Chapter 354: Volume II Ends With Luke Getting Kidnapped by His Wife!

Without waiting for his answer, Rhaenyra floated even closer until she was almost directly before his face, and whatever amusement had remained in her expression disappeared.

"Don’t tell me, Luke, that you’re actually trying to act like my husband."

Her golden draconic eyes stared into his as her voice became colder.

"Don’t, because a marriage ceremony doesn’t decide a dragon’s partner."

Luke’s expression barely changed after hearing those words, although the fingers of his right hand slowly clenched.

He knew exactly where that rejection came from.

’Because I’m weak...’

During the time they had remained apart, Luke had learned considerably more about dragons and their traditions, including one particularly important fact: dragons almost never willingly accepted someone weaker than themselves as their true partner.

Rhaenyra’s situation had been different from the beginning.

Her family had already rejected the marriage arrangement involving the Dragon Hero, so when the Hero of Light was summoned and the Dragon Temples demanded that a royal princess be sent to marry him, even Rhaenyra’s family, despite possessing demi-gods among their bloodline, couldn’t simply reject the priesthood a second time.

Doing so would have been dangerously close to openly disrespecting the Dragon God and the traditions upheld by the Dragon Temples.

That was why Rhaenyra had married him.

Not because she had chosen him.

Rhaenyra’s voice interrupted his thoughts, although this time there was no mockery in it, only obvious annoyance.

"Come with me. My grandmother wants to see you."

Luke didn’t answer immediately.

For several seconds, he simply floated there while the wind moved between them, and then his voice finally emerged from beneath the Titan armor.

"And if I refuse?"

"..."

Even Rhaenyra fell silent.

For a moment, she simply stared at the giant standing before her, because the person confronting her now felt completely different from the weak Hero she had subdued and carried away barely two months earlier.

Luke had already reached D-Rank, yet the aura radiating from his current Titan body reached far beyond what someone at that realm should normally possess, while the strange seventy-foot form standing before her gave Rhaenyra an even more uncomfortable feeling.

Her golden draconic gaze slowly moved across his armored body.

’This form...’

The more carefully she observed it, the more certain she became that Luke’s current body was fundamentally different from the one she remembered.

If she reduced her own strength to Luke’s realm and fought him as an equal, Rhaenyra doubted whether her dragon body could even survive a direct punch from this giant.

She paused upon that thought before correcting herself.

’No... it isn’t "maybe."’

’At the same realm, that punch would destroy me.’

Luke had become something far beyond the weak human she remembered, and even his presence now carried something that hadn’t existed when she first met him.

However—

Rhaenyra quietly sighed.

He was still weak.

At least, compared to the other Heroes.

Several of them had already crossed B-Rank and were now racing toward A-Rank, while Luke had only recently reached D-Rank despite possessing combat power far beyond his cultivation realm.

’He’s still too weak.’

Once she reached that conclusion, whatever brief interest his transformation had created faded beneath her usual confidence.

"I’ll say this one last time, Luke."

Her voice became cold again.

"Come with me peacefully, or I’ll use force just like I did before."

At almost the same moment, the System’s voice appeared inside Luke’s mind.

[Ahem! Luke, pride is one thing, but maybe you should actually listen to your wife this time, because technically... she isn’t wrong.]

Luke completely ignored it.

Unfortunately, this might have been one of those rare moments when listening to the System would have saved him considerable pain.

Luke drew back his arm.

Then he punched Rhaenyra.

WHOOOOOSH!

His gigantic fist tore through the air toward her, and seeing the incoming attack, Rhaenyra merely released another tired sigh.

"So you chose the painful way."

She raised one hand.

Just like the second day after Luke had arrived in this world.

THUUUUMP!

Luke’s gigantic fist slammed directly into her palm, releasing a violent shockwave that spread through the surrounding sky and pushed the nearby clouds apart, yet Rhaenyra’s comparatively tiny humanoid body didn’t move backward even slightly.

Her hand remained pressed against his knuckles as though she had stopped something completely ordinary.

Luke showed no surprise.

He had known this would happen before he even threw the punch.

Rhaenyra was now A-Rank, while Luke himself remained D-Rank, and even with the overwhelming advantages of his Titan body, the punch he had just thrown only contained power around the Mid-B-Rank level.

There was no realistic chance of overpowering her.

Still, he had thrown it.

Not because he expected to win, but because there was something the Luke from two months ago would never have possessed enough confidence to say.

A smile slowly appeared across his gigantic face.

"I am your husband, Rhaenyra Crimsonscale, and whether you like it or not, that is the truth."

For the first time since meeting her, Luke said those words without hesitation.

Without fear.

Without shrinking away simply because the dragon standing before him was stronger.

Unfortunately, courage didn’t protect him from the consequences.

Rhaenyra’s expression changed instantly.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Luke barely registered her movement before a fist struck directly into his chest.

His Titan armor and chest tore apart beneath the impact as his seventy-foot body became a black blur across the sky, flying backward for kilometers before crashing directly into a distant mountain.

BOOOOOOM!

The mountain shattered beneath the collision, stone and dust erupting outward as Luke’s broken Titan body disappeared beneath the collapsing rock.

Then Rhaenyra’s furious voice echoed across the ruined landscape.

"Say that again."

Those were the final words heard across Blackstone before Rhaenyra vanished from the Human Continent, taking Luke’s broken body along with her.

And with that—

Volume II came to an end.

---

Author Note:

Ahem!

Well... I definitely didn’t plan for Volume II to end exactly like this.

The original ending was supposed to have Luke receive a little more beating before Rhaenyra eventually carried his sorry body toward the Dragon Continent between her claws.

Yeah, extremely romantic.

But—

Luke decided to open his mouth and openly claim that Rhaenyra was his wife, and all of you already know what happened immediately afterward.

[Ahem!]

Okay, okay!

First of all, thank you to everyone who has continued reading this novel and stayed with both me and Luke throughout his journey so far.

So, what happens next?

Volume III will take place on the Dragon Continent, where Luke will finally begin discovering the greater structure of Valtharion, its different races, powers, and many of the things that have remained outside his reach until now.

Of course, while learning all of that, he will also have the considerably more dangerous task of trying not to die while conquering his fiery dragon wife.

There will also be new rivals waiting for him.

The Dragon Hero?

Nah, that guy is currently far too strong for Luke.

But our MC will reach that level as well.

He just needs time.

After the Dragon Continent arc, there will be a major timeskip leading toward the end of the one-year agreement, and the following volume will focus heavily on Nyra, Luke’s fourth wife, where he will finally save her—or perhaps more accurately, openly claim her.

And after that...

The Hero Ceremony.

So I hope everyone is excited for what comes next, because I definitely am.

Thank you again for staying with the story.

Your most amazing author,

—EternalVoidRuler

No argument on this.