Chapter 326: Chapter 325 - Finally Over.
The void itself screamed.
Raven’s jaws, stretched wide in draconic fury, poured out a torrent of black flame laced with voidfire. It wasn’t just destruction—it was erasure, a storm of unmaking that bent the very horizon as it streamed into the heavens.
He was directing every hint of his anger—
For being played by the demon.
For being lax enough to leave the neutral faction unprotected in the first place.
For leaving Jake here instead of Graye, merely because Jake asked for it.
For being unable to save the twenty-four people who died in the neutral faction.
—At the crack in the space.
The space crack shuddered, its jagged edges trembling as if the fabric of the world had finally met its predator.
The monstrous hand clawing through, however, did not retreat.
It gripped tighter, nails carving furrows of cosmic light. The flesh of the hand was beyond durability, older than mountains, and thicker than oceans.
Raven’s fire struck it again and again, the flames curling across skin that seemed untouched.
Then, the fire slipped through.
Like water through a broken dam, the voidfire mixed with destruction surged past the crack’s jagged edge, spilling into the abyss beyond.
A faint hiss—like boiling tar—echoed across existence. For the first time, the hand twitched not in defiance but in pain.
Finally, the hands jerked back.
The entity withdrew, shaking as if it had only just realized it was burning.
To have something so weak, so insignificant, scar its skin was intolerable. But the flames were not normal fire—they clung, they consumed, and they erased.
The hand vanished, and Raven roared.
His wings stretched to their full, terrible span, and his chest swelled with air and void.
His breath only intensified, flames howling brighter, thicker, until it was no longer a stream but a flood.
The crack shrieked.
Every fracture split wider, but not in opening—no, in collapse. Shards of broken sky shattered outward like glass beneath a hammer, disintegrating under the tide of annihilation.
Then—silence.
The breach was gone.
What lingered was only the faintest shimmer of scorched violet in the night sky.
But as Raven’s breath guttered out, he caught it—two eyes. Enormous. Inhuman. It was set within the sky where the crack had been, staring back at him.
However, those eyes weren’t hateful or even angry. Those eyes felt curious.
It was as if some ancient predator had paused mid-meal because it had heard an unexpected sound.
Then they were gone.
Raven hovered in the air, body trembling with exertion.
The fires along his maw dimmed to coals, smoke curling from his teeth. He lingered there, wings half-folded, a crimson giant watching the sky for signs of return.
On the ground, no one spoke.
Vairan, broken against the rubble, pushed himself to one knee, tears streaking his bloodied face.
His son still lived. But his gaze was not on Jake—it was on Raven.
Because, in that moment, he felt the bitter weight of helplessness and pride clash in his chest. ’That boy... he fights with the madness of Argon... yet more.’
Jake stirred, barely conscious in Lia’s cradle of vines. His gray eyes cracked open, lips trembling as he forced one hoarse whisper past bloodied teeth. "...Thank god..."
Duchess Elvarine, clutching her shoulder where a stone had torn her skin, bit down on her lip until it bled. Her eyes shimmered with something unspoken.
Raven—looming, resolute, fierce—looked more heroic than Argon ever had in his youth.
For some reason, that truth frightened her—especially because she knew that her daughter liked the boy.
Duke Astazin stood pale, and his lightning guttered. His fists clenched, his jaw tight.
He had always thought of himself as a storm—but what had he just witnessed? That boy... that dragon... he wasn’t a storm. He was the apocalypse given form.
The citizens were already worshiping him, as everyone in the capital city saw what he did.
They didn’t yet know that he was Raven, but the image of a colossal dragon slaying the demon generals that even Jake couldn’t stop and then closing the ominous crack that appeared in the sky was etched into their minds.
But soon, still in the air, Raven faltered.
"Fuck."
A groan rumbled from his throat as his colossal body flickered, scales cracking like glass before splintering away.
His wings folded inward, shrinking, breaking, until the crimson titan collapsed inward.
His dragon form was imperfect from the inside.
One couldn’t tell it by looking at it, but this form took a toll on Raven’s heart, as no matter how perfect his dragon form was, his heart was still that of a human.
Before, when he used partial dragonification, the strain on his heart wasn’t that high, because even then, he was partially human, but now, it was different.
Then, before everyone could sense anything, he fell—not as a dragon, but as a boy.
A naked boy.
Gasps rippled through the battered survivors, but before the sight could sink into scandal, Lia’s vines whipped up like a curtain.
Branches twisted, leaves sprouting thick and lush, wrapping around him like a living cloak.
The capital’s people, bruised and broken, saw nothing more.
Only the sight of their savior, shrouded in living green, as he descended from the sky.
Raven landed lightly, his bare feet cracking against the shattered cobblestone.
The vines draped across his shoulders and waist shifted with each step, green weaving into a mantle that hid what it needed to, but the pain etched into his frown was not so easily concealed.
Every beat of his heart hurt—not in the way of fatigue, but like a blade scraping against his chest from the inside.
’This body wasn’t built for it,’ he thought.
To make things worse, Raven had exerted too much force—pushing the dragon form to its maximum capability—to reach here in minutes when it would’ve taken him longer.
He had pushed his own limits, and now, he was paying the price.
Raven knew that if he didn’t find a solution for this soon, then this ability would end up being as cursed as his other powerful abilities.
He walked forward, shoulders tense, jaw locked against the sting in his chest.
Behind him, Lia stood still, hands frozen against her skirt, her pink eyes wide.
She should have looked away, but she couldn’t.
Her plants whispered everything to her—the texture of his skin, the way his muscles coiled beneath, even the size of his thing between his legs.
She swallowed hard, her blush spreading like fire across her cheeks.
But she wasn’t the only one.
Duchess Elvarine had caught the moment before the vines curled up around him—just a flash, but enough.
Her cheeks warmed despite herself. She bit the inside of her lip, forcing her gaze down, shame and something else warring inside her chest.
Raven, oblivious, kept moving. His eyes were fixed on one thing only.
Jake.
The boy lay sprawled against the cradle of vines Lia had formed, his skin pallid, breath shallow, and gray eyes half-lidded.
The boy had already lost his life, and the only reason he could still move was because of the remainder of the power he had received.
Raven crouched beside him, his shadow falling over Jake’s face. He stared down, fists tightening on his knees.
He wanted to yell.
He wanted to shake the boy by the collar and demand to know why—why he thought it was fine to gamble his life, why he would throw himself into a furnace with nothing but a fragile thread of hope.
He wanted to spit fury, to curse the arrogance of thinking one life meant so little just because another one waited in the wings.
But his throat closed.
Because deep down, Raven knew.
What Jake had done was the only move left. The best move. Maybe the only reason Velmoria still existed right now.
The anger in his chest cracked apart, leaving only a weight in his gut.
"...I’m sorry," Raven muttered. His voice was low, like the sound of stone breaking under water. "I fell into their trap. I should’ve seen this—predicted it. If I had..."
But then, Jake’s eyes fluttered, unfocused—but his lips curved. A chuckle, dry and faint, slipped from him.
Raven froze, as he had never seen Jake chuckle before.
Heck, he rarely smiled.
The boy’s cracked voice rasped through the silence, "It’s fine."
Raven’s brows furrowed.
"You’re human too," Jake whispered, his voice thinning with each word. "You can make mistakes. Not everything goes... the way you plan."
Then, with the faintest tilt of his lips, he echoed words Raven had said countless times.
"After all... the plot is diverging."
The last syllable faded, and so did he.
Jake’s head slumped sideways, his body collapsing inward as the power that had driven him bled away.
What remained was a corpse—a boy who had already traded his life, now truly gone.
Raven closed his eyes and exhaled. A slow, ragged sigh that tasted of ash.
Then, his hand rose once, almost to close Jake’s eyes, but then lowered again.
"Lia."
Her name left his lips like a command, though his tone carried more plea than order.
She stepped forward, trembling, and dropped to her knees beside him.
Without hesitation, she pressed her hand against Jake’s chest.
Her other hand steadied her body against the ground, veins of glowing green flaring under her skin as roots burrowed into the earth around her.
Her breath hitched, body shaking as her life poured out of her, years slipping like grains of sand into the wound of his body.
Then—
Jake gasped.
His chest rose violently as air crashed back into him. His fingers twitched, his gray eyes shooting open wide before fluttering shut again in exhausted slumber.
He was alive but unconscious.
Lia sagged forward, sweat dripping down her brow, her lips pale. But she smiled faintly, even as her body leaned against Raven for support.
Raven caught her without looking away from Jake. His gaze lingered on his brother’s now-living chest, rising and falling steadily.
The storm was over. But the cost had already been carved into their bones.