His head now had a sleek, draconic helmet-like shape with a razor-lined snout and angular ridges—terrifyingly regal.

Instead of eyes, molten red light glows from deep within.

A mane of long, flowing red flame-like tendrils bursts from the back of his head.

Those flaming tendrils weren’t replacing his hair but his spikes. His back and the back of his head were filled with flaming spikes.

His hands had turned into elongated demonic claws—each twitch radiates heat like a furnace.

His hands looked stronger and monstrous, yet precise—capable of cracking skulls or caressing a squirrel without breaking it. (Probably.)

His abs and cuts were traced by lava river-like lines that covered his whole body, making it seem like he had lava flowing inside his body instead of blood.

As for his dress, it was gone.

Only his pants remained. Even that had burn marks, but somehow, it survived the burn while everything else vanished. (Image’s there in the comments.)

Omni was still the same, resting in his hand as if nothing had happened, but it now pulsed with more power.

"Damn," he whistled in Raven’s head, "I think you can handle stronger slashes in this form, man."

Raven, now shimmering with jagged, cosmic energy and humming with power, rolled his shoulder. "Omni."

Raven’s voice was now deeper and more dangerous, but Omni wasn’t shaken by it.

"Yeah?"

"Mind if I do it alone?"

"Nope. The stage is yours."

With those words, Omni returned to the tattooed form on Raven’s hand, which could be seen despite the scales.

Raven then cracked his fingers, a smile tugging at his lips. "...Huh. I do want to scream like a kaiju."

Then he did.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!"

The roar split the skies. Trees shattered. Wind howled. Several lower-level (levels five and six) demons were sent flying back from sheer pressure.

The entire battlefield went still.

Even the demons paused.

Then—they charged anyway.

Hundreds of them, shrieking, crawling, flying, and writhing.

Raven grinned as he cracked his neck before he took a deep breath, his gaze focused on the demons closest to him.

One second he was right before them, and the next—

Blink.

He was gone.

The moment Raven vanished, the battlefield fell silent.

A red flash tore through the front line of demons like a divine stroke across a canvas.

Shhhhht—

In that split second, the only sound was the faint humming of scorched air being ripped apart.

Raven reappeared meters ahead of where he’d last stood—right in the middle of the demon horde.

His clawed hand was raised before him, drenched in thick, steaming blood that evaporated into sparks.

He tilted his head and muttered, "...Huh. I didn’t feel anything."

The demons around him didn’t react.

They couldn’t.

Because they were already dead.

Behind Raven, a clean, straight line of demons—over twenty of them—suddenly stopped mid-charge.

Some blinked. Some made confused noises. And then—

SHHHHHHHK-KRBOOM!

They erupted into misty explosions of blood and bone as if an invisible blade had passed through them a full second ago.

One of the stronger demons, a grotesque mass of wings and fangs, screamed, "HE’S INSIDE THE RANKS! GET HIM!"

But Raven was already moving.

Flash.

To the left flank.

He reappeared like a comet, his body tearing a low-flying demon apart by sheer velocity.

He didn’t even touch it.

Just his movement created a friction shock that flayed the demon into ash.

He pivoted mid-air, grabbing a horned behemoth’s face with one claw and slamming it into the ground with such force the ground cratered beneath it—sending a ripple that shattered the legs of anything nearby.

Still airborne, Raven spun like a vortex.

His legs, now burning with lava-veined force, kicked a charging demon’s head clean off its body.

The head continued flying—until Raven, now above it, caught it mid-air and crushed it like an egg.

Flash.

To the right flank now.

A flying demon tried to divebomb him. It never got the chance.

Raven held up a claw and pointed at the demon.

"Burn."

That’s all he said, and the demon’s body was enveloped in red-black flames.

Then—

BOOM.

The demon exploded in midair.

He hadn’t even touched it.

The way Raven moved and handled things was so fast and precise that everyone forgot to even breathe.

One could tell the level of shock and awe merely because of Omni—

the blade that never remained silent was quiet right now.

The silence, however, was broken by Selena.

Her lips parted slightly, her eyes unblinking. "So this is what love feels like... when it incinerates kingdoms."

Clara exhaled slowly, hand on her heart. "He’s still Raven... just more flammable."

Siris had clasped both hands together like she was watching a wedding. "I want that version of him to step on my soul," she whispered with visible hearts in her eyes.

Lia clutched her chest, face red. "I-It’s not like I find that monstrous rampage hot or anything!"

Then she whispered, "...But he looks really hot."

... She had now turned complete tsundere, it seemed.

Graye leaned in, her eyes shining. "I want him to slam me into the ground like that."

Jessy blinked, expression flat. "...I’m starting to think I joined a cult."

Rufus scribbled into a notepad. "Observations: Raven has achieved Kaiju-level glow-up. Dangerously attractive. It may cause nosebleeds. Check if that roar qualifies as sound-based magic."

Jake, stoic as ever, gave a rare nod. "...Good form."

Alex, slack-jawed, screamed, "HE BURNT THAT GUY WITH A WORD!" He turned to Nibbles. "Did you see that?! Did you?!"

Nibbles, standing on his head, saluted in awe.

Squeak!

"Right! He is the demon god now!"

Suddenly, they all went quiet as Raven flash-blitzed through another dozen demons, sending limbs skyward like confetti.

"...let’s just observe for now," Jessy muttered, and others nodded.

...........

It hadn’t even been ten seconds since the fight started, and on the battlefield, Raven stood on a hill of demon corpses.

There were at least a hundred because every time he had moved, he had killed ten to two of them.

Now, as he stared at the heap of corpses, his breathing remained calm, his chest glowing like a smoldering star.

His claws flicked blood aside like it was beneath him.

However, soon, another wave approached—larger and more armored.

Over fifty demons of varying classes, some with enchantments, others fused with corrupted magic.

Raven extended a hand.

A ring of red energy rippled out.

’Soul harvest,’ he muttered inwardly.

Like moths to a flame, the leftover soul energy from the dead began rushing toward him—tiny orbs of red, blue, green, and black light spiraling through the air, pulled as if gravity had reversed.

His scales glowed brighter.

Cracks widened.

The veins of lava pulsed faster.

He wasn’t just slaying demons.

He was farming them.

His aura bar wasn’t filling. It was overflowing.

"RAHHHHH!"

Soon, a tank-class demon, three times Raven’s size, stomped toward him. Its muscles writhed with infernal enhancements. Its face was split vertically with jaws inside jaws.

It roared and charged.

Raven didn’t move.

Not until the thing was a second away.

Then—

FLASH.

He disappeared.

The demon froze.

Raven reappeared behind it, crouched, claws clasped together.

Between those claws was the demon’s head, its eyes staring at him in shock.

"You tried," Raven muttered appreciatively.

Then, he crushed the skull, and as soon as he did, the body of the demon fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

The rest of the demons followed.

Now, however, along with bloodlust, their eyes held fear.

It was fear of something they had never seen.

A fear that they would meet a similar fate as their brethren.

The demons were strong, but right now, Raven’s power had reached a point where they wouldn’t be able to do anything to him—at least not until a powerful one of them arrived.

However, that didn’t mean they would back down—not when it meant a fate worse than death.

Raven, on the other hand, cracked his neck and stretched as if he was done with the warmup.

"Ten seconds over, twenty more to go."