Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot

In the Capital City of Velmoria.

The royal chamber of Velmoria's palace was quiet enough to hear the soft crackle of the hearth.

Early morning sunlight slanted in through the tall windows, turning the marble floor orange and tracing faint halos around the people within.

On the bed, Cluckles lay sprawled like a feathery snowball, his red scarf draped dramatically across his chest.

The sage-like chicken's breathing was steady—slow, deep, almost regal. He looked less like a patient recovering from wounds and more like a monk pretending to nap after solving the universe.

At the round table near the window, Lia sat with her hands folded in her lap, pink eyes calm but alert.

Across from her, Velric—the young king of Velmoria and Raven's unwillingly devoted "servant"—rubbed his temples with the practiced despair of a man who had lost control of his own palace.

Then finally, there was Crisaius.

The eccentric old master lounged in his chair like it was a throne of clouds, white hair sticking out in defiance of gravity, eyes twinkling with the kind of mischief only someone absurdly powerful could afford.

"…I'm telling you," Crisaius said, gesturing toward the ceiling with a crooked finger, "rain isn't just condensed water. That's the boring explanation. No, no—think bigger! Imagine a colossal giant lounging above the clouds. A bladder the size of a kingdom. Gravity does the rest. Voilà—sky pee."

Velric's shoulders twitched. He pressed two fingers harder against his temple.

"Master Crisaius, I… I sincerely doubt—"

"Doubt is good!" Crisaius clapped his hands, delighted. "Doubt means your brain is trying to escape the prison of common sense. Next, you'll start questioning the moon. Do you really think it's a rock? Ha! Amateur thinking!"

Lia stared determinedly at the fireplace. 'Don't engage,' she told herself. 'Do not engage. The moment you speak, it begins.'

But Velric—poor, regal Velric—had no escape.

Since Lia wasn't speaking, he had to speak up. After all, the one before him was the man who could now be called the oldest and the strongest in the Vaise family.

Lia, being Raven's girlfriend and a princess from another kingdom, had permission to ignore the old man, but Velric couldn't.

So, in the end, he asked. "Then… what do you think the moon is?"

"Oh, a cosmic dumpling," Crisaius said without hesitation. "Obviously."

What followed was a mental groan from Velric, and the sound of the whine was soul-breaking.

The poor guy couldn't say that he didn't want to hear any of this anymore, nor could he ignore it.

The only thing he could do was listen, as he had been doing for some time now.

But before the old man could launch into dumpling-based lunar physics and make Velric jump out of the window, becoming the first king to die of suicide, a soft cluck sliced through the air.

Everyone turned.

Cluckles sat bolt upright on the bed, eyes like polished obsidian, feathers puffed in perfect symmetry.

"The end is coming," Cluckles declared, voice calm, sage-like, and sure like the rising sun.

Silence fell like a dropped blade.

Velric froze mid-breath.

Lia blinked once, twice.

"…Cluckles?" Lia said carefully. "You're supposed to be resting."

The chicken tilted his head a fraction, unblinking. "Cluckles has spoken. The end is coming."

A beat passed.

Then another.

No one said anything, but they stared at the chicken wordlessly.

Finally, Lia exhaled and rubbed her brow. "Go back to sleep, Cluckles."

Cluckles gave a solemn nod, lay back down, and immediately began snoring.

"…Right," Velric muttered, still half-paralyzed as he shook his head.

From the corner, Crisaius's dry chuckle slithered into the quiet. "Wonderful. Now we have a prophetic chicken. Just what this kingdom needed."

Velric turned to glance at him—only to notice Crisaius wasn't looking at the bed at all.

Crisaius was staring out the window.

Following his gaze, Lia and Velric turned toward the night sky, only to freeze.

High above the capital, a lone figure floated against the moonlight.

They couldn't make out its face—only a silhouette wreathed in faint, pulsing light.

But the presence… it pressed down on the chamber like a tidal wave.

Cold flooded their veins. Their lungs tightened. It felt as if invisible claws had hooked into their bones, pinning them where they sat.

Crisaius rose, his chair scraping lightly across the marble.

The playful gleam in his eyes remained, but now, there was something ancient and razor-sharp as well.

He stepped onto the balcony, robes stirring in the night air.

Without turning, he spoke, his voice suddenly weightless and deadly.

"You know what to do."

Lia's fists clenched, while Velric could only nod.

Then, without another word, the old man floated upward, ascending like a ghost toward the waiting silhouette above the city.

The chamber remained silent—except for Cluckles's soft, steady snores—while the sky itself seemed to hold its breath, people still oblivious to the presence above their heads.

But soon, they wouldn't be able to ignore it even if they wanted to.

Because soon, the city would fall into chaos.

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

Back in the Ashen Expanse.

Right after Raven's breath attack, when the group was talking about what they should do, deep beneath the cracked floor of the Ashen Expanse, the twelve part-dragons waited.

The cavern was a cathedral of molten stone, glowing veins of magma painting their monstrous bodies in a hellish light.

Scales like molten bronze scraped against stone. Claws gouged trenches into the black rock. Each of them carried some remnant of the dragon blood that cursed their lineage—horns of obsidian, wings of razored bone, and tails that shimmered with molten crystal.

The largest among them—a mountain of muscle and black-scaled hide whose wings alone could blanket a fortress—let out a rumbling growl that made the cavern tremble.

"Those weaklings we sent above…" The giant rasped, smoke curling from its fanged maw. "…they should have been enough to bleed the humans dry. Even if they died, their bodies were gifts for the Lord. He would devour them, grow stronger, and revive."

A smaller one, its eyes glowing like pools of molten gold, snarled and lashed its spiked tail. "But the corpses never returned. Nothing came back. Not even ashes."

Another, with a mane of jagged crystal spines, hissed, the sound slicing through the cavern like knives. "The flame of that human burned them to nothing. No flesh. No bones. Our Lord cannot feed on nothing."

The largest beast bared its jagged teeth, molten drool dripping onto the stone and hissing into vapor.

"Then the humans must be devoured instead. Their power will make worthy sacrifices. Their screams will be our hymn."

A chorus of guttural roars answered. Twelve throats vibrated with fury, the sound shaking stalactites loose from the cavern ceiling.

"Up. Now," the largest beast commanded.

The decision was instant. A rush of claws and wings thundered through the underground as the twelve beasts launched themselves toward the fractured ceiling.

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

On the surface.

The hole in the ground split apart with a deafening CRACK.

Dust and shards of stone exploded outward as the first part-dragon burst through the rift, a nightmare of scale and horn, its jagged wings spreading wide enough to blot the grey sky.

It barely had a second to roar when a spear of shadow screamed upward from the earth, slicing through the air with a hiss.

Jake's shadow twisted around the beast like a living serpent, melting into a black tar that hardened instantly, locking its limbs.

A blinding beam of light followed, Rufus's visor flashing gold as the laser punched through the creature's chest.

The light didn't stop—it curved in midair, spearing back through the beast again and again, each strike carving glowing holes into its armored body.

Before the creature could even draw breath, the sky above it turned crimson.

A lava meteor, the size of a house, plummeted like an angry sun.

Alex grinned viciously as it slammed into the beast, the impact shaking the earth.

The meteor burst, splattering molten rock into a churning lava swamp that devoured the immobilized monster in a hissing tide of molten death.

The first roar of fury twisted into a scream that gurgled… and then silence.

In less than a second, the second beast tore free of the rift with a roar of vengeance, only to meet a storm of supersonic metal spears the size of cars.

Jessy stood with one hand outstretched, magnetic fields shrieking around her as the spears slammed into the monster's shoulders and limbs, pinning it to the scorched ground with the crunch of cracking stone.

Before it could thrash, jagged Cryovoid spears rained down from the sky, Siris's fingers trailing black-and-ice mist.

She preferred killing beings with her dagger, as that felt better, but that didn't mean she had no ranged attacks. Her ranged attacks were more lethal and quicker.

It became evident as the spears pierced the beast's hide, frost spreading in fractal webs that froze muscle and bone.

The monster roared, shattering shards of ice—

—But a shadow loomed above it.

Selena's shadow extended, flaring violet.

A shadow beast, all claws and devouring mist, dropped from the sky and smashed the frozen dragon into the ground with an impact that sent shockwaves through the Expanse.

The ice shattered, and so did bone.

Selena's creature didn't stop; it ripped and tore until the part-dragon's body was nothing but frozen rubble.

The third monster surged upward with a bellow of hate, jaws gaping to unleash a sonic shockwave—

—And froze.

Standing before it was a female of its own kind.

Beautiful, familiar. Calling silently.

It hesitated.

That heartbeat of hesitation was all it got.

A slash of lightning and fire cleaved downward from the sky, splitting the illusion in half.

Graye's sword burned white-hot as her fully charged strike carved through scale and muscle, splitting the beast nearly to the spine.

It roared in agony, body twitching as it tried to heal.

Raven moved.

The air shimmered violet-black as the same annihilating flame that had erased the weaker beasts earlier flared in his palm.

Unlike before, this beast was at its weakest right now, so he didn't need to use the breath attack.

With a flick of his wrist, the voidfire surged forward.

The beast didn't even have time to scream before the flame consumed it, leaving not so much as a shadow.

Below, the remaining nine part-dragons froze mid-climb.

The echoes of their brethren's death cries rolled down the tunnels like thunder.

For the first time, hesitation flickered in their draconic eyes.

On the surface, Raven's team stood shoulder to shoulder, the ash-filled wind tugging at their clothes.

Three corpses—if they could even be called corpses—steamed on the fractured battlefield.

Graye rested her sword on her shoulder, sparks dancing along its blade. "Three down," she said, her grin sharp enough to cut steel. "Guess the odds just got fair."

Jessy rolled her shoulders, magnetic fields humming faintly. "Nine left. They still think they can climb out of that hole?"

Siris twirled a dagger, icy mist trailing from its edge. "Let's see if they like round two."

Raven's crimson eyes glowed like coals in the fading light.

He stepped forward, his shadow stretching long across the cracked ground.

"Let them come," he said quietly. "Now it's a fair fight."

From the rift below came a chorus of enraged, uncertain roars and the sound of nine monsters planning what to do next.