Reincarnated as an Elf Prince
Chapter 252 - 252: Cave (2)

Ashwing backed up slightly. His size hadn't changed, but the lines of his body shifted, tighter, leaner, heat building under his scales.

"We break the wall?"

"No," Lindarion said. "They'll be watching for that. If they layered suppression wards into the rock, I'll trigger a feedback pulse the second I ignite anything too strong."

"Then what?"

Lindarion moved back toward the rune chamber. "We don't go back up."

Ashwing blinked. "The hell does that mean?"

Lindarion reached the center again and crouched over the massive rune.

"They designed this place to pull mana in. But every pull point has a release channel buried deep. If I can find the thread—"

Ashwing grunted. "You're going to use their own conduit to escape?"

"No," Lindarion said. "I'm going to trace the tether back to whatever's fueling it—and use that to punch through."

"Dangerous."

"I know."

He pressed his palm to the central line. Not his mana. Just contact.

The rune didn't light.

But something else did.

Beneath the floor, deep, deeper than the foundation of the estate, he felt it.

A pulse.

Not from the leyline.

From something older.

Something that hadn't moved in a very long time.

'Oh.'

Ashwing felt it too. "You feel that?"

Lindarion didn't speak.

Because this wasn't just a trap.

It was a trigger.

And his presence had been enough to wake it.

—

Lindarion didn't move.

Neither did Ashwing.

The pulse from beneath the floor slowed. It wasn't gone, but it wasn't building anymore either. Like something had stirred, tasted the air, and decided to wait.

Then—

A sound.

Not mana.

Not an explosion.

Just a soft clap.

Once.

Then again.

And again.

Measured. Almost polite.

Lindarion turned slowly.

There, at the far side of the room, stood a man. Tall. Pale. White hair that hung loosely around his collar, not quite combed, not messy. Just effortless.

His robe was clean white, layered and formal, high-collared with dark silver thread along the cuffs. The kind of fabric that didn't belong underground.

His hands came together one more time.

Clap.

Then he smiled.

Small.

Perfectly relaxed.

Black-framed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, catching a flicker of light from the dormant rune.

"Well," he said, voice clear, low. "I expected you to find this eventually. Just not so soon."

Lindarion's stance didn't change.

Ashwing dropped silently from his shoulder to the floor, tail still.

The man didn't react.

Didn't care.

That was the part that registered first.

'He's not measuring me. He already has.'

Lindarion spoke without raising his voice.

"Who are you?"

The man tilted his head. "No name. Not yet. You wouldn't know it. And if I said it, you'd only forget it after the next pulse."

He stepped forward.

Unhurried.

Comfortable in a place he clearly didn't build, but somehow owned.

"You're not supposed to be here," Lindarion said.

"Neither are you."

They watched each other.

Ashwing's claws tensed.

"I should kill you now," Lindarion said.

The man smiled again, wider this time, not mocking, just honest.

"You won't."

Lindarion's jaw clenched. "Try me."

"You're clever," the man said. "I've read your path. Tracked your timing. You've done well. Fast, even. But you're not ready for what's under this floor."

His voice softened.

"And you know it."

Lindarion's hands didn't twitch.

Didn't reach for weapons.

But his lightning affinity stirred in his spine.

'If he's trying to talk, it means he doesn't want a fight.'

The man's smile didn't change. "You're thinking, 'he's stalling.'"

"I'm thinking you need to shut up."

The man let out a quiet laugh. "You sound like your teacher."

That cut deeper than it should have.

Lindarion didn't blink. "You knew Thalorin?"

"Knew? No." He shook his head slightly. "We worked around each other. Opposite maps. Parallel designs."

He reached into his coat, not fast, and pulled out a small black coin. No markings. No mana signature. Just still.

He rolled it across the floor.

It stopped at Lindarion's foot.

"Three days," the man said. "That coin will light when the center ring is breached. If you're still in this game by then… we'll speak properly."

"And if I'm not?"

"Then someone else will be."

The man turned.

And stepped back into the wall.

Literally.

A shimmer. A slip between stone.

And he was gone.

—

Lindarion stared at the wall for three seconds.

Ashwing was already at his side.

"That guy," the dragon said. "Was way stronger than you."

"I know."

"He didn't even look at me."

"I know."

Ashwing flexed his claws. "I hate him."

Lindarion finally looked down at the coin.

It hadn't moved.

But the pulse beneath the rune had stopped entirely.

Like it was waiting for its owner to return.

Or for something worse to wake up.

—

The coin didn't pulse.

Didn't glow.

Didn't hum.

It just sat there, matte black, impossibly smooth, no edges worn, no scratches across its surface. It looked like something stolen from another story entirely.

Lindarion didn't pick it up.

He crouched beside it, narrowing his eyes, watching for any flicker of mana.

Nothing.

Ashwing padded in a slow circle around it, nose low, tail twitching. "It's not active."

"It will be," Lindarion said.

He didn't trust it. But he didn't ignore it either.

'He left it for a reason. Either a tracker… or a test.'

And he was tired of being tested.

He wrapped the coin in a thin thread of cloth from his coat's lining and sealed it in a pouch.

Ashwing snorted softly. "You going to let it tell us when to move?"

"No," Lindarion muttered. "I just want to know what it thinks I'll do."

The rune chamber had returned to its unnatural silence. The pressure under the floor, whatever that pulse was, had gone still. Not gone. Just… paused.

Waiting.

He didn't want to be here when it changed its mind.

Lindarion stood and turned toward the exit.

The main tunnel still hummed faintly with sealed mana. He reached toward it again, not with his hand this time, but with lightning.

Just a spark.

A low, rippling pulse from his fingertips through the air around the wall.

The stone flinched.

Not visibly, but the tunnel's suppression field buckled for a breath. A seam widened, just barely.

"There," he said. "Ashwing."

The dragon darted forward, tail lashing once. "Got it."

Ashwing leapt to the seam, jaws parting, and bit deep into the thin air between the runes.

It wasn't just teeth.

It was fire and pressure and raw authority behind the jaws of a creature that remembered what it meant to be feared.

The barrier cracked.

Mana rushed in.

Lindarion raised his hand and cut a line through the shimmer.

The tunnel opened.

No explosion. No rubble. Just a clean, wide gap back into the world above.

Lindarion didn't wait.

He ran.