I'm Trapped Inside a Prince as the Most Powerful Entity-Chapter 43: Real Light Magic

Adam, wearing Eric’s body like a suit, didn’t stop. He continued walking slowly, steadily, towards the shimmering blue energy barrier that now protected the Baron, the mage, and the remaining soldiers.

His empty white eyes, with their pinpricks of bright light, were fixed on the mage standing just inside the dome, the one who had cast the protective spell.

The Baron, momentarily distracted by his son Lucas being thrown against the far wall, finally tore his horrified gaze away from Lucas and looked back at the approaching figure.

He saw the eyes – those chillingly empty white eyes – and felt a wave of fear wash over him, colder than any winter wind.

"Third Prince!" the Baron stammered, confusion mixing with terror. "What... what happened to you? Your eyes!"

Adam didn’t even glance at the Baron. His focus remained entirely on the mage. The mage himself looked terrified now.

As a magic user, he could sense the overwhelming, ancient power radiating from the figure walking towards him far better than the soldiers could. It felt like staring into an abyss.

But then, a desperate sort of confidence flickered across the mage’s face. He clutched the now-empty scroll tightly.

"Whatever you are," the mage called out, trying to sound brave despite the tremor in his voice, "whatever demon has possessed the Prince’s body... you cannot break this barrier!" He gestured towards the shimmering blue dome.

"This is a Light Barrier! Forged from pure protective energy! The moment you touch it, creature of darkness, its light will purify you! It will burn you away!" He seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as Adam.

Adam kept walking, his pace unhurried. He reached the edge of the crackling blue barrier. He stopped directly in front of the mage, only the shimmering energy separating them.

The mage stared into Adam’s empty white eyes, feeling his desperate confidence begin to crumble under that intense, inhuman gaze.

"So," the mage asked, his voice barely a whisper now, "what kind of... demon... are you, to possess the Third Prince...?" He couldn’t finish the question.

Because Adam simply lifted his right hand. He reached forward, seemingly ignoring the bright, crackling energy of the Light Barrier. His hand passed through the blue dome as if it wasn’t even there.

There was no burning light, no purification, no resistance at all. His fingers closed around the front of the mage’s expensive robes, gripping the fabric tightly.

The mage looked down at Adam’s hand, which was now inside the barrier, holding him. His eyes bulged with utter shock and disbelief. How? How was this possible? The Light Barrier was supposed to be impenetrable to dark or demonic forces!

Before the mage could even scream, Adam yanked him forward with surprising strength. The mage was pulled effortlessly through the energy barrier, ripped from the safety of the dome.

Adam didn’t stop there. He swung the terrified mage around in a wide arc overhead and then slammed him down hard onto the marble pathway just outside the barrier’s edge.

CRUNCH!

The impact was sickening. The marble cracked beneath the mage’s body. He landed near the edge of the manicured garden lawn.

Bones snapped audibly. The mage let out a choked gasp of pain and lay still, broken and twitching, his spell scroll fluttering uselessly from his grasp.

The instant the mage, the caster of the spell, was pulled outside the barrier, the shimmering blue dome flickered violently for a second and then collapsed, vanishing completely. The protection was gone.

Inside the now-unprotected area, the Baron and his remaining soldiers stared in horror at the broken form of their mage lying on the path. Panic erupted. "He’s through!" someone yelled.

Two soldiers immediately grabbed the terrified Baron, trying to pull him back towards the main entrance of the mansion. "My Lord, we have to get inside! Seal the doors!"

The Baron, however, was screaming his son’s name, trying to push past the soldiers holding him. "No! Lucas! We have to get Lucas! Bring him inside!"

Seeing the Baron’s distress, a few other soldiers hesitated, then broke away from the main group. They quickly ran towards the far wall where Lucas lay injured, intending to grab him and retreat into the mansion as well.

Meanwhile, the injured mage lying on the ground groaned, managing to push himself up slightly despite his broken bones.

Pain contorted his face, but fear overshadowed it as he looked up. Adam was standing directly over him, looking down with those empty white eyes.

Adam slowly raised his right hand again. He extended his index and middle fingers, holding them together like the barrel of a gun. "You spoke of Light Magic," Adam said, his voice cold and devoid of inflection. "Let me show you what real light magic looks like."

A tiny, intensely bright point of golden light appeared at the tips of Adam’s extended fingers. It pulsed with power.

Then, with three rapid, almost silent flicks of his fingers, three pencil-thin beams of golden light shot downwards. They weren’t like fire or lightning; they were pure, focused light, moving incredibly fast.

Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!

The beams pierced straight through the mage’s body – one through his chest, one through his shoulder, one through his leg – leaving small, cauterized holes behind.

The mage’s eyes went wide with final, uncomprehending shock. He didn’t even have time to scream before his body went limp, truly dead this time. The golden light faded from Adam’s fingers.

A short distance away, Alina watched this happen, her earlier grief momentarily overshadowed by sheer terror. She hugged herself tightly, trembling. The person wearing Prince Eric’s face was not the Prince she knew.

Eric, even when he was being teased or looked down upon, had always seemed... gentle. Kind, even if he lacked confidence. This person... this thing... was cold, ruthless, and terrifyingly powerful.

She remembered how Eric hadn’t even minded much when she called him useless or yelled at him.

She had felt safe enough around him to be blunt. But this being... she felt that if she said one wrong word, made one wrong move, those empty white eyes would turn on her, and those fingers would unleash that deadly light. The feeling was paralyzing.

Adam ignored the dead mage at his feet. He turned his head slowly, his glowing white eyes scanning the scene.

He saw the soldiers helping the injured Lucas away from the wall, trying to carry him towards the retreating Baron and the mansion entrance. He saw the Baron still struggling with the guards trying to pull him to safety.

A cold, humorless smile touched Adam’s lips. He spotted a real steel sword lying on the grass nearby, dropped by one of the soldiers whose head he had removed earlier.

He walked over and casually picked it up, testing its weight. It felt light and clumsy compared to weapons he was used to, but it would serve its purpose.

Adam hefted the captured steel sword, holding it loosely at his side. He looked towards the mansion entrance, where the Baron, his injured son Lucas, and the remaining cluster of soldiers were scrambling to get inside before he reached them.

He swung the sword. Not downwards, not upwards, but perfectly horizontally, level with the ground, putting seemingly little effort into the motion.

SSSSSHHHHHIIIIINNNNG!

An almost invisible line of pure, cutting energy erupted from the sword’s edge. It wasn’t like the energy slash he’d used before; this was thinner, faster, impossibly sharp. It shot forward horizontally, traveling at blinding speed, faster than light itself.

The energy line sliced through the air, through the gardens, reaching the massive stone mansion in an instant. It passed right through the building, clean and silent, at about waist height. For a split second, nothing seemed to happen.

Then, with a deep groan of stressed stone and tearing wood, the entire upper portion of the sprawling mansion above the cut line began to slide sideways.

It moved slowly at first, then faster, before crashing down into the lower section and the surrounding gardens in a deafening roar of collapsing stone, shattering glass, and billowing dust.

The entire mansion, a structure that had likely stood for centuries, was sliced cleanly in half horizontally, its top floors utterly destroyed.

The cut had passed just above the heads of the Baron, Lucas, and the soldiers who were frantically trying to get through the main doors.

They froze in place, staring up in utter disbelief and terror as the building collapsed around them, raining debris nearby but miraculously missing them due to the clean horizontal cut. Dust and powder filled the air.

When the noise finally subsided, leaving only the ringing in their ears and the sight of utter devastation where the proud mansion once stood, they all slowly, fearfully, turned around.

Adam stood exactly where he had been before, the captured sword now resting casually on his shoulder. He hadn’t moved an inch. He just watched them, those empty white eyes seeming to pierce through the dust cloud.

"Anyone else feel like running?" Adam asked, his voice calm, quiet, but carrying easily across the ruined courtyard, filled with a chilling menace.

The remaining soldiers, the Baron, even the injured Lucas propped up by guards – they were all frozen in place, paralyzed by sheer terror.

Their faces were white, mouths hanging open, staring at the being who had just casually destroyed a massive stone building with a single swing of a normal sword.

Any thought of fighting, any thought of escape, vanished completely. They were trapped, facing a power beyond their comprehension.

The Baron looked like he was about to faint. Lucas, despite his training at the prestigious United Academy, felt a fear deeper than anything he had ever known.

He was good, yes, but he wasn’t one of the true geniuses of the Academy, the ones who could perform miracles. This being in front of them... this was beyond miracles. This was godlike destruction.

Adam started walking towards them again, his footsteps slow and deliberate on the debris-strewn marble path. The captured sword remained resting on his shoulder.

"I’m only going to ask once," Adam said, his voice still quiet but resonating with power that made the air vibrate slightly. "If I don’t like your answer..." He didn’t finish the threat, letting the implication hang heavy in the dust-filled air. "...you die."

The Baron began to tremble uncontrollably, his teeth chattering. He looked like he was about to collapse.

Seeing his father in such a state, Lucas, despite his own terror and injuries, felt a surge of desperate filial piety. He couldn’t let this monster hurt his father.

He pushed away the guards supporting him, snatched a sword from a nearby trembling soldier, and with a desperate yell, charged forward towards Adam, dragging his injured leg behind him. "Leave my father alone!"

The Baron screamed, "No, Lucas! Stop!"

Adam’s glowing white eyes flickered towards the charging young man. He didn’t seem surprised or concerned. As Lucas limped closer, raising his sword for a desperate attack, Adam simply brought his own sword down from his shoulder.

His movements became a blur. The sword in his hand flashed through the air dozens of times in less than a second, weaving an intricate pattern around Lucas’s charging form. It looked like Adam was just waving the sword around casually. Then, just as quickly, he stopped, resting the sword back on his shoulder again. freewebnøvel.com

Lucas, confused, stopped his charge a few feet away from Adam. He hadn’t felt anything hit him. Had the monster missed?

Then, he looked down.

Dozens of thin, shallow cuts appeared simultaneously all over his body – across his arms, his legs, his chest, his face. They weren’t deep enough to be immediately fatal, but they stung intensely, bleeding freely.

He gasped, dropping his sword as pain flared through his entire body. He stumbled backward and collapsed onto his knees, shaking uncontrollably, staring up at Adam with wide, terrified eyes. He was defeated, utterly and completely, without Adam even seeming to try.

Adam ignored the kneeling, bleeding Lucas and continued walking past him, stepping around him as if he were merely an obstacle on the path.

He walked right up to the trembling Baron, stopping just a few feet away, looking down at the nobleman with those empty, glowing white eyes. The sword remained casually on his shoulder. The final question was coming.