Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 32 - 31 - Disciple and Master 3.

Raven stood amidst a clearing littered with bloodied corpses.

Beasts—ranging from stage one to three—lay broken and motionless around him.

Their furs were matted with blood, bones splintered like twigs, and limbs twisted, telling the story of a relentless battle that had happened.

The evening light now gave way to dusk, shadows stretching like silent witnesses to the carnage.

"Hah... Hah..."

Raven's chest heaved, sweat dripping down his jaw.

His tunic clung to his skin, darkened by blood—some his, most not.

His fists throbbed while his knuckles bled. After all, he had been fighting the beasts with his bare hands, and no matter how strong his body was, fighting stage-three creatures without mana wasn't easy.

His breathing was rough and uneven as the brutal reality set in: without mana, there was no second wind, no stamina recovery.

Raven had a lot of stamina, sure. But that didn't mean it was infinite.

One normally couldn't tell how much stamina they had because they had mana support, helping them fight even without stamina, but now it was different.

Every movement taxed his body twice over.

He wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

'Three hours... or more?' He wondered, unsure how long it had been.

That old man kept throwing beasts at him one after another.

Even now, he sat cross-legged on a boulder nearby, sipping tea like this was an evening picnic.

"Alright," Raven muttered, staggering slightly. "That's gotta be it, right?"

He didn't even finish the thought before Crisaius sighed dramatically.

"No," the old man grumbled, "one more."

Then, just as before, he reached toward a bush, grabbed something struggling with invisible force, and flung it at Raven.

Raven barely raised his arms in time to deflect the incoming beast. It crashed to the side, tumbling end over end before scrambling upright, snarling.

"Are you freaking serious!?" Raven finally snapped, rage bleeding into his voice. "What more do you want from me?!"

He pointed to the ground, the corpses, and his tattered clothes.

"I've shown you everything! My stance, my combat forms, the footwork I practiced for years! I even showed you the techniques I learned myself! What else do you want?!"

Raven wasn't lying. He showed him every technique he could.

He even showed the guy the techniques he had learned from the system: Krav Maga, which didn't require mana; Boxing, which could be used with or without mana; and Judo, which, just like Krav Maga, doesn't demand mana.

Yes, Raven lied about him learning these abilities on his own, creating them, but he showed it to them.

The only thing he was hiding was the Soul Power.

As said before, he didn't want to use it until necessary.

Crisaius, on the other hand, didn't answer right away.

He slowly rose to his feet, brushing his sleeves off, the playful glint gone from his eyes.

Then he looked at Raven.

He didn't just look at him but through him, as if peeling away every layer, searching past the exhaustion, the bravado, and the blood.

"...Have you really used everything?" He asked, his voice as serious as it could be.

He knew that Raven had something inside him—something that made him different. He wanted to see that.

He wanted to know what it was.

After all, out of the two people who knew Raven's mother wasn't a normal person, one was him.

Raven, however, didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Silence.

Then Crisaius waved a hand casually.

The beast he'd just thrown shattered into a heap of broken bones before it even hit the ground.

Raven blinked, stunned, as the remnants skidded to a stop before him. "...You didn't even look at it."

But Crisaius wasn't paying attention to that anymore.

His eyes narrowed, and he turned to the left, lifting his hand again. This time, his arm visibly tensed.

The air thickened as the trees around them trembled.

The ground rumbled as if something massive stirred beyond the treeline.

And then—it emerged.

A creature at least ten meters tall, covered in armored scales like molten obsidian, stepped forward, each footfall sending minor quakes through the forest.

Its yellow eyes glowed with violent intelligence.

It snorted, and smoke poured from its nostrils like a living furnace.

Raven's breath caught.

"Stage... five," he muttered. "That's a stage five beast."

He didn't need to ask. He knew.

He remembered what it felt like—this pressure, this weight in the air like a thousand invisible blades resting against your skin.

"Old Man," Raven said, taking a slow step back, raising a hand, "Tell me you're joking. Please tell me this is another messed-up joke."

Crisaius, however, simply met his gaze.

Didn't blink. Didn't smile.

"I'm not joking," he said softly. "If you don't defeat that beast... You will die."

Raven stared. Waiting for the punchline. A chuckle. A wink. Anything.

It never came.

"...You're serious."

"I am," the old man said simply.

Raven closed his eyes for a moment. "Of course you are."

Unlike the final test of Cradle, Raven couldn't take chances here. There was only one person who could save him from the beast, but even he had raised his hands.

The protagonist now knew he had no choice, and it was necessary to use his soul power.

The beast, on the other hand, shifted.

It turned its gaze toward Crisaius and then to Raven.

Its instincts flared. It knew the old man was death incarnate—but the boy? The boy could be torn apart in seconds.

Crisaius, seeing the beast's hesitation, walked past Raven and sat back down.

Casually. As if the beast wasn't even worth his attention.

The creature, understanding the message, growled and charged.

"The beasts these days..." Raven began, ignoring the creature. "Are so eager to die."

Before the beast's foot reached him, Raven's golden eyes snapped open.

Something ancient stirred.

The air changed, and the beast froze mid-charge.

Raven's eyes glowed like twin golden suns, their depth pulling reality itself toward them.

The pressure of something unfathomably old and dangerous pressed outward from his soul.

The forest quieted, and even the wind stilled.

The beast, however, remained still in its spot.

Raven, without even glancing at the creature, turned his head toward Crisaius.

All the seriousness a moment ago felt like a dream as a smile crept onto the Old Man's face.

"You happy now?" Raven asked, his voice sharp despite the obvious exhaustion in his eyes.

Crisaius grinned. "Immensely. It would've been easier if you'd just done that from the start."

At those words, Raven grits his teeth but says nothing.

He knew it. Knew that damn grin.

He knew there was no use arguing.

"Good," Crisaius said, standing again and clapping his hands. "Lesson learned."

He gestured, and Raven was again lifted into the air like a marionette yanked by invisible strings.

Raven didn't even protest this time. He just sighed.

He was too tired to bicker with this old crackhead.

Crisaius, however, chuckled. "Fast learner. You're already getting used to my ways."

Then, with a flick, he launched them into the sky again.

Behind them, the wind ripped across the clearing.

The beast, still frozen in place, didn't move a muscle until the trailing shockwave from Crisaius's departure hit it like a freight train.

Its body crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

It was dead.

Although there were no external injuries, its eyes were blank. It was as if it had died from the inside, which was exactly what had happened.

Raven, who had progressed his soul power to stage two with so much effort, could now do two things.

The first was soul defense, and the second was soul shock.

What he had used on the beast was soul shock, which usually sends a shock to the opponent's soul, stunning them for a long time, but if that shock was too powerful, then the opponent could be killed—something Raven tried for the first time today.

He didn't know if it would work or not, but since it did, he was happy.

The only problem was that killing a stage-five beast with soul power drained him.

However, he wasn't sad because, with this, he officially became the disciple of Crisaius Von Vaise.

'I wonder what kind of training I would go through...' Raven mused as the world blurred past him like before.

... Poor guy forgot who his master was and inadvertently got excited about the training.