Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 143 - 142 - “Eh?”

The roaring cheer still echoed in the air like an aftershock of a quake, but Raven didn’t bask in it.

He stood there, unmoved.

The crowd could scream his name a thousand times—but his eyes were locked on the only thing that mattered.

It was the figure in black—the Berserker.

They hadn’t moved much, not even flinched at the stage-shaking display.

Well, they did take a step back before, but it was only to avoid a crack caused by Raven’s foot-smash.

The power, the elemental grandeur, and the declaration, however, rolled over them like waves against stone.

Then suddenly—

Whoosh!

The armored figure inched closer. Not stepped. Slid.

Raven blinked. Just once.

"Did... did they just slide?! Like—slide?!" Omni exclaimed inside Raven’s mind, baffled.

Yes, they did.

Feet still planted, knees slightly bent, the figure had shifted forward a whole two feet like a sinister stool with bloodlust.

Then—

"Sorry," the voice boomed again, still distorted, yet now somehow... sheepish. "I didn’t realize you were territorial."

Raven squinted.

The armored figure raised a hand—not threateningly, but like they were about to make a polite introduction at a brunch.

"I am Graye." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

A pause followed. The crowd waited for more. A surname. A title. A gender. Something.

Graye, however, tilted their head slightly, as if that explained everything.

Graye.

Raven stared.

’Graye.’

... Was that a guy’s name? A girl’s name?

He had no idea.

In fairness, even Omni stalled for a moment. "You think it’s short for Grayson? Or like... Grayella? Grayven? Gray-something?"

"Just Graye?" Raven finally asked aloud, skeptical.

"Just Graye," they confirmed.

"Male?" Raven added.

Graye tilted their head the other way. "Does it matter?"

"...Kinda."

Graye’s helmet tilted as if thinking. "Then male, if it helps you concentrate."

Raven sighed internally. ’I already hate how confusing this guy is.’

"So," he asked, his voice still low, crisp, and cold, "why are you here? Really?"

"I already told them." Graye gestured vaguely to the audience. "I came to fight Raven Von Vaise. The rumored greatest genius of the Vaise family."

A beat passed.

That was it.

No dramatic backstory. No evil plan. No kidnapping plot or secret test.

Just... "I want to fight you because you’re strong."

Raven looked at him a little longer. His eyes narrowed.

Either Graye was genuinely here to fight him...

Or he was very, very good at lying.

Neither of those options was good.

The genuinely obsessed types were crazy—not something Raven wanted to deal with. The liars were worse, as they could more than likely be someone from the demonic order.

"I see," Raven said. "So you came all this way from the Zaraqt Kingdom... for a friendly punch in the face."

Graye nodded.

"Interesting," Raven murmured. "Do your kingdom’s passports say ’reason for travel: public assault’?"

"What’s a passport?" Graye asked, clueless.

"...Nothing."

The arena judge coughed awkwardly, finally regaining his voice. "A-Ahem! Now that both duelists are present—"

He didn’t get far.

Graye raised his greatsword and pointed it at Raven, the blade humming with a restrained aura.

"Raven Von Vaise," he said. "Prove to me that your name deserves the legend."

Raven looked at him. Then, with all the grace of an exhausted employee on a Monday morning, he stretched his arms behind his back.

"You know, I really don’t like fighting before lunch."

Graye tensed, assuming a battle stance.

"But..." Raven’s eyes gleamed with cold purpose. "I’ll make an exception."

The wind around them curled unnaturally.

Clara bit her lip harder. "He’s doing it again."

Siris whispered, "Saving this in the cool archive."

Jessy muttered, "Okay, so we’re all pretending he’s not trying hard. Got it."

Selena barely restrained herself from screaming while Lia was quietly—violently—squeezing her handkerchief, her face slightly red.

Graye didn’t care about the audience.

He cared only about the one in front of him.

Raven’s mind, however, was elsewhere.

He did say that he was going to fight, but his eyes were glancing around.

If his predictions were right, then this was likely a distraction plotted by the demons.

And, if this was a distraction, then something else was going on in the background.

But that was only if his predictions were right.

So, although he did say he would fight, he would end this fight with one strike—he wouldn’t even be using Omni.

That sword would be his trump card against the demons.

"Alright, no time to play," he muttered as dragon scales appeared across his arms like liquid armor, gleaming with a metallic sheen under the sunlight.

The crowd gasped, and the noise turned into a wave of murmurs.

Graye, seeing those scales, actually jumped in his place like an excited puppy, gripping his giant sword.

"Is that it?! The rumored dragon scale?! Is this the legendary power?!" He shouted.

Raven blinked. "...How do you know about that?"

The berserker tilted his helmeted head. "What do you mean? Everyone’s talking about it. They say this is your thing now. It is said that this is a power similar to the Dragon Duke’s."

Raven’s eyes twitched. ’Everyone? Everyone who? What do you mean, everyone?!’

That level of detail wasn’t public knowledge unless someone had intentionally leaked it.

His mind reeled, thinking about the people who were authoritative, insane, and reckless enough to pull that off so quickly that Sinclair, the head of one of the best information-gathering organizations, couldn’t even inform him.

A few names flashed through his head, but they weren’t people he could deal with right now. Not from within the arena, so he decided to think about it later.

He casually turned toward the announcer, who was blinking, sweat dotting his brow.

"Hey," Raven said, his voice calm but laced with a bored edge. "You gonna start the match or do I need to punch the mic?"

The announcer flinched. "R-right! Match... match start!"

DING!

No sooner had the bell echoed through the arena than Raven vanished from his spot in a blur.

BOOM.

A single punch.

The berserker’s entire body flew back like a cannonball, smashing into the far end of the stadium with a concerningly loud thud.

Dust rose, a low rumble rolled across the arena floor, and then...

Silence.

Even Raven, standing with his arm still extended mid-punch, stared blankly. "...Eh?"

Omni, observing everything and expecting an epic fight, also had the same reaction. "Eh?!"

The crowd echoed like synchronized ducks. "EH?!"

Raven slowly lowered his hand, glancing toward the barely twitching berserker-shaped dent in the arena wall.

"...Wasn’t he supposed to be strong?" He muttered, then squinted. "Did I punch him too hard? Or was his defense just...emotional?"

Still no movement from the berserker.

A pigeon landed beside him, looked at the crater, and then just slowly waddled away, as if deeply uncomfortable.

The silence remained.

Like, really remained.

It was the kind of silence that made people question if they had collectively imagined the last five seconds.

Raven stood in his casual, half-bored posture, dragon-scaled arm still staring at Graye. His expression was caught somewhere between a frown and constipation.

But then—

"Uuuugh..."

The groan echoed from the smoking crater.

Raven’s brow twitched.

The crowd gasped again.

From within the dented arena wall, the armored figure of Graye stirred like someone waking up from a very confusing nap.

His massive sword clattered beside him, and he sat up, rubbing his helmet as if it had a bruise underneath.

"Gotta be honest," Graye mumbled, cracking his neck left, then right, then a third time in some disturbing vertebrae sorcery. "That was fast. I blinked, and I was airmail."

He looked at Raven and—

’Is he giving me a thumbs-up?’ Raven wondered, dumbfounded.

"My bad," Graye called out earnestly. "Didn’t think you’d open with that. I’m ready now, though."

He picked up his sword like he hadn’t just been forcibly introduced to the wall.

Raven, still standing in the same pose, now lowered his arm slowly... and frowned. Deeply.

’That... wasn’t a light tap,’ he thought. ’I didn’t punch him to kill, but that hit should’ve rung his bones like dinner bells. He shouldn’t be moving.’

Still, Graye was back on his feet, rolling his shoulders and bouncing on his toes like a boxer in warmup mode. "Okay! Round two, let’s go!"

But before Raven could nod—

"Yo, YO, YO! Hold UP!"

A familiar voice cut through his thoughts like a record scratch.

Raven froze. ’What’s wrong?’

"Bro, I know you ain’t gonna pretend like that ain’t weird."

Omni’s voice boomed inside Raven’s mind like a back-alley DJ with divine authority.

"Raven, listen. My guy over there ain’t normal. I’m telling you, he just tanked yo’ punch like it was a hug from a particularly aggressive auntie."

Raven blinked, then subtly tilted his head. ’...Explain.’

"Bro’s got DIVINITY," Omni said, as if announcing that someone just brought a bazooka to a spoon fight. "You hear me? D-I-V-I-N-I-T-Y. Full-on divine juice. Very little, but he got it. He ain’t no average chump."

’...What?’

"And that’s not all, man. Yo, he got a TALE."

Now Raven was confused. ’A what?’

"A tale! I’ll fill you in later, but just know—it’s something only gods are supposed to have. But here’s the freaky part—he ain’t even a god."

’...What?’ Raven repeated, because his vocabulary had temporarily reduced itself to system errors.

"Dead serious, man. He’s got divine power like a god and got a tale like a god, but he ain’t a god. You gotta trust my word as a god-slaying sword."

Raven’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Graye, who was now stretching his legs like a jogger warming up for a 5k.

"Ready when you are!"

That’s what the guy said when he felt Raven’s gaze.

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