Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 131 - 130 - Purification.

The room was still—tension thick, the air oddly heavy with a sizzling sensation.

Raven cradled his molten-cracked arm, half horror, half confusion, while Crisaius stared, eyes narrowed with concern.

"Okay," Raven muttered, trying to keep the crazy inside, "but seriously, old man. You can’t hear it? The voice from the sword? The gangster thing calling me dumb every five seconds?"

Crisaius paused, his gaze flicking from Raven’s hand... to the sword lying innocently on the ground... then back to Raven with a slowly widening expression of alarm.

"...Brat," Crisaius said carefully, "look at me. Look me in the eyes. You haven’t eaten anything weird lately, have you? Any mushrooms? Spirit drugs? Got smacked in the head during training?"

Raven blinked. "What? No, I—"

"Because if you’re hearing swords talk, we need to take you in for emergency spiritual detox. Maybe even exorcism. You’re cracked."

He waved his hands dramatically. "Sure, ego swords exist, but they don’t talk. They follow commands. Silent as your future. Not this—’Yo bro, I’m hungry’ crap."

Raven opened his mouth, but then—

"Tch. This geezer really out here tryna gaslight you into thinking you’re crazy?"

The voice echoed in Raven’s mind again.

"He can’t hear me, dumbass. No one can unless you let them. I’m bound to your soul, not theirs. Privacy mode activated. You get me?"

Raven blinked. Then blinked again.

"Oh," he said aloud. "Ooooh. That... makes sense."

He coughed awkwardly, shooting Crisaius a grin. "Ha! Just kidding, obviously. A sword talking? That’d be stupid. Who says that? Ha ha... definitely not me. Nope."

"Wow," the sword drawled. "Sold me out in 0.3 seconds. Cold. Real cold."

Crisaius stared at him flatly. "You’re lucky I like you, brat. Now shut up and let me look at that arm before it falls off."

Raven held it out.

The damage hadn’t spread, but it hadn’t healed either.

From shoulder to fingertip, his skin was charred obsidian, glowing with violet veins that pulsed faintly beneath the surface like lava light.

It was unnerving—even by Vaise standards.

Crisaius didn’t hesitate. He ripped the sleeve clean off, tossed it aside, and gently placed two fingers on the furthest edge of the corruption.

The moment he touched it, his expression twisted.

"This..." Crisaius muttered. "This isn’t regular mana burn. This isn’t a curse either."

His eyes sharpened. "It’s like your body is constantly being eaten from the inside—but your cells are fighting back just as fast."

Raven gritted his teeth. He couldn’t lie—his arm hurt.

It didn’t before when he hadn’t seen his hand, but now that he did, the pain was coming around.

One must know that if he was feeling pain, then it must be something, as it took a lot to make him feel pain these days.

’Hey, sword,’ Raven growled inwardly. ’Why is this happening? You said you ate divinity, not, you know, my existence.’

"You askin’ the right questions—finally," the sword said, almost impressed.

"Look, I’m a divine-level, anti-god weapon. That means when I activate, I don’t just drain divinity—I corrode it. Everything around it too. Mortals, gods, squirrels—don’t matter."

’Fuck,’ Raven cursed. ’Tell me something useful. Even my healing factor can’t heal this shit.’

"Wait... you have a healing factor?"

There was genuine surprise in its voice.

"Damn. That’s why you’re still standing. Hah! Look at you, little mutant cockroach!"

The moment he heard those words, Raven’s eye twitched.

He would’ve lunged for the sword again if not for Crisaius intensely studying his arm.

’Are you telling me,’ Raven snarled in his mind, ’that I could’ve DIED just from wielding you once?! And you didn’t think that was important to mention?!’

"I assumed you’d be smart enough to figure out that a sword built to kill deities might come with a few side effects. Like, you know, obliterating weaklings from the inside out."

Raven nearly screamed aloud, but he restrained himself. Barely.

Before he could mentally strangle the sword again, Crisaius pulled back, serious for once.

His voice was low, no longer dramatic, no longer playful.

"Listen to me, Raven."

That snapped his attention straight.

"This arm of yours—it should’ve been gone. There’s no logical reason that it’s intact. Whatever this corrosion is, your body’s not healing it—it’s resisting it. Holding it in place."

"No shit, genius. This is what happens when you grab me like it’s no big deal—and that’s with me runnin’ on fumes. If I cranked up even a little of my real power, you wouldn’t have made it past the fifteen-second mark, no lie."

Raven felt a shiver down his spine as he realized how close he was to losing his life before he asked Crisaius. "Then... what is it?"

Crisaius’s gaze sharpened. "If my guess is right, then it’s that Soul Kiln Purification Art that you taught me. I don’t know how, but the pure energy that should’ve been used to expel the Vaise curse’s poison from your body was still in there."

’Ah...’

It finally made sense to Raven.

Soul Kiln Purification Art.

It was a divine rank purification art.

There was no way it wouldn’t be able to fight off the corrosion.

But as Crisaius said, it was strange. How could a cultivation art save his life when he wasn’t even meditating?

That was because, unlike other Vaises, Raven didn’t experience mana poisoning as of now.

His body was devoid of poisoned mana.

That meant the purification essence generated from the purification art wasn’t being used anywhere.

That mass of purification essence that had gathered in Raven’s body for a while had been roaming around in his body, looking for poison, and that is when the sword’s corrosion came in.

"So that’s what it was—you had a damn divine-level cultivation technique," the sword muttered, connecting the dots. "Tch. No wonder your stubborn ass didn’t melt from my corrosion."

The sword, which had started thinking that Raven was some special case who could survive its corrosion using a healing factor, was now relieved.

Because it now knew that it wasn’t a mortal that survived its powers, but a divine-level technique did.

Raven, on the other hand, silently sat on the ground, focusing on circulating the mana.

He was now using the purification art.

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

A while later.

Raven’s eyes opened slowly.

The air felt clearer. Lighter. His breathing was steady now, not labored like before.

He raised his right arm cautiously and stared.

It was normal.

There were no obsidian cracks. No glowing veins of doom. No twitching sense of imminent divine combustion.

Just... his regular, slightly scarred, mostly functional hand.

A long sigh escaped him as he collapsed backward onto the floor with the grace of a dead fish.

One hour.

It took him a whole hour of circulating the Soul Kiln Purification Art to finally wrestle that corrosion down.

"Great sword," he muttered under his breath. "Absolutely lovely. Would recommend. 0/10."

"Oi, brat."

Raven blinked up to see Crisaius looming over him, arms crossed, beard twitching with dramatic concern.

"So, what was it? Was it demons?" Crisaius asked, voice serious. "An ambush? Assassins from the Forbidden Soup sect? Or maybe some crazy squirrel girl with a dagger?"

Raven groaned and pointed weakly at the sword lying on the ground.

"That," he muttered. "That’s the culprit."

Crisaius raised an eyebrow, following Raven’s finger to the seemingly innocent, pitch-black sword lying casually on the floor.

He turned back to Raven. "You’re blaming a sword."

"I’m telling you," Raven sighed, sitting up again, "it talks. It has a whole personality. It acts like it escaped from a street gang drama. Just—listen."

He looked at the sword and cleared his throat dramatically.

"Ahem. Sword. Speak. I permit you to speak to him."

...

Silence.

The sword did not move. It did not hum. It did not even twitch. It simply lay there, as lifeless and stoic as Raven’s will to keep trying.

Raven glanced at Crisaius.

Crisaius glanced at Raven.

Then both turned to stare at the sword again, like zookeepers silently judging a sleeping panda.

Another beat of silence passed.

Then—

"AIGHT, DAMN! STOP LOOKIN’ AT ME LIKE I’M A DISAPPOINTMENT TO MY FAMILY TREE!"

Raven flinched. Crisaius jumped.

The sword buzzed with purple energy as its voice thundered through the room, sounding exactly like a gangster with a vendetta and a migraine.

"Oh, NOW you talk," Raven snapped.

"You were starin’ at me like I owed you money!" The sword barked back. "What you expect, huh? I got stage fright!"

Crisaius’s jaw had dropped.

He slowly walked toward the sword, eyes wide with academic wonder, like he’d just found a living fossil holding a beer and yelling at people on the street.

"This... this sword... it talks?!"

Raven nodded slowly. "Told you."

Crisaius bent down and tried to lift the sword with both hands—then grunted. Then strained. Then began using what could only be described as ancient yoga stretches to coax it off the ground.

Nothing worked.

"Hnnnng—dammit! What is this, a sword or a mountain?! Heck, I can probably lift a mountain, so why not the sword?"

"Can’t lift me, old man," the sword said smugly. "I’m soulbound. I only respond to him. The edgy one."

Raven sighed. "I’m not edgy."

"You literally have Fate Eyes, a deadpan personality, and trauma for breakfast," the sword replied.

Crisaius gave up on lifting the sword and stood up straight, rubbing his back with a wheeze. "Brat... where did you get this thing?"

Raven shrugged. "My luck brought it to me."

Before Crisaius could say anything else, he turned to the wall. A clean, almost surgical slice ran through it, glowing faintly with violet decay.

"There," he said, pointing. "It did that with a casual slice."

Crisaius blinked. "That’s some sharp sword."

"Yeah," Raven muttered. "But that’s not all there is to this sword. It has corrosion power. It doesn’t care what it touches—metal, mana, living tissue—everything decays."

Crisaius’s brows furrowed. "Then your arm..."

Raven nodded. "It did that to me. Even just holding it while using its corrosion power is like... willingly hugging a magical acid bath."

The sword scoffed. "You survived, didn’t ya? Should be thankin’ me."

"For what?" Raven snapped. "For nearly dissolving my existence?"

"Character development!"

"You’re not a mentor character!"

"You’re not the protagonist either, smartass!"

"Oh, for the love of—" Raven pinched the bridge of his nose.

Crisaius looked back and forth between them like a spectator at a verbal tennis match, then threw his hands in the air. "Oh, wonderful. Absolutely delightful. Not only do I have one disrespectful brat in my life, but now there’s a possessed blade with a bad attitude beside him. This is what I get for not retiring to the mountains."

"You lived in the mountains," Raven deadpanned.

"I meant further up!"

The sword cackled. "This is great. This is quality comedy. You two bicker like an old married couple."

Raven groaned and dragged himself to the bed, collapsing onto it face-first.

He mumbled into the pillow, voice muffled and defeated, "As if one wasn’t enough... I now have two crackheads in my life."

Crisaius folded his arms. "You brought the sword."

"I didn’t know it came with commentary!"

The sword hummed proudly. "Damn right, I do. You’re stuck with me now, Boss."

Raven let out a long, tired sigh that carried the weight of seventeen bad decisions, some near-death experiences, and one very smug sword.

He was doomed.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om