Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 186 - 185 - “You’re giving me warnings?”

The silence lingered like a held breath.

The dust still hadn’t settled from Crisaius’s dramatic ceiling-based entrance. Shattered marble sparkled faintly in the air like snowflakes blessed by divine chaos.

The King’s face was stone. His jaw clenched so tight it could probably crack an acorn on its own.

He took one slow step forward and spoke.

"...Even if the acorn is demonic."

His voice was low and controlled. The voice of a man trying very hard not to scream at the top of his royal lungs.

"That only proves there was a battle. With demons. Something we were already aware of."

Raven raised a brow and held up the humming acorn again. "But this one screams. Dramatically."

"I don’t care if it sings lullabies in infernal tongues," the King snapped, glaring. "What I want to know is—who was behind the attack? Who has the power to kill hundreds of demons?"

He turned his gaze sharply on Raven’s group.

"You? Your band of squirrel-wrangling lunatics? You expect us to believe you did it alone? No. You’re hiding something. You had help. From a terrorist faction. One with power beyond anything we’ve seen."

Siris raised her hand. "Hi. Technically, I am a terrorist faction."

Clara slapped her hand down. "No one is helping your resume."

Jessy muttered, "Do demonic squirrels count as a faction?"

Raven facepalmed. "Why are you all like this? Show some respect to the king!"

Did he mean it, though? No.

But before anyone else could add another ounce of chaos to the pot—

Crisaius tilted his head toward the King, still not sparing even a single glance at Raven’s group.

After all, he wasn’t here to ask them questions. Rather, he was here to help them.

He blinked once, then asked with a confused, slightly bored tone, he drawled. "...Terrorist organization?"

The courtroom stiffened.

Crisaius blinked again, slowly this time, like a lion trying to comprehend why a housecat just hissed at it.

"I must’ve misheard," he said. "Did you forget, ’Your Majesty,’ why Velmoria is the strongest kingdom in the alliance?"

The King’s eyes narrowed.

Crisaius stepped forward, voice calm—but each word hit like a drum.

"Let me help you remember. It’s because of the Vaise family. You know, the one with a dozen elders who can solo armies, bend storms, and argue with gods about parking space?"

He let that hang.

"Our patriarch can cut through any corrupt beast you throw at him. Every elder of our family can wipe the floor with hundreds of demons. One of my aunts once sneezed a level nine beast out of its existence."

Raven raised a brow at the last line before looking around the court, and seeing people gulp, he facepalmed. ’They bought it?’

Crisaius, on the other hand, continued, "You still think he would need support from a terrorist organization?"

He scoffed, a wild smirk curling across his lips. "My boy is Vaise-blooded. Above all, he is one from the main branch; any elder would be more than happy to help him."

Raven crossed his arms, turning slightly to the side, muttering, "I don’t think the elders would be so excited to help me..."

Siris, with her eyes starry, muttered, "Wow, his aunt was so strong?"

Alex huffed, "I wish I could destroy a big mountain with one punch!"

"Me too," Rufus said.

"All you can do is trip on squirrels," Clara deadpanned.

"T-Then I want to destroy the mountain while tripping!" Rufus retorted.

The King, however, growled. "You say that, but yesterday, there was no Vaise elder in the vicinity. Isn’t that right... Damien?"

All heads turned.

Damien, standing like a stiff broom behind the throne, kept his face passive. But his eyes flicked toward Crisaius.

Crisaius, without missing a beat, smiled.

"Oh, but there was a Vaise elder."

He spread his arms, turning in a slow circle like a magician announcing the finale.

"Me."

A pin could’ve dropped and assassinated someone in that silence.

Damien broke it. "You—You were supposed to be in the Ashen Expanse—"

Crisaius’s head snapped toward him.

Damien froze.

Not because of fear.

But because of the sheer, suffocating certainty behind that look.

Crisaius’s voice dropped, dark and final.

"You already made your end miserable by betraying Argon, Damien."

His smile vanished.

"But now?"

He took a step forward. The floor cracked again.

"Now you’re just making it worse."

Damien paled, his butt tightening.

He was strong, but before Crisaius, he wasn’t.

The King stepped in, raising his voice. "Enough. You do not threaten a royal subject in my presence."

Crisaius froze.

Then, slowly, he turned to the King.

A slow chuckle escaped his lips.

Then a louder one.

Then a full-blown maniacal cackle that bounced off every shattered wall and rattled the foundations of the palace like a drunk storm trying to find its way home.

"Boy, your grandfather," Crisaius said between chuckles, "used to stand when I walked in. He once offered me the throne because I beat his entire army in a friendly spar."

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

"And you’re giving me warnings?"

He leaned in slightly, his eyes gleaming.

"Oh, you sweet summer monarch." freeweɓnøvel~com

The King looked ready to unsheathe the throne itself and use it as a weapon.

But Crisaius turned, refocusing on Damien. "I was supposed to be in the Ashen Expanse even now, wasn’t I? Yet, here I am."

He spread his arms wide.

"No one noticed. No one stopped me. No one could."

He tapped the side of his head like a teacher delivering an unwelcome lesson.

"I go where I please, when I please, and how I please. It was the same yesterday."

The King’s voice echoed again, now sharp and strained. "And how do we even know you’re telling the truth? This is a matter of national security."

Crisaius blinked. Once. Twice.

Then he sighed like a man deeply exhausted by stupidity.

He looked the King directly in the eye, and all the madness melted away.

What was left was... inevitability.

"If I wanted to harm this kingdom," he said, his voice like a closing tomb, "you wouldn’t know until you were ash and your ashes were already being taxed by the next guy."

"Well, damn," Raven sighed while his entire group, including Alex and Nibbles, facepalmed.

The ministers gasped.

The guards tensed.

The entire courtroom practically shook from the weight of the threat.

"DISRESPECT!" One minister roared.

"TREASON!" Barked another.

"GET HIM!" Screamed a third, whose name no one remembered.

Dozens of soldiers and mages began to move forward, weapons raised, magic humming in the air.

It wasn’t because they weren’t scared of Crisaius.

They were, but the problem was that his fear came from his stories. No one here knew of his true powers.

No one here had seen him fight before.

That one point gave them enough confidence to raise their weapon.

Crisaius tilted his head.

"I knew it would get bloody," he muttered.

"I like bloody," Siris said from behind, making Crisaius grin.

"That’s why I like you, girl."

But before Crisaius could move—

The opposition stopped.

Not from fear.

But from something else.

A second presence—cold, sharp, and clean like a sword unsheathing in the mind—sliced through the pressure.

Unlike Crisaius’s chaotic, storm-born madness, this one was calm and surgical.

One by one, every person who had tried to move... froze.

Even the ministers choked on their shouts.

Even the King tensed.

Raven turned toward the wide-open door of the courtroom, eyes narrowing.

Then he smirked.

"Finally, someone who can handle the matter like an adult."

"Hah..." Crisaius sighed, muttering, "I really wanted to see the courtroom in a red shade, you cold bastard."

Then, a slow step reverberated across the corridor.

Then another.

In seconds, the echo of deliberate, measured steps filled the courtroom.

From the great hallway beyond the shattered doors, a tall figure emerged—broad-shouldered, black-haired, clad in a black Vaise battlecoat that shimmered like oiled metal.

The hem swayed around his ankles, parted just enough to reveal the hilt of a massive, wide-backed sword strapped across his back—its edge chipped and worn, yet radiating a quiet menace.

Half of the sword was hidden beneath his cloak as if even the sword itself was reluctant to be fully seen.

The figure was none other than Argon Von Vaise.

A man whose presence didn’t demand attention.

It commanded it.

The nobles in the court flinched as his boots struck the marble with quiet authority.

Ministers unconsciously took a step back.

A few younger knights dropped their weapons without realizing it.

Even the magic users—those with trained senses—felt it most clearly that this wasn’t mana.

This was dominion.

His aura rolled across the room, not like a storm—but like a silent tide. Heavy. Cold. Unforgiving.

The kind of presence that didn’t roar or scream—it pressed. On the lungs. On the spine. On the soul.

He wasn’t any stronger than Crisaius, but people feared him more because, unlike Crisaius, his stories were fresh in everyone’s minds.

Raven, glancing at his ’father,’ merely gave him a lazy wave, smiling.

The King, however, stiffened.

Unlike the others, he knew.

He remembered.

He and Argon had grown up in the same generation.

He had witnessed that monstrous sword cleaving through a mountain fortress in a single descending arc—seen it stop a beast tide without backup.

He had felt its wind once, slicing a tree beside him from half a mile away.

Now, standing barely twenty feet from Argon again, the King’s throat dried.

Argon said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

His eyes swept across the room with disdain, passing over the guards, the nobles, the ministers—

Then it landed squarely on Damien.

And stayed there.

Argon’s jaw clenched.

The sword on his back—still sheathed, untouched—trembled.

Damien’s mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.

He felt it.

The promise of death. It was wordless and absolute.

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