Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The cell was darker than before.

Not because the light had changed.

Because something in him had.

Lindarion lay motionless on the floor.

Not asleep. Not unconscious. Just still.

The stone beneath him was cold. Slick with blood that no longer bothered to clot.

Some of it was his.

Not all of it.

The taste of copper coated the back of his throat like something spilled and never scrubbed clean. A single thread of red still ran from his split lip to the floor, curving across his chin like punctuation.

A period at the end of a sentence that no one had the nerve to finish.

His right shoulder was dislocated. His ribs were cracked—at least three, maybe more. His wrist was broken in two places.

'…Two tools ago,' he thought, distantly.

That part of his mind—the one that catalogued injuries like class assignments—was still working.

Everything else?

Felt like static.

His hands twitched. Once.

A flicker of motion like his nerves were still checking in.

[Mana Perception]

The skill activated on instinct.

No mana fields. No traps. No pressure changes.

But the residue was still here.

The Man had left it behind. Not just the scent of blood and the slow, deliberate monologue.

But his presence.

The kind of presence that filled a room long after the door had closed.

'He doesn't think of himself as a torturer,' Lindarion thought.

'He thinks he's a craftsman. And I'm his canvas.'

His fingers twitched again.

And that was enough to make him smile.

Cracked. Bloody. Small.

But real.

Because no matter how precisely the man had peeled, sliced, broken, pierced—

He hadn't gotten inside Lindarion's head.

He hadn't even come close.

Because the thing about mind attacks?

They didn't work on Lindarion.

Not since Ouroboros has blessed him.

Not since his thoughts became a maze with no doors, only corners—and none of them sharp enough to trap him.

The man had tried, of course.

Oh, he'd tried.

Illusions. Spells. Words laced with subtle psionic threads.

None of them stuck.

And it had made him smile.

The man.

The same way Lindarion was smiling now.

Because the man wanted to break something he couldn't reach.

And the only thing worse than a prisoner who screamed—

Was one who didn't.

The door hadn't been locked when he was dragged back in.

It didn't need to be.

Because the walls weren't built to hold him physically.

They were built to suggest that trying was pointless.

He closed his eyes.

He didn't rest.

He recalculated.

[Mana Thread Manipulation]

He didn't have the mana to launch an attack. His reserves were too battered, his core too strained. But a single strand—thin, precise—slipped out of his fingertip like a whisper.

It touched the base of the wall. Tasted it. Listened.

The magic in the material wasn't just suppressive. It was sentient-adaptive. Reactive to aggression. It didn't just block escape attempts—it remembered them.

Every strike, every burn, every scream etched itself deeper into the architecture.

'Lovely,' he thought dryly. 'The prison gets smarter the longer I'm in it.'

The thread withdrew.

There would be no clever escape with a single skill. No triumphant last-minute reversal.

Not yet.

His body wouldn't move properly.

His mind was still intact.

That was enough.

The door creaked open.

Not the man.

One of the others.

A lower-ranking handler maybe. No mask. Just a hood drawn too far over the face. A blade at his side. Shackles in his hand.

"You're up," the man said.

Lindarion didn't speak.

Didn't need to.

Because the man's hands were shaking.

Just slightly.

A tremble in his left wrist.

Lindarion's voice came out hoarse. Low. But even.

"You're scared."

The man stiffened.

"You shouldn't be," Lindarion added. "I'm chained. Broken. Helpless. Or so I'm told."

Silence.

Then:

"You'll speak to the man again," the man muttered.

"And what if I don't?"

"You'll die here."

Lindarion smiled with half his mouth.

"Better men have tried."

The man stepped forward, reached down—and hesitated.

Lindarion's eyes locked on him.

[Thronebearer]

The room bent around him for a second.

Not physically. Not with pressure or power.

Just presence.

The kind that made your thoughts blur. That made your hands second-guess the next motion. That made your heart beat just a little too fast in your throat.

"You're afraid," Lindarion whispered.

And this time?

The man felt it.

He slapped the shackles on roughly, dragging Lindarion upright. Pain lanced through his shoulder, his ribs.

He didn't flinch.

The man shoved him forward.

Out of the room.

Into the dark corridor.

—

The corridor was too quiet.

It didn't echo.

It absorbed.

Lindarion's boots scraped against the black stone floor, barely registering above the slow pulse of pain hammering behind his eyes.

'This much pain is starting to be alright..'

His broken wrist had been chained too tight. Deliberately so. The pressure was a message.

We can take more.

But the moment the metal clicked into place, he'd stopped thinking about pain.

There wasn't room for it anymore.

Only calculation.

The hooded handler walked two steps behind him. Too close to feel safe. Too far to be useful if something went wrong.

Lindarion didn't mind.

It made the angle easier.

He memorized each twist in the hall, each strange sconce that flickered not with flame, but with something colder.

Duller. Like light that had been drained and re-injected just enough to move shadows.

Left turn. Slanted corridor. Six runes hidden beneath the surface of the stone.

A trickle of something dark ran from the corner of his mouth. It wasn't blood this time.

It was mana.

Slipping out.

Leaking.

'My core's fraying,' he thought.

'Not broken… but fraying.'

The handler stopped at a door. Not like the one from before. This one pulsed at the seams, like it didn't want to open.

But it did.

With a whisper that was too long to be a sound.

They shoved Lindarion inside.

A different chamber.

Wider. Cleaner. Chairs lined the edge of the walls—nine of them. Only four were filled.

Figures in masks. Robes of varying design. One wore a uniform made of stitched flesh and glowing thread.

Another sat cross-legged, meditating without blinking. A third was disassembling a sword and humming something in a language that hurt to hear.

The fourth?

The same mysterious man as always.

Still masked.

Still smiling.

He didn't rise.

Didn't speak.

Just looked.

As if to say, he was late to some kind of party or meeting.

Lindarion didn't bow. Didn't kneel.

He didn't even glare.

He simply stood there. Bleeding quietly onto the floor. And thought.

'If I summon her now, they'll all try to kill me. At best, we'll make it halfway out. At worst…'

He glanced at the way the light curled at the corners of the man's mask.

'I'll die before I even get to do anything.'

So he didn't move.

Didn't call.

He waited.

One of the masked ones leaned forward. "We could remove the arm," she said cheerfully. "That would make him more cooperative."

"No," the mysterious man said, calm and smooth. "We've already heard his scream. I'd rather hear his silence."

"Then what is the point of this?" another asked, voice mechanical. "He's not breaking."

"He doesn't need to break," the man replied. "He only needs to understand."

"And if he refuses?"

The man tilted his head.

"Then he dies knowing less."

Lindarion's voice cracked the air.

"You talk a lot for someone who's clearly wasting everyone's time."

Silence.

Then—

The mysterious man lapped once, amused.

"Ah. That was bold, wasn't it? Acting like a man to the end."

He stood.

The other masked figures leaned back, as if they knew not to interrupt now.

The man stepped forward.

Stopped three paces away.

His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"You're bleeding," he said.

Lindarion said nothing.

The man reached out. Brushed a thumb under Lindarion's jaw. Wiped away a smear of blood and studied it like a connoisseur inspecting a rare wine.

"Your blood hums," he murmured. "Like an old song. I wonder how long it will take before it starts screaming."

'Damned psychopath.'

Lindarion's wrists twitched inside the shackles.

A phantom thread stirred in his mana core.

One thread.

One signal.

One whisper of something ancient.

'Not yet,' he thought.

'Just a little longer.'

Because the thing about Selene—

She would try to obliterate everything here. However Lindarion wasn't certain about the level of power Selene could display.

Not yet.

For now was building a plan.

Even as the man stepped back and motioned to the guards.

"Return him," he said. "Let him think in the dark again. He's not ready to listen."

The handler moved.

Gripped Lindarion's arm.

The pain flared. But his expression didn't.

The man paused before the exit. Glanced back once.

"Do tell me when you're done performing for yourself, Lindarion," he said lightly. "The real conversation begins after the audience leaves."

Then he left.

The door hissed shut behind him.

And the silence returned.

But Lindarion?

He was smiling again.

Because somewhere in that broken body, the shadows curled.

Waiting.

And she was waiting to be summoned.

Soon.

He would call upon her.

And when he did?

The cell wouldn't hold them back anymore. Not even the whole place would be able to hold them.

Not this time.