Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The battlefield didn't scream anymore.

It whispered.

Boots crunched on broken stone. Mana still clung to the air like fog too proud to leave. The courtyard was hollowed—less a place of safety and more a mausoleum made too early.

Luneth stood in the center of it all.

Ice affinity had its uses.

She didn't sweat. Didn't panic.

But even now, even with her mana cooling the space around her into a still mist, her fingers twitched once. Just once.

That was enough to be a problem.

Across the courtyard, Cassian lay curled beside the scorched edge of a statue. His leg was bent wrong. Too much blood. Not enough sound. But he was breathing.

'He's fine. Or close enough. I think.'

Vivienne was kneeling beside him, coat shredded, fire-imbued sparks still humming faintly at her fingertips. She wasn't speaking. Just holding pressure against the wound.

Valen stood motionless a few feet away, face unreadable. The wind didn't even move around him.

'He's too still,' Luneth thought.

'Like he's waiting for something else to go wrong.'

And in the center of it all—empty air.

Where Lindarion had been.

Luneth's jaw clenched.

She had seen the moment.

The flicker.

The tear in space that snapped shut around him like the mouth of a beast that knew it wouldn't have to chew.

He'd fought back. Of course he had.

But it hadn't mattered.

There were too many of them.

And Lindarion was still just a kid.

Luneth didn't like losing variables she couldn't predict.

Especially not the ones who stared at monsters like they were mildly inconvenient essays.

Footsteps behind her.

Precise.

Measured.

Sharp enough to be deliberate, but not loud enough to be disrespectful.

Luneth turned before the voice came.

Professor Nyx.

At last.

'What took her so long?'

Her robes were wind-swept, black-gold with a crystalline trim that shimmered faintly. Her staff was already glowing, lines of layered sigils burning down its length.

And her expression—

Not surprised.

But far, far from calm.

"Report," Nyx said flatly.

Luneth didn't bow. She didn't salute. She just answered.

"They took him."

Nyx's gaze sharpened. "Who?"

"We don't know. Eight figures. Armor. Unknown material. Their mana… was wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"Like they didn't care about anything at all," Luneth said.

Nyx's eyes flicked toward the rupture. The glowing edge was already gone—but the scar in the stone remained. A fracture where the world had been bent in the wrong direction.

"And the others?" Nyx asked.

"Elara's upstairs. Nikolai's still helping with evacuations. Jack's bleeding but pretending he's not. Cael'arion went after the gate breach with a few third-years. Vivienne's… busy."

"And you?"

Luneth paused.

Then answered, "Waiting for something else to go wrong at this point."

Nyx didn't smile. She never did. But something in her expression changed.

"Good," she said quietly.

Then she turned her staff toward the fracture—and the ground beneath it rumbled again.

A containment ward bloomed into place, ancient script burning into the courtyard stone.

Not a healing measure.

Not a repair.

A seal.

Nyx didn't look up as she spoke again.

"Find the others. Tell them to regroup. The Headmaster has not responded to any of our calls."

Luneth's breath caught.

'Thalorin is missing too?'

She didn't ask the question. Nyx had already moved on.

"And Luneth," Nyx added without turning.

"If you have anything else to say, now would be the time."

Luneth's gaze flicked once more toward the empty air where Lindarion had vanished.

"…He wasn't the one who provoked them," she said.

"I know," Nyx replied.

And then, as if that ended the entire conversation, she pressed her palm against the sigil—activating a new ward so old it hadn't been used in centuries.

Luneth didn't wait for further orders.

She turned.

And walked toward the others.

—

The first thing he noticed was the silence.

Not quiet.

Silence.

The kind that wasn't an absence of sound—but the presence of something else. Something that swallowed noise before it reached your ears.

Lindarion opened his eyes slowly.

No blinding light. No dramatic chains. Just a dimly lit room with a ceiling made of black stone that didn't reflect anything, not even thought.

'Well. That's new.'

He sat up. His muscles responded sluggishly, like they'd been asked to attend a meeting they hadn't prepared for.

Whatever sedative they used, it didn't last long.

He moved to stand—and stopped.

Not because he was restrained.

But because the room moved first.

A low hum rippled beneath the floor. A shifting, grinding sensation—like the space had rotated without warning, and gravity was pretending not to notice.

"Some kind of a spatial prison…?" he muttered.

He was in a cell.

Not a prison cell.

Something older.

More careful.

There were no windows. Just a single door. And even that looked… theoretical. The kind of door that only opened if it liked you.

Lindarion flexed his fingers.

His mana wasn't sealed.

That was interesting.

Too interesting.

'Either they're very confident, or very stupid.'

He stood carefully.

[Mana Perception]

The air around him shimmered faintly. He reached out—not physically, but magically—probing the shape of the room.

A dome, half a sphere sunk beneath something impossibly dense. The walls were reinforced—not just magically, but conceptually.

The room didn't just keep people in.

It made them forget how to leave.

His threads flicked out.

[Mana Thread Manipulation]

They curled against the edges of the room like feelers.

Nothing responded.

No pressure triggers. No hidden sigils. No echoes.

'Not a prison then. A message.'

The door clicked.

Not opened.

Clicked.

Like a tongue being readied behind a toothy smile.

Then it opened.

Slow.

And a figure stood in the threshold.

Not armored like the ones before. Not visibly armed.

Just tall. Cloaked. Their face was veiled by a fabric that shimmered in place—like it didn't like being looked at for too long.

"Lindarion Sunblade," the voice said. Soft. Not human. Not elven. Something in between.

He didn't answer.

Didn't blink.

Didn't move.

The figure stepped inside.

"You're not what we expected."

He tilted his head. "I get that a lot."

Silence.

The figure moved closer. Their presence didn't hum with mana. It buzzed. Like static in a room full of broken gods.

"Your core resisted full tethering," they said.

Lindarion didn't respond.

Because that hadn't been a question.

"You are being studied," the figure added.

Finally, he exhaled. "What the hell do you actually want from me?"

No answer.

The figure stopped three paces away.

"You are not bound. Not because we can't. But because we want to see what you'll do."

'Honest. Arrogant. This guy is definitely dangerous...'

That was three things too many.

Lindarion took a breath.

Focused.

He didn't activate a skill.

Not yet.

But his core pulsed once. A quiet, defiant heartbeat as his aura was released.

The figure didn't even flinch at all. Not even the tiniest bit.

Even though it was as if the temperature had changed.

As if something ancient had opened its eyes behind Lindarion's own.

"You don't know what I'll do," he said quietly. "That's why I'm still breathing."

The figure didn't move.

Didn't blink.

Just turned.

And walked out.

The door stayed open.

And this time?

It was an invitation.

A test.

And Lindarion hated tests.

—

The hallway didn't look like a hallway.

It looked like a thought someone tried to build but forgot how doors worked halfway through.

The walls stretched too high and too narrow. The stone was black, but not obsidian—not anything he could name. And the air wasn't air. It was—

—thick.

Like he was moving through the space between dreams.

Lindarion didn't speak.

Didn't ask where the man had gone.

Because it didn't matter.

He was still being watched.

'Every time people give you freedom, it's not a gift. It's a mirror.'

He walked anyway.

Because staying meant submission.

And he was allergic to that.

The corridor bent. Not curved—bent. Angled at degrees no architect should have allowed. Every few steps, the floor shifted slightly beneath him, like it had to remember which direction "down" was.

No guards.

No wards.

Nothing.

That was worse than traps.

At least traps meant someone was afraid of you.

Eventually, he reached a platform.

Circular. Elevated. Floating—not above ground, but above something that churned far below in silence. The void beneath wasn't black. It was deeper. More final.

A pedestal rose in the center. Upon it—

—a blade.

Thin. Sleek. No hilt. Just a single edge forged from a color that didn't belong in this world. Iridescent black. Like light trying to flee and failing.

[Insight]

The skill seemed to activate automatically.

Pain stabbed behind his eyes.

Too much. Too fast.

He staggered back a step, exhaling sharply.

'It's not a weapon.'

It looked like one.

But it wasn't made for battle.

It was made for some kind of proof.

And someone—some thing—wanted him to touch it.

"Take it," said the voice from earlier.

Not in front of him.

Behind.

Lindarion didn't turn.

"I'm assuming you have a good reason for leaving some kind of an ancient artifact unsealed in the middle of your aesthetic nightmare of a prison."

No answer.

He stepped forward.

Paused.

Looked down at his hand.

Then reached.