Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot
Chapter 201 - 200 - "Like hell I’m letting you raise a red flag for us."

Chapter 201: Chapter 200 - "Like hell I’m letting you raise a red flag for us."

The last blast of Voidfire faded, leaving the cavern sweltering and silent.

Mala’s body—or what was left of it—lay in a warped crater, bubbling with residual cursefire and necrotic sludge.

Her once towering form had collapsed into a melting heap of stitched flesh and bone.

The stench alone was offensive enough to start a war.

Raven exhaled slowly as the glow faded from his eyes. The dragon-scale cracks receded, the molten shimmer dimming under his skin.

His claws withdrew. With a hiss of cooling steam, the transformation ended.

He stood there, bare-chested—his upper clothes long since burned to cinders, replaced by fresh soot and the shimmer of sweat glistening under the lava-light.

His body was cut from marble, scarred and lean, a roadmap of battles etched across golden-bronze skin. Voidfire residue still clung to his arms like glowing tattoos.

"Ah," he muttered, shaking ash out of his hair. "This transformation is gonna cost me a shirt every time."

There was silence.

Then—

"Mmm~." Siris didn’t even try to hide her smirk as she walked closer, her head tilted as she bit her lower lip. "You look like sin."

"Correction," Clara said, stepping up beside Raven and blatantly tracing a finger down his chest. "He is sin."

Selena smiled faintly. She reached up and brushed a streak of ash off his jaw, her hand lingering a moment longer than necessary. "You’re lucky I’m too tired to scold you for making it look like you were almost dying."

"I’m lucky?" Raven raised a brow.

"You’re lucky I didn’t join you shirtless just to flex harder," Selena whispered.

Raven opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he filed that as a threat under a file called ’Dangerous But Intriguing’ in his mind.

Jessy didn’t say a word. But her eyes flicked down, just once.

Then, it went back up.

She looked away with a tiny huff.

"Still a dumbass," she muttered.

"Oh, she’s flustered," Siris sang.

Jessy threw a rock at her.

Rufus landed beside them, his helmet’s hatch open. "Okay, are we done thirsting over our commander or—?"

"No," Clara said flatly.

Alex dropped in from above, still dripping lava and covered in Blargh. "I vote he never wears a shirt again. For morale."

"Morale?" Raven asked.

"For the team," Alex said. "And the fanbase."

Nibbles squeaked in agreement from Jessy’s shoulder, holding up a tiny sign that read: ’BLESS THIS FLESH’ in burned squirrel-scratch.

"...I need new friends," Raven sighed.

But for a moment—just a moment—there was peace.

Mala’s towering corpse lay cracked and crumbling behind them. The smell of scorched corruption faded with the embers, drifting into the lava-haze like the last breath of a storm.

BOOM-CRASH!

If not for the sound of explosions, it would’ve felt like everything was over.

The group turned to look to the right and left, where Crisaius and Argon were fighting their opponents, respectively.

Crisaius was... yelling.

"GET DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME WITH LESS DIGNITY!"

Theon had started floating away from him, getting an aerial advantage.

While Argon, well, he seemed to be doing fine as he was destroying Veyron both physically and mentally.

So, Raven cupped his hands and shouted toward the old man. "HEY! OLD MEN! NEED BACKUP OR CAN YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAMA WITHOUT US?"

Crisaius sliced through a ring of flame and shouted back, "STAY OUT OF MY REDEMPTION ARC, PEASANT!"

Then Raven turned toward Argon, who was doing fine, but he still needed to ask.

Argon, feeling his gaze on himself, spoke before Raven could even ask the question, his tone more measured but still laced with pride. "We’ve almost concluded our engagements. Focus on regrouping."

"That’s a fancy way of saying ’no,’" Jessy said.

"Let them finish," Raven muttered. "They have their pride as the strongest."

Then Raven turned toward Mala’s corpse, his eyes narrowing as he ignored the fact that Selena and Clara were touching him all over, while Siris was... sniffing him?

’I guess she got some kinks...’ Raven muttered inwardly, not stopping her since it was his job as a boyfriend to take all of her kinks—at least those kinks that he found okay.

Then, he focused on Mala.

She was a demon general. She was so strong that she could flatten a mountain with some attacks.

They were lucky that they could defeat her.

Several factors were at play.

First and foremost, Mala wasn’t fighting with a sane mind. Because of this one point, she hadn’t even used her special powers, merely flailing her body here and there.

She had lost it the moment she had heard them call her weak and disgusting.

They had unknowingly hit a nerve, as calling out someone who found every stitch on their body beautiful to be disgusting was the worst thing you would want to do.

Then, there was the fact that Mala’s body was huge, which gave them lots of space to move within her blind spot.

The last point factor that was determinant for their victory was Raven himself.

Unlike others, who were merely distracting Mala, he was strong enough and could land attacks on Mala that did permanent damage.

After all, he had Omni, a sword that could cut anything permanently, and Voidflames that could burn anything to nothingness.

But then, Raven frowned. ’What?’

For a second, he felt that Mala’s core corpse had moved.

As if confirming his thought, a low giggle bubbled up from the pit before them.

Everyone froze.

It was the kind of laugh that didn’t belong in a body. It didn’t belong in a human throat.

It was wet and childlike, as if a hundred stolen voices were laughing at once through cracked, mismatched teeth.

Mala twitched.

Her carcass lifted slightly—just a sliver—and one hand scraped along the molten ground with a sickening slide.

"I feel like I should stab her as soon as possible," Siris whispered, one dagger already pointed at the twitching remains.

"You have got to be kidding me," Clara murmured.

"Is she alive?" Selena asked, her fingers, however, still kept circling on Raven’s chest.

"No," Raven squinted, slowly moving forward, Omni humming in his hand. "She’s dying. This feels more like her final monologue."

Mala’s head—half-dissolved, one eye socket seeping necrotic sludge—tilted toward them.

Her mouth opened slowly, her voice bubbling up through torn lungs and stitched vocal cords.

"You..." She giggled, the sound high and shrill. "You think this is over?"

Nobody moved.

"You think we... are the final boss?"

Silence stretched.

Even Omni didn’t speak.

Raven, by now, had already reached her body, one foot resting casually on a chunk of her shattered rib.

Her half-lip twitched upward. Not a smile. A warning.

"They’re coming—" She rasped.

But before she could finish—

Squelch!

With a sick sound of rotten flesh being pierced, Raven plunged Omni into Mala’s head, making her voice die in her throat.

"Yeah, right," he muttered. "Like hell I’m letting you raise a red flag for us."

"Ew, fuck!" Omni yelled, sounding like he just stepped on cosmic trash. "Yo, get me outta her, bro! Her head’s straight-up toxic waste! Smells like someone left rotten thoughts in the sun for a week!"

Raven deadpanned, retrieving Omni, who vibrated, removing the blood and gore still left on his surface.

"You are a sword. How can you smell something?" Rave sighed, but his words made Omni almost jump out of his hand—if that was possible, that is.

"Bro! You sayin’ I don’t got feelings?!" Omni’s voice shot up, half offended, half dramatic. "Can’t you at least give a heads-up before you go plunging me into somethin’ that full of... shit?!"

Raven’s expression turned weird as he quickly spoke. "Alright, stop. That sounded... disturbing. So, let’s stop this conversation with me taking a step back."

"...Aight," Omni relented after a pause.

It was then—

BOOOOOM!

—The ground quaked as a massive shockwave rippled out from the far side of the cavern.

Dust exploded outward like a curtain being torn open by a divine slap.

Everyone turned, eyes widening.

Argon stood atop a floating chunk of obsidian rock—his massive greatsword now twice its usual size thanks to his earth magic that covered it with rock, perfectly shaped like his sword.

The sword was covered with an even larger sword aura, pulsing with shiny blue and brown light.

Veyron, the Bone Architect, was mid-scream. Or maybe that was just the sound of several dozen bones shattering at once, as he couldn’t move because of Argon’s space magic restricting his movements.

It was then that the Vaise Patriarch’s sword came down like the judgment of an angry tectonic plate.

CRACK-KRSHH!

The impact split the entire battlefield beneath the demon general, sending a ripple of jagged stone spiking upward like a fractured spine.

Veyron’s skeletal wings exploded into shards. His throne-body crumbled under the weight of Argon’s blow, bone dust swirling into the air like burnt snow.

"Crushed him," Jessy murmured.

"Literally," Rufus added, shielding his visor from the debris.

Veyron tried to lift his hand, then his arm crumbled like dry driftwood.

Argon stood straight, breathing evenly.

He adjusted the collar of his scorched coat, then slowly turned his gaze toward the group, his expression calm.

"Sorry I’m late," he said, voice deep and composed. "I had to bone up on my swordsmanship."

Silence.

Dead silence.

Then a low groan escaped Raven.

"No..."

Jessy facepalmed. "I hate how that made sense."

"Sir, with respect, never do that again," Rufus said. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Siris stifled a laugh with her hand.

Alex clapped. "Ten out of ten. Dad jokes with seismic impact."

Nibbles held up a new sign: ’BONUS POINTS FOR EFFORT.’

Argon, expression completely deadpan, gave a dignified nod as he slowly walked toward them, his heavy boots crunching the scorched battlefield beneath him.

"I’ve been waiting all battle to say that," he said with the seriousness of a funeral priest.

Selena whispered, "Thank god Raven doesn’t take after him."

Clara leaned closer to Raven’s ear. "You’re doomed to inherit the Dad Core."

Raven stared forward, completely stone-faced. "We don’t talk about Dad Core."

Omni, somehow solemn, added, "We all got scars, bro."

From the right side... Crisaius screamed in rage as Theon, still in the air, dodged another one of the old man’s attacks. "ARGON, YOU STYLISH MOTHERLESS GARGOYLE, STOP SHOWING OFF WITHOUT ME!"