Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot
Chapter 221 - 220 - Unkillables?

Chapter 221: Chapter 220 - Unkillables?

The cracked ground of the Ashen Expanse echoed with soft footsteps.

Raven walked calmly, the late afternoon—almost evening—sun bleeding dim amber through the dried trees.

On his back, Siris rested with her arms wrapped loosely around his neck, her chin nestled on his shoulder.

They were both covered in dried blood.

Siris had a faint smile on her lips, her cheeks still flushed from adrenaline and glee. Her blue eyes sparkled with the afterglow of a battle well-fought.

"That was fun," she whispered.

"You stabbed that last beast in its eyes at least twenty times," Raven said dryly.

"He screamed creatively. I appreciated the effort," she replied, kicking her legs lightly as if riding a horse.

Raven snorted. "You also threw a dagger into one of their skulls mid-sneeze."

"I said ’bless you’ after. I’m polite."

They both laughed softly. The world, for a moment, felt peaceful.

Then—

The sound hit them first.

Boom.

A shockwave cracked through the ground ahead, splintering trees and sending birds—if there were any in the first place—scattering into the sky like frightened ash.

Raven stopped walking.

Siris’s body tensed slightly on his back.

"That’s the cave," she said.

He nodded once and took another few steps forward.

Then they saw it.

The clearing just beyond the ridge exploded into view—chaotic, surreal, and wrong.

Their friends fought like blurs, streaks of light and power flashing through the trees.

Clara’s vibrations shattered the air. Graye flew like a ballistic missile, tackling enemies one after another. Valeria spun through the melee with cutting grace. Nibbles launched peanuts like divine hand grenades.

Ten figures stood against them.

They looked human.

They couldn’t tell much other than that those humans looked creepy, especially with them moving like smiling zombies.

Yet... the group was hesitating.

Not because they were weak.

No, despite being unable to use their true power right now, they were way stronger than before, but they still seemed hesitant about killing their opponents.

Raven could tell that they were intentionally not killing those ten strange, undead-like humans.

Why?

Raven took a half-step forward to rush in.

But then he noticed something off about Siris.

She was still on his back, but her arms had frozen around him.

"Siris?" He called out.

But there was no response. Just the sound of her breath catching.

"Siris, what’s wrong?"

She swallowed.

Then, in a voice that didn’t belong to the usual smirking, flirtatious assassin... she whispered, "I’ve seen them before."

Raven froze.

"What do you mean?"

She hesitated. Her voice was quieter now. Almost too soft to hear.

"They were in the lab where I was made. In the cages. In the rooms with numbers. They were kept with me for a while before they were moved. They just screamed until they didn’t."

His hands clenched into fists.

Her voice trembled. "I don’t know what happened, but the next time I saw them, they had changed. They were then left behind to test regeneration—time magic, necromancy, and soul corrosion. They were mistakes, but they moved like puppets because the researchers needed... toys."

Raven didn’t move, his gaze focusing on the humans who were fighting against his group.

Thanks to Siris, Raven now had an idea of what his friends could be facing right now, but that didn’t mean he was happy.

He was angry because Siris was reminded of her unpleasant past right after a date that she loved.

His jaw clenched as he turned to stare at the ground.

But then, Siris’s fingers gently brushed his collarbone.

"I’m okay," she whispered, as if reading the fury brewing in him. "It’s not your fault. You didn’t make them. You didn’t hurt me."

His voice cracked. "I shouldn’t have made you remember that hell."

"No," she said softly, pressing her forehead to the side of his neck. "You are the reason I’m not haunted by the dreams of how I was experimented on. Please don’t think of yourself as something else."

Hearing her words, Raven stood there, unmoving, for one breath longer.

Then he nodded, placing her on the ground and kissing her forehead. "Thank you for coming into my life," he whispered, making Siris let out a smug smile.

"You’re welcome," he replied.

Both of them then turned toward the commotion, and their expressions turned serious—well, Raven’s did.

Siris merely giggled, drawing the twin daggers again. "Hehe~ Another stabbing party."

Raven stared at her for a second before he shook his head, and with one shift of his foot, he vanished.

Siris, with her eyes gleaming with joy, followed behind.

Both of them surged forward like a lightning bolt of will and purpose, the earth cracking beneath each step.

They didn’t say anything else because it wasn’t needed.

They had to save their friends, who were facing a numerical disadvantage.

Both Raven and Siris would need to make it up.

..............................

Back in front of the cave.

The battlefield was, once again, a mess of chaos, screaming, shadow-wolves, and Graye yelling, "I FEEL ALIVE!" while piledriving a regenerating corpse into a tree for the third time.

Selena hurled a dozen shadow spears through two undead, pinning them like macabre butterflies. She didn’t kill them, as their bodies healed faster than anything she had seen.

"Oh, come on!" she snapped, "I just recycled those spears!"

Jessy levitated above the field like a tired war goddess, flinging rusted blades and metallic pebbles like a possessed blender. "I’ve decapitated this guy four times. I think he likes it."

"This one’s still smiling!" Rufus shouted, desperately blasting one undead’s head into chunks. "He smiled at me after I blew his kneecaps off!"

"I’m out of shoulder tackles," Graye groaned, cradling her own sore arm. "I’m gonna have to use friendship next, and I don’t think they’ll accept hugs anymore."

Alex, currently in his three-way symbiote split, shouted, "I killed that guy three times, and two of them were by accident!"

"I vaporized mine," Clara growled, wiping sweat from her brow. "It came back stronger. It winked. It winked at me."

Lia ducked under a scythe and hissed, "The plants are tired, I am tired, and I just want to lie down and pretend none of this ever happened."

"I second that," muttered Valeria as she cleaved through one only for it to reform like a mana-soaked zombie jelly.

Even Nibbles, who was usually full of manic squirrel energy, looked mildly offended. He flipped a sign: "This is against the Geneva Acornvention."

Ten undead. Still grinning and still coming.

Above all, with each round, they were a little faster and a little harder to kill.

Clara shouted, "At this point, I don’t know whether to fight them or apologize for inconveniencing their un-life schedule!"

Suddenly—

BOOM.

A wave of air hit them all as a streak of black hit the ground... landing dramatically in the middle of the chaos.

Raven.

His cloak billowed from the burst of mana. Siris landed beside him with a casual flip, dual daggers in hand and that usual smirk dancing on her lips.

He blinked.

Then he saw Selena dual-wielding a shadow glaive and a broken tree while gesturing for her devourer wolves to eat another one of her enemies.

Clara was radiating like a caffeine-fueled tuning fork.

Graye perched on a reanimated torso like a very sweaty, battle-drunk squirrel.

Jessy was levitating midair with bloodshot eyes and a floating rock crown.

"Oh good," Raven said with a smile. "I see nothing’s changed."

Graye waved. "Hi! We’re all dying. Again."

Siris tossed a dagger at an approaching undead’s head without even looking.

It stuck with a thunk, but the corpse was already reforming.

Valeria stabbed another one in the chest and shouted, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"On a date," Siris said, sweetly.

"WAS IT NICE?!" Clara shouted while elbow-dropping an undead skull.

"Very," Raven replied, adjusting his collar. "We had many beasts of the manu, and we killed all of them. It was romantic."

"Raven!" Selena sliced an arm off a regenerating foe. "What do we do about these things?!"

Raven’s eyes scanned the battlefield, watching as every downed undead slowly rose again, twitching into shape.

Looking at all that, he was sure that his guess was right.

He knew who or what they were.

"Let me guess," he said, rubbing his chin, "no matter how many times you kill them, they just get back up stronger?"

A chorus of exhausted groans answered him.

"Jessy even tried turning one into a metal pretzel," Alex added, fusing with his copies with a grunt. "It unbent."

"I also did a full chakra punch combo," Graye muttered, "with extra friendship."

"Right," Raven said, eyes narrowing. "Then it’s exactly as I feared."

Everyone paused mid-fight.

"Feared what?" Selena asked.

Raven raised one hand and casually parried a blade with a burst of Voidfire. "These aren’t just undead. They’re part of an old forbidden weapon design—Null-Husk Constructs. You can’t kill them one by one."

"So what?!" Rufus shouted, shooting one in the kneecap for the fifth time. "We kill them all twice?!"

"We have already crossed that count, you idiot!" Jessy groaned from the side.

"No," Raven said calmly. "You kill them together. Simultaneously."

"Like, coordinated?" Lia asked, shielding herself with a thorned barrier.

"Exactly," Raven nodded. "They’re linked through a recursive mana network. Kill one, and the others pull that energy back in. But if we break the loop all at once—"

Jessy raised her hand, visibly twitching. "I swear, if this turns out to be a magic friendship beam thing—"

"No," Raven said, summoning Omni to his hand, who immediately spoke.

"Ayo, fam, we deleting these flesh Wi-Fi zombies or what?"

"Yup," Raven replied. "Time for synchronized deletion."

Graye beamed. "I LOVE teamwork!"

"Does this mean we get to do a cool countdown?" Rufus asked, already charging another blast.

Raven’s eyes gleamed. "Absolutely. Everyone, pick a target. Hit them with everything you’ve got when I say go."

No one hesitated.

They trusted him.

Despite the exhaustion, the bruises, and the sheer unfairness of the fight, everyone moved.

Ten targets. Ten warriors. Eleven, if you counted Nibbles, who was now dual-wielding acorns like holy grenades.

Clara vibrated so fast her skin shimmered. Jessy summoned an iron particle vortex.

Selena’s wolves glowed with shadowfire. Alex morphed into a clawed juggernaut.

Lia’s plants coiled like serpents of divine judgment. Rufus’s entire body lit up with molten circuits.

Valeria pulsed with radiant light. Graye grinned so hard her cheeks twitched.

Siris vanished into a blur of flickering daggers.

Raven’s eyes locked on the final one.

Omni laughed. "On three?"

Raven nodded.

"One..."

The undead cocked their heads, twitching in unison.

"Two..."

Mana surged. Shadows swirled. Wind howled.

"Three."

The world exploded.

Every attack landed at once.

There were no screams. Just ten voided, corrupted husks disintegrating in perfect sync—splitting, twisting, and unmaking themselves into ash as their shared mana circuit finally shattered.

Silence.

Actual silence.

No reforming bones. No twitching.

Just... the breeze.

Graye panted. "Did we... win?"

Jessy fell onto her back. "If they stand up again, I’m converting to farming."

Rufus raised a shaking fist. "Victory...!"

Nibbles flipped a final sign: "Rest in pieces. Again."