Reincarnated as an Elf Prince-Chapter 111: Selene
The pain wasn't gone.
He'd just run out of ways to measure it.
Numb was too gentle a word.
Lindarion could still feel the bruises. The missing nail. The stitch across his shoulder where flesh had split from the heat of some tool he didn't have a name for.
Every second throbbed in some corner of his body like a forgotten drumbeat.
But he could think again.
That was dangerous.
For them.
Lindarion leaned back against the far wall of the cell, the one that didn't hum when you breathed too close to it.
His breath came ragged, shallow, but steady.
'No guards this time…I think..'
That was new.
They'd stopped bothering to watch him.
Not out of mercy.
Out of confidence.
That was a mistake.
He shut his eyes.
Didn't focus on the pain.
Didn't focus on the room.
He went inward.
Down, past the bruises and torn muscle.
Past the ache of his overdrawn core.
Past even his thoughts.
Into the still part.
The part they hadn't reached.
The part they couldn't.
Where the shadow waited.
He whispered—not out loud.
But through the bond.
Not a call.
Not a plea.
A name.
"Selene."
The shadows around him twitched.
Not moved.
Twitched.
Like they'd heard something they weren't supposed to.
The air lost its weight.
Sound vanished—not dulled, devoured.
And then—
A voice. Not soft. Not loud. Not distant.
Just there.
"Young master…."
The shadows exploded.
Not expanded. Not drifted.
They erupted, splitting the walls with lines of cold, living black that spidered across every surface like the cell had been hiding a secret and it was finally too tired to keep it.
Selene stepped from the center of it.
No footsteps.
No drama.
Just arrival.
She was tall this time. Impossibly graceful. Cloaked in shade. Her silver eyes glinted like polished blades under a moon that wasn't there.
Her hair coiled and rippled like threads in water, bound only by will.
She took one look at him—
And the room shook.
Her mana didn't flare.
It pierced.
A pressure slammed outward from her body, crashing into the walls like a crashing wave made from night itself.
The cell cracked.
A real crack.
Hairline fissures up the enchanted obsidian stone that shouldn't have cracked.
Not from anything.
Selene stepped forward once.
The shadows coiled behind her like a beast being barely leashed.
Her voice was still soft—but venom hummed underneath.
"Who did this?"
Lindarion swallowed thickly.
His lips were dry. His throat burned. But he still managed the words.
"I don't know," he rasped.
A beat.
Then a whisper in his mind, not his ears.
"Then I will find them."
Selene's form pulsed once—and the shadows slammed into the far wall like a battering ram.
The door didn't open.
It folded inward.
Steel screamed. Something magical sparked in protest—and then was snuffed out like a candle under a tidal wave.
Alarms didn't sound.
They were too slow.
The hallway outside the cell went pitch black.
No torches. No mana light. No fixtures.
Just void.
Selene's aura filled the space like a sovereign reclaiming her land.
And somewhere down the corridor—
Boots. Metal. Running.
Good.
She wanted them to run.
Her hand flicked.
A tendril of shadow shot from her wrist, too fast to track. It wrapped around one of the torches, coiled up the wall—and ripped the masonry from its hinges with the force of a siege weapon.
The stone slammed into the corridor, pulverizing it.
Screams followed.
One.
Then silence.
She turned slightly, one eye still on Lindarion.
"You gave me permission."
He nodded once, slowly.
"Burn it all."
She smiled.
Not pretty.
Not soft.
A smile full of teeth.
Selene vanished into the corridor, her shadows trailing behind her like a cloak with too many arms.
And then the sounds began.
Steel on bone.
Mana slicing through air.
Walls collapsing.
Every few seconds, the hallway shook again—closer to reverberating than exploding.
And each time—
Lindarion felt a little more of his weight return.
Not strength.
Will.
They'd tried to break it.
But the mistake wasn't in hurting him.
The mistake was not hurting him enough to keep him from calling her.
And now they would learn—
Selene wasn't just a normal summon.
She was vengeance wrapped in elegance.
And she was very, very loyal.
—
The corridor outside Lindarion's cell had already collapsed into carnage.
One guard was slumped against the far wall, his neck folded at the wrong angle. Another was pinned through the torso with his own halberd, twitching faintly. A third had simply vanished—only his hand remained, twitching in a puddle of shadow that didn't reflect light correctly.
And in the center of it all—
Selene stood still.
Her body was upright, her cloak still dripping ink-like darkness into the floor. Her hair clung to her cheeks, damp with cold sweat and something else. Her gloves were stained red. Not blood-red. Just… red.
She stared down the hallway.
One door remained closed.
And then—
The Man stepped out of the hallway's far bend.
He walked like someone expecting respect. Polished boots. Crisp coat. Mask with a mirrored finish that caught no reflection, only silence.
He stopped six paces from her. His hands were clean. Unbloodied.
He took one look at the corpses. Then at her.
New novel chapters are published on freewёbn૦νeɭ.com.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"
Selene didn't respond.
She blinked once. Slowly. Not out of confusion—just deciding whether this one was worth speaking to.
He lifted a brow, though the mask didn't show it. "Did one of the cells fail? Were you one of the blood-class runaways?"
She took one step forward.
He raised a hand, more out of performance than threat. "Let me guess. You're here for the boy?"
Selene moved.
It wasn't teleportation. It wasn't magic.
It was just fast.
She covered the distance between them in under a second. No sound. No warning. Just motion.
Her fist hit his ribs hard enough to send him flying.
The Man grunted as he hit the stone wall shoulder-first and crumpled in a heap. He rolled once. Then stopped.
"…Huh," he muttered, pushing himself up. "Alright."
He stood slowly, brushing dust off his coat. "You're strong. That's rare. But you've got no idea who you're dealing with—"
She didn't let him finish.
Her boot drove into his gut and crushed him back into the wall before he could even raise a guard.
The stone cracked.
His breath left in a single, strained sound.
And Selene didn't stop.
She struck again—an elbow to the face.
Crunch.
Then a knee to the thigh—breaking bone.
Crunch.
Then another punch.
This one was meant to kill.
He caught it.
Barely.
Blood ran from his mouth. His stance faltered.
"You're not from here," he rasped.
Selene leaned in, her hand still wrapped around his collar.
"You touched him," she said.
That was all.
He blinked once.
Then tried to laugh.
It came out as a wet cough.
"What are you? A summon?" His tone shifted—mocking, but laced with realization.
"That's adorable. I didn't even think the little prince could make a construct that powerful."
Selene's hand twisted.
His shoulder dislocated with a wet snap.
"I am not a construct," she whispered.
Then she slammed his head into the wall.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
On the fourth, the stone caved in.
He dropped.
Unconscious?
No.
Still breathing.
Still alive.
Unfortunately.
Selene turned from his body and walked back. The shadows pooled behind her feet like they were holding their breath.
"Master," she said softly.
And then she arrived at the cell again.
The hall was quiet again.
Not the quiet of peace—just the kind that came after everything worth screaming about had already bled out.
Selene stood amidst the broken stone, motionless. Her body flickered faintly, cloaked in the last tendrils of shadow-thread she hadn't burned through. Blood—not hers—stained her boots.
But she didn't move.
Not yet.
Lindarion was slumped against the wall, barely upright.
His eyes were open, but unfocused.
Blood soaked his sleeves—old, some of it. Some fresh. His skin had that pale, wrong look people only got when they pushed their core past its limit and didn't bother stopping. Mana pooled around his body like a spilled ink well. Burnt out. Overdrawn.
He'd stayed conscious during her fight.
He hadn't needed to.
He had anyway.
Selene knelt beside him, slow and deliberate. Her hands didn't tremble.
"You shouldn't have forced it," she said quietly.
He didn't answer. His head lolled faintly against her shoulder as she caught him.
Selene closed her eyes.
"Permission to move you, Young Master," she murmured.
Still no answer.
That was permission enough.
She pressed a hand to the center of his chest—directly above the mana core. The brand there flickered beneath her palm. It pulsed once in response.
Faint.
But loyal.
Always loyal.
Shadow rippled around them.
The darkness didn't swallow them. It peeled back, one layer at a time—folding space like turning a book you've read too many times to be surprised by the ending.
But just before they vanished, Selene's voice spoke again—low, firm.
"I cannot guide us to a fixed location."
Her shadow twisted tighter around Lindarion's body, insulating him.
"We may end up… anywhere."
—
Snow.
A forest, white and endless.
The silence here was different.
Natural.
Like even sound took its time between breaths.
Selene appeared in the middle of it, kneeling in a shallow drift with Lindarion's body in her arms. She exhaled once—fog coiling from her lips in the cold.
He was shivering now.
Barely.
That was the only movement.
She laid him down gently on a dry patch of stone near a cluster of frozen roots. Brushed snow from his face. Checked the wound above his ribs where the mana strain had ruptured.
Still alive.
But only because his mana refused to stop protecting him, even when he couldn't protect himself.
Selene sat beside him, folding her cloak around both of them, anchoring her presence into the shadows beneath the snowpack.
Her eyes never left him.
Not once.
Not while the wind howled across the branches.
Not while the moon rose over the frostbitten treetops.
Not while the world tried to forget where they were.
