Dragon's Awakening: The Duke's Son Is Changing The Plot-Chapter 181 - 180 - New Trouble.

Raven sat upright in bed, blinking at the unsettling stillness outside. His instincts prickled.

With this group? Silence was a war horn.

He jumped away from the bed and moved to the window, peering out—and there it was.

A procession of royal knights, clad in glinting white and gold armor, stood lined up at the massive front gates of their mansion, their banners fluttering with the insignia of the Velmoria Kingdom.

Three figures were already approaching the gate—Rufus, jogging while somehow talking to Nibbles, who was sitting on his head today; Alex, cracking his neck while walking as if he had just gotten out of a philosophical nap; and Jake, silently materializing from a nearby shadow, already inspecting the knights for threats.

"Great," Raven muttered. "Knights. If they are here this early in the morning, it’s either taxes or trouble."

The second was most likely.

His instincts even told him that it had something to do with the incident in the forest where they knocked six knights unconscious.

However, nothing would come out of making assumptions, so without another word, he leaped from the window in a graceful arc, flipping mid-air before landing like a mildly annoyed cat.

As he approached the group, others began to converge as well.

From the west wing of the mansion, Clara strolled out in her usual calm, barefoot grace, her long coat swaying gently.

A subtle ripple passed through the air around her as if the air itself vibrated in greeting.

Right behind her, Siris darted in, landing next to Clara after a wild front flip from the second-floor balcony—because doors were for emotionally stable people.

She twirled her daggers casually, eyes already narrowed in suspicion.

"I can stab first and we talk after, right?" Siris whispered.

"No," Raven said without turning.

"Aww."

From the back garden came a rustle—Graye, skipping over the fence with her usual glee, two sparring weights still chained to her wrists.

She waved cheerfully at the knights. "Are they knights of Velmoria?! Am I finally going to meet them?! They look strong!"

Raven groaned softly. "Please read the situation. As far as I can tell, they aren’t here to meet you."

The front door finally opened, and out stepped Selena, in her casual gown—but nothing about her presence felt casual.

Her black shadow rippled unnaturally behind her, the mouths on its surface lazily yawning as if waking from a nap.

She walked to Raven’s side with composed grace, eyes cool.

"Raven," she said softly, her presence like an icy tide, "I wasn’t informed of their arrival. So, I don’t think this is anything good."

"I could guess that much." Raven shook his head.

It was then that Lia, yawning, stepped out of the main door where Selena came from.

Her brows furrowed in a perfect mix of royalty and resting tsundere face, worry flickering through her eyes. "Why do I get the feeling that we are about to get pulled into something big?"

Then, without warning, Jessy appeared.

No footsteps. Just Jessy, standing beside them like she’d always been there, arms crossed and magnetic pulses flickering subtly around her fingertips.

"This was bound to happen. The plus point is that at least we could all rest the night," she said.

Raven nodded and finally faced the gate, raising his voice. "State your business. You’re late if you’re here for breakfast and early if you’re here to start a war."

The lead knight, a heavily armored man with a feathered helmet and a stiff posture that screamed ’noble and constipated,’ took a step forward and nodded, speaking.

"Raven Von Vaise. We come under royal decree. It is an order directly from the king. There has been... a development. You are all requested to accompany us immediately to the capital’s Grand Palace."

Clara’s eyes narrowed. "What development?"

The knight hesitated. "I... was not told. We were only given orders to retrieve you all with the highest urgency and utmost respect."

"Respect?" Siris whispered. "Maybe they do want to be stabbed."

Selena stepped forward, her voice formal and sharp as he spoke. "You bring a royal summon to the Vaise mansion unannounced, with orders you won’t clarify? This is not respect. This is a provocation."

The knight swallowed hard. "Princess, I—I deeply apologize. We follow only what was written."

Rufus squinted at one of the knights. "Hey. That guy. What do you think about getting beaten up by a squirrel?"

The knight in question looked confused. "I’d... rather not imagine myself fighting against any cute creature."

Graye, standing close to one of the knights, wearing her pitch-black armor like always, tapped the knight’s helmet. "What are your armors made of? They don’t seem very strong. How about we try a battle of armor??"

The knight stared at her through the visor, then glanced at the lead knight, recalling his words before coming here.

"Don’t engage in any conversation with that group. I’m saying that for your own sake."

He finally understood why the head knight had said that. So, he ignored Graye.

However, before the poor guy could even do anything, Siris was standing beside Graye.

Ting-Ting.

She poked his armor with her bone dagger, frowning. "I think I can penetrate this armor with my dagger."

The knights, staring at all this, glared at the head knight’s back.

’We told you we didn’t want to come!!!’

They wanted to yell that out loud, but they couldn’t because they had an image to maintain.

It was then that Raven spoke up, not to the knights but to his own group, especially Graye and Siris.

"Would you two come back here and let me speak?" He groaned, making the girls exchange a glance before returning with a sigh.

Of course, Siris didn’t leave before poking a hole in the knight’s armor one last time.

The knight deadpanned but remained silent.

Raven, ignoring what Siris did, turned to the head knight and crossed his arms, taking a single step forward, the morning wind teasing his hair as his expression sharpened.

"I assume the Velmoria Kingdom hasn’t forgotten the laws regarding the Vaise family," he said, voice flat but cutting. "No one—no one—summons us without prior notice, and certainly not without a family elder present. That includes the royal family."

The lead knight didn’t flinch, though there was the tiniest upward twitch at the corner of his jaw—like a man trying to suppress a particularly offensive sneeze.

"Our orders are clear," the knight replied. "We are to escort you to the Grand Palace. The king awaits."

Raven raised a brow and cracked his neck, the pop echoing like a gunshot in the morning silence.

"Then you should forward this complaint to the Vaise family elders," Raven said, shrugging with all the indifference of someone who had once defeated a demon using algebra.

"Only with one present will we move. Rules are rules. If you try to break them..."

He tilted his head slightly, eyes glinting.

"Well. That’s just asking for a fight. And the Vaise don’t back down from a fight."

Honestly, Raven didn’t mind attending the court, but he was sure they would try to pin some blame on them and try to get information.

Worse, Raven already knew that the royals, or at least someone in the royal court, were linked with the demons.

So, instead of going straight into the enemy’s camp, Raven preferred the question to be held in the Vaise estate.

His group responded instantly.

Clara let out the softest sigh, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I knew I should’ve brought tea. This is becoming one of ’those’ mornings."

Jake slowly cracked his knuckles, muttering, "...My shadow meditation."

Alex rubbed his eyes. "I was in the middle of debating metaphysics with a squirrel, but sure. Let’s go full national conflict before breakfast."

Jessy merely exhaled. Her magnetic pulses subtly hummed. "We’ve done worse before lunch."

Graye lifted a sparring weight and looked hopeful. "Wait, are we fighting the royal knights?! Oh my gosh, finally!"

Siris grinned like a cat presented with a laser pointer made of blood. "Stab time?"

"No," Raven muttered automatically.

Siris pouted. "You always say that."

The knights remained still, no one reaching for a weapon, no tension radiating from their ranks despite the mounting tension in the air. Raven frowned. They weren’t nervous. At all.

That’s when Raven noticed it.

A subtle shift in posture. Not among the ranks—but the head knight. Through the thin slit in his visor, Raven caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes.

They were smiling.

The next second, a voice echoed out, deep and smooth, like thunder smiling through velvet.

"Would this count as an elder of the Vaise family?"

The knights parted like curtains, moving in perfect synchronicity.

There, from between the knights, stepped out a man clad not in armor, but in a sharp black coat trimmed in silver.

His blue eyes glinted with wry amusement beneath raven-black hair slicked back with casual arrogance.

Raven’s eyes narrowed at once.

"...Damien."

Yes, he was the principal of the Vaise family’s Cradle and also an elder of the family, Damien Vaise.

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