Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 157 - 156 - After the battle.

The battlefield lay in eerie silence, cloaked in the still-burning embers of Raven’s last attack. A wasteland of melted stone, ash, and disintegrated nightmares stretched as far as the eye could see.

Nothing moved—except for the group closing in on the fallen warrior at its heart.

Raven lay unconscious in Clara’s lap, his breaths shallow but steady. Steam curled from his skin like a kettle left on the flame too long.

"He’s out cold," Clara murmured, brushing soot from his face with quiet tenderness.

Selena arrived next. Her blue eyes swept across the smoldering carnage before falling to Clara and Raven.

Her shadow slithered unnaturally beside her like a faithful hound, its toothy mouth occasionally twitching like it wanted to finish what Raven started.

"...He really pushed past his limits this time," she said softly, kneeling beside them.

Her shadow reached out protectively, wrapping slightly around Raven’s feet like a territorial snake.

Until now, seeing him fight all the demons—hundreds of them at once—they started thinking that he was invincible.

Now, that illusion was broken.

He looked as human as them.

Clara glanced at Selena, smiling faintly. "He always does."

"I’ll heal him," Lia said, catching up, out of breath. Her regal expression faltered when she saw the sheer destruction. "...Oh gods. That’s not a battlefield. That’s a deleted area of the map."

"Bro must’ve decided to make it count," Alex, in his Blargh-Alex form, piped up, arriving with Nibbles perched dramatically on his head like a war general surveying the field. "He literally barbecued the concept of subtlety."

Nibbles squeaked gravely and pointed a paw at the ruined cave entrance. Alex nodded, translating confidently, "Nibbles says, ’It’s still dangerous. Something’s twitching in there. We must prepare a defensive perimeter, or I shall explode emotionally.’"

Clara and Selena looked up instantly. Jake emerged silently behind them, shadows coiling around his boots.

"I felt it too," Jake said, his voice quiet. "There’s movement inside."

"...Then we go check," Siris announced with a seriousness that didn’t belong to her as she appeared behind Clara with blood on her daggers and a smile that was anything but friendly. "If anything’s still alive in there, I’ll stab it until it becomes a theological question. I will finish what Raven wanted to."

"Wait," Lia raised her hand. "Where did your dagger catch that blood from?"

"Some squeaky demon was trying to run away. I killed it." Siris shrugged before turning toward the cave, ready to move in.

But—

Selena’s voice echoed from behind. "Raven’s unconscious. We don’t charge blindly—"

"Yeah, yeah," Siris waved her off and crouched beside Raven, ignoring the tension.

She brushed a thumb across his cheek with unholy gentleness. "I feel like I love you more and more as time passes. So, I’m gonna bring you some demon heads as a gift by the time you wake up, alright?"

Lia huffed, standing up and grabbing the back of Siris’s collar before she yanked her off Raven like a mother pulling a toddler off a cookie jar. "You can’t talk about heads and death next to him. What if he has a nightmare?!"

Siris, for a second, couldn’t comprehend what happened.

No one could.

’Was Siris just pulled away?’

Shing!

Siris’s dagger shone, her eyes cold.

"I am vibrating with violence right now," Siris whispered. But before her dagger could move, Clara spoke.

"Raven values her a lot, Siris."

Siris paused, and so did Lia.

’He values her a lot?’

’He values me a lot?’

Both of them thought of the same thing, but their feelings were different.

Siris let out a groan while Lia’s face turned red.

Selena approached Siris, crouching down.

"Believe me. I want to kill both her and that dumb girl more than anyone else, but they are valued by Raven, so I can’t."

Her shadow twitched dangerously as she said that, her voice so low that only Siris could hear it.

Siris narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t say anything, huffing. "I will still bring heads for Raven."

"No one will stop you," Clara smiled at her.

"Hey," Graye added, crouching next to Raven.

"Whoa!" Clara almost attacked her, as no one noticed when Graye went there.

Graye, on the other hand, merely smiled at Raven, her expression dreamy. "You look good no matter what you do. I could fall for you again while staring at your sleeping face."

Everyone stared at her for one full second before they sighed.

"Should I just kill her?" Siris muttered while rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

She was seriously considering it.

Graye, however, smiled at her. "You can’t kill me. I’m stronger."

Siris’s eyes turned cold. "Why don’t we put your words to the test?"

"Hey!" Clara raised her voice, already wondering how Raven could handle all this. "Can’t you guys even let him sleep peacefully? Why do you always have to fight?! Try to get along—"

Seeing that her words weren’t doing much, she added, "—For Raven’s sake."

Those words got a reaction as both Graye and Siris exchanged a glance before huffing and looking away.

’...That’s progress,’ Clara nodded inwardly. ’At least they aren’t fighting anymore.’

Jessy finally walked over, iron dust floating around her as she moved. "Alright. Look. Someone needs to stay behind and guard Raven. Some of us should check the cave. The rest... check the perimeter."

"I’ll go," Jake said immediately, melting into a nearby shadow.

"I’ll stay," Clara shrugged, happy with her job. "I don’t want to move, as it could wake him up."

Selena stared at Clara and Raven, thinking really hard.

Finally, she sighed. "Clara is strong enough to handle trouble here, so I would rather go where there could be bigger trouble. That’s what Raven would have said."

No one heard the last part, as it was a whisper Selena didn’t want others to hear.

"Me too," Siris said, staring inside the cave. "I feel like stabbing things, and I also have to bring gifts for Raven."

Rufus landed near the crater, his red-and-black armor gleaming in the fading light. His voice buzzed through the suit’s filter. "I’m scanning the cave now. At the farthest corner of the cave, I can sense a movement."

"Oh goody," Jessy muttered. "I call dibs that it’s the summoner—someone who’s totally not gonna be a pain in the ass."

Graye grinned. "Sounds like fun."

"I’ll set up a perimeter," Rufus continued. "If anything does crawl out, we’ll know. Also, deploying laser traps. Nibbles, do you want to come along?"

Nibbles squeaked with high enthusiasm. A tiny drone of nano particles that used Rufus’s mana floated down and perched on his back like a jetpack. The squirrel’s eyes lit up with purpose.

"...Oh no," Alex whispered. "He’s evolving again."

Then, everyone turned to him, expecting him to say what role he was going to take, but the dumbass chuckled nervously.

"Did I say something wrong again?"

Everyone sighed.

"Go patrol the surroundings, Alex," Clara ordered, and Blargh-Alex saluted.

"As you wish!"

With that, he was gone.

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

Inside the Cave.

Jake, Selena, Siris, Jessy, Lia, and Graye entered the scorched tunnel, the walls still radiating heat from Raven’s breath.

The deeper they walked, the colder it got. Black ichor painted the walls—demon blood. Or what remained of it.

Selena’s shadow extended ahead, flicking out like a tongue. "There’s something... dormant. Something is wrong."

Jessy felt the pull in her fingertips. "There’s a magnetic disturbance. Like something’s trying to... reform itself."

"I see roots," Lia said, narrowing her eyes. "Dead plants, but twisted. Someone tried to use nature as a catalyst. Badly."

Siris knelt and poked the ground with her dagger. "This place feels warm."

"The whole cave is warm, Siris," Selena deadpanned. "You didn’t forget that everything inside the cave was incinerated by Raven, right?"

However, seeing all of them, including Jake, frozen with a serious look on their face, staring at something behind her, Selena frowned, turning around.

Silence.

"...Well, this doesn’t look good."

There was a human-like figure hanging down from tree branches.

It could be a demon, but their instincts told them that it was a human.

They were burned down, but something from their body was still being extracted by the roots that led to a—

Summoning circle!

As soon as they turned to the summoning circle, they caught sight of the figure standing above it.

Burned but dangerous.

"Stop!"

All of them shot forward, but before they could reach the summoning circle, which looked more like an altar now, the figure vanished, leaving a glowing summoning altar behind.

"Shit!" Selena cursed, but things didn’t end there, as the body of the human that hung from tree roots fell to the ground with a thud.

Staring at all this, none of them knew what they could do.

Selena sighed. "...let’s return for now. We will need someone with experience to handle this."

As they turned around to leave, they failed to notice the spasm in that person’s body. There was a twitch in their finger as if they were trying to stop them.

Eyes appeared on their face, which was unrecognizable because of the burn.

Then, their mouth parted.

"...op."

They tried to say something, but their voice came out as a wheeze, unable to reach the group.

Finally, that person slumped, giving up.

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

Back Outside.

The wind had calmed.

The air still shimmered with residual heat, but Clara remained seated, her hand brushing Raven’s sweat-soaked hair gently aside.

His expression, despite the battle, was peaceful—almost cute in sleep.

"Graye and Siris weren’t lying," she murmured, a smile playing at her lips. "You look quite good when you are sleeping."

Raven didn’t stir. The gentle rise and fall of his chest was the only answer.

Clara giggled faintly, her fingers absently smoothing the soot on his cheek. "The others are checking the cave. You’ll be mad if I move, so I guess I’m stuck babysitting you, huh?"

Behind her, the shadows shifted.

A bloodied demon—its charred flesh flaking, one eye burned shut—limped closer with silent hate gleaming in its surviving eye.

Black blood dripped from its claws as it raised a twisted blade, inches from Clara’s back.

She didn’t turn.

"I hope they’re not taking forever in there," Clara said absently, still speaking to Raven. "I’m not really in the mood to fight right now."

The demon grinned, mouth stretching wide in anticipation.

Shing!

In a flash, the whip-like sword wrapped around Clara’s wrist lashed outward, arching behind her in a silver blur. It struck the demon’s face mid-lunge, embedding into its skull with a wet crack.

Then—BZZZZZHHHHTTTT!!

The blade vibrated violently.

The demon’s body convulsed as the vibrating blade ripped through bone and matter with a shrill hum.

A split second later, its head detonated like a rotting melon.

Clara calmly sat there as if nothing had happened, pulling her sword back in swift motion, as it wrapped around her wrist again.

She didn’t even glance at the corpse.

Instead, she glanced at the cave’s mouth, sighing. "How long does it take to check one creepy hole in the ground?"

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