Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot
Chapter 200 - 199 - The Group Vs. the Corpse Queen.

Chapter 200: Chapter 199 - The Group Vs. the Corpse Queen.

Mala’s voice dropped into a guttural mutter.

"...weak...? You... called... me... weak...?"

Her stitched-together frame twitched.

A sound like bones snapping and silk tearing echoed as her mouth stretched too far, splitting at the corners, revealing rows of yellowed teeth behind her normal rows of yellowed teeth.

"I’ll... show... you... weak."

Alex leaned toward Raven.

"Hey, uh... don’t people usually swell before they explode?"

"...Only when they’ve had Clara’s soup," Raven muttered.

Clara elbowed him lightly.

But the joke died when Mala’s form started growing.

Not in a magical poof. Not in some elegant demon queen evolution.

No.

Mala burst.

Her body convulsed—stitches snapping, fluids oozing—and her flesh expanded like rotting dough.

Her back arched as a second spine tore free, wrapping like a centipede around her shoulders.

Her arms split, then reformed, then split again.

Her mouth widened until her entire face was teeth, eyes dotting her cheeks like pimples.

Her size ballooned until she was scraping the top of the underground dome, her bloated limbs twitching with dozens of mismatched muscle bundles stitched from god-knows-what.

"Oh, we’re leaving!" Raven shouted.

No arguments.

They launched.

The whole group erupted out of the collapsing underground like a magic-powered missile, straight through the ceiling that Crisaius and Argon had shattered before.

The world above was chaos.

Crisaius was busy using time magic to surf lightning bolts into Theon’s torso.

Argon was folding gravity and space like a napkin while slapping Veyron into the stratosphere.

Then they all saw it.

Raven.

Exploding from the ground.

But what caught their attention was that he was transforming.

He was glowing.

Crimson cracks ran across his skin, like molten lava had stitched him together.

His back burst with jagged flaming spikes, pulsing like the heartbeats of a dying star.

His claws were longer. His hair was now turned into black-red spikes.

His eyes? Glowing red slits surrounded by black sclera, burning with Voidfire.

Crisaius faltered midair.

"Eh?"

Argon blinked.

"...That’s not supposed to be possible until he reached eight plates..."

Above all, the fact that his power increased from plate four to plate eight because of that transformation was logic-defying.

But they didn’t have time to process it. Their own battles demanded focus.

Raven, on the other hand, landed hard on the ground, now fully transformed in his Voidborn Variant form.

Mala followed.

She crawled out of the crater like a monstrous centipede built by a blind taxidermist. Thirty feet tall.

Dripping goo. Her face was a mass of mouths. Her arms dragging corpses from her own body to throw like grenades.

"Alright," Raven cracked his neck. "Plan’s simple. You all have to be annoying."

Clara stepped up, sword glowing with vibration energy. "You mean ’create openings,’ right?"

Raven grinned. "Potato, annoying potato."

Omni, strapped to his back, spoke up in his classic friendly gangster drawl. "Yo, boss, this chick’s built like a meatloaf someone left in the sun. You sure I can’t just slice her ego first?"

Raven clenched Omni, letting the blade hum with a dangerous light.

"She doesn’t have an ego. Just extra jawbones."

Mala, who had gone full nightmare mode, shrieked—dozens of mouths harmonizing into one banshee wail.

She had bloated to the size of a small fortress, towering above the battlefield like the unholy child of a centipede and a butcher’s dumpster.

Her stitched-together limbs spasmed with unnatural strength, and dozens of mouths shrieked in disharmony across her grotesque body.

Bits of corpses rained off her like snow, limbs and heads tumbling as her unstable form quivered under its own madness.

Yet somehow... she was still growing.

Yes, she was still expanding.

"Is it just me, or does she look like she’s evolving into a biohazard?" Jessy muttered from the backline, iron dust swirling at her fingertips.

Beside her, Selena’s eyes narrowed. "Less commentary. More lift."

"On it, princess," Jessy smirked.

Two pings of magnetized force erupted beneath Clara and Siris, who were now running around Mala, launching them into the air like divine ballerinas.

Clara danced along invisible platforms, her blade vibrating at a frequency sharp enough to cut mana itself.

Siris? She just grinned and started running across the bloated skin of Mala’s shoulder like it was a playground, her antimagic daggers dragging glowing scars behind them.

"WHEEEE!" Siris shouted gleefully as she stabbed into Mala’s throat with a reverse dive.

Clara rolled her eyes, sliced through a writhing corpse limb, and flipped over to slice another. "She’s having too much fun."

In the skies, Rufus flew erratically—rocket boots sparking, suit venting steam.

"Deploying Lightning Fist Protocol: Punch and laser!"

He zipped past Mala’s face and delivered a rocket-powered uppercut along with a small blast of his laser that sent an eye the size of a watermelon flying into orbit.

Down below, Jake was a silent blur—flashing through shadows cast by Mala’s own monstrous limbs.

He appeared beneath a twitching knee and, without a word, sliced through the tendon with his scythe. The massive leg buckled.

’Tendon disabled. Target unstable.’

Jake vanished into another shadow before Mala could retaliate.

On her other side, something was crawling across her body like a demonic spider.

"HIYAAA—BLARGH SWING MODE ACTIVATE!"

It was Alex, fully merged with Blargh, lava-skinned and slick with black-and-red muscle.

Tentacles launched from his back, wrapping around Mala’s bony growths and pulling him upward.

He bounced from joint to joint like a squirrel on too much coffee, slapping eyeballs and stabbing boils.

"BLARGH, HIT HER WITH THE TWIRLY-TWIRLY!"

He spun like a blender midair, smacking Mala’s cheek until it wobbled.

Above his head, Nibbles hovered, using a teeny telekinetic field to deflect debris.

It was as if he were the main character farming aura by levitating.

Then came Raven.

Not flying.

Not floating.

Jumping.

His molten dragon-spiked body was blazing across Mala’s battlefield-sized frame like a sword-wielding monkey hopped up on vengeance and fire.

Each time he stabbed Omni into her flesh, he used the blade as a springboard, launching into the air with fire-powered momentum.

"YAH!"

Stab. Boom. Jump.

"RAHHH!"

He twirled in the air, gathered Voidfire in his palm, and hurled it downward like a meteor.

It struck one of Mala’s bloated midribs and exploded, taking a chunk of her torso with it.

"How’s that?!" Raven shouted.

Omni buzzed with gangster glee. "YEAH! That’s my boy! Slice, stab, explode—gettin’ creative with it! I feel like a blender in a butcher shop!"

Mala screamed. Her body spasmed, oozing half-formed limbs to swat the team away.

But Clara and Siris kept dancing midair, thanks to Jessy’s magnetic platforms.

Jake was still cutting through tendons like a lawnmower from hell.

Rufus swooped past again, cackling, "FIRE DRILL TIME!" before launching another explosive orb into Mala’s side.

Alex slammed into her back, spread Blargh’s limbs wide, and stuck there like a cursed superhero.

Raven, on the other hand, leapt again—Voidfire spiraling around him like a meteor tail. He stabbed into her left clavicle, vaulted twenty meters, and—

BOOM!

—Dropped a Voidfire charge straight into Mala’s upper skull-mouth.

Her head detonated, chunks raining like rotten meat confetti.

The monstrous queen shrieked, flailing in fury.

"WHY—ARE—YOU—ALL—SO—ANNOYING!?"

Selena’s shadow-mouth opened beneath her again, sending spikes of shadow at Mala as she deadpanned. "We’re just built different."

In the sky, Argon paused his swordplay against Veyron.

"...Are they fighting her like a bunch of caffeinated squirrels?"

Crisaius laughed like a madman while time-looping Theon’s fireball back into his own face.

"NO, ARGON! THEY’RE DOING BETTER!"

Argon squinted. "Is that... Raven riding her like a dragon?"

Below, Raven was indeed surfing down Mala’s spine while chucking Voidfire like dodgeballs.

"...He probably gets that from his mother," Argon muttered solemnly.

Veyron blinked. "Wait, did you say surfing—"

BOOM.

Another explosion cut off the Bone Architect’s sentence.

Mala was stumbling.

Shrieking.

Teetering on melted legs and stabbed tendons.

Raven was using divinity again and again, cutting chunks of Mala’s body while zapping from one spot to another, leaving a red blur.

His Voidfire burned her body as she shrieked.

It was clear that if Raven continued to attack, Mala’s body would vanish in a while.

But the problem was that he couldn’t do it for long.

He was reaching his limit for Omni’s use, as the power Omni was displaying right now was more than normal.

"Omni, we need that cool strike you talked about before," Raven muttered as he kicked Mala’s chest, distancing himself from her.

Omni’s tone dropped low, serious but still carrying that streetwise edge.

"If we pop that move, you’re hittin’ the corruption cap, no question. You won’t be able to swing me again till you’re patched up proper. So... you sure you wanna go all in on this?"

Raven didn’t waste any time. As soon as he landed on the ground, he replied, "Yes."

Omni glowed with an eerie black color before an arc of concentrated corruption shot out of it as Raven waved the sword.

Whoosh!

Before Mala could even do anything, it slashed through her stomach, causing a straight line to appear on her midsection, starting from her chest and reaching her abdomen.

One could see her internal pulsing.

But what made everyone widen their eyes was Mala’s real body inside the huge body. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"KRRAAHHH!!!!!!!!" She screeched in pain, her multiple eyes glaring at Raven.

Selena’s voice rose once more.

"NOW! WHILE SHE’S OPEN!"

Raven spun in midair.

"I know!" Raven yelled back, his voice urgent. "Jessy, boost!"

Jessy, with her arm tense, focused all of her power on Raven. "Launching now!"

A magnetic surge blasted Raven upward like a cannon shot.

Voidfire crackled.

Omni ignited.

Raven twisted in the air, drew all his strength, and—

STABBED.

Right into Mala’s central core—her original chest, hidden beneath layers of corpses.

Both Omni and the Voidfire pierced her body, messing up her main body’s insides.

"TAKE THIS, YOU PATCHWORK PILE OF NIGHTMARES!"

Mala shrieked in pain.

Her mouth-eyes blinked in random directions.

Then—

BOOM.