’So this is where it is, huh?’ "Adam" let out a heav sigh as he stood silently in the damp room.

He was looking intently at the jagged unnatural entrance of an open cavern situated completely underneath the dilapidated Herb Shop that Klaus had entered a while ago.

It was a dark foreboding entrance that undoubtedly led straight into the massive, sprawling underground of Rivera City.

He was absolutely sure of it.

"Are you absolutely sure he’s down there, Eli?" He asked curiously..

A bright, shimmering golden sparkle suddenly sparked to life right next to "Adam". It started as a single, microscopic dot of condensed light, but it quickly expanded into a floating ethereal spirit orb.

As the legitimate Crown Prince of the Empire, even though he surprisingly didn’t possess an innate affinity for traditional magic like his monstrously talented younger sister did... he still possessed the incredibly rare, innate royal ability to whisper to and command spirits except, this specific golden spirit actually belonged to his sister.

She had forcefully assigned it to passively shadow and protect him, even though, realistically speaking, there wasn’t much in this entire continent that could actually kill him.

"Absolutely." The Spirit replied, its voice chiming out in an inexplicably high-pitched girly tone that echoed softly in the quiet room. "His mana signature plummeted straight down that shaft. But might I ask... why in the world are you so incredibly interested in a Commoner, my prince? This person is totally, unequivocally beneath you in every conceivable metric. Why would you go entirely out of your way to relentlessly stalk a commoner... and not even a pretty commoner woman, but a grumpy man, too?"

The Prince’s disguised, average-looking cheeks immediately brightened into a massive highly visible red blush.

He quickly looked away, rubbing the back of his neck as he uncharacteristically stuttered. "W-well, you wouldn’t u-understand at all, Eli! It’s complicated!"

He slowly knelt on one knee next to the jagged hole, peering down into the oppressive darkness.

Right from the exact moment that he had been born into this world, it had been nothing but endless suffocating smiles.

His father, the Emperor, loved him unconditionally. His mother loved him to a fault. His prodigy sister loved him to the point of absolute obsession. Hell, even the ambitious Concubine of his father, as well as her own illegitimate son who should have logically been his sworn political rival, deeply and genuinely loved him too.

Everybody... the high-and-mighty Nobles, the dirt-poor Commoners, the foreign dignitaries, everyone. It literally didn’t matter who they were or where they came from... They all loved him.

Why did they love him so much? It was a maddening phenomenon.

Princes in other neighboring Empires routinely got hated and sometimes assassinated because the downtrodden Commoners deeply disliked that they were of such high untouchable status and other ambitious nobles constantly plotted their downfalls but somehow, he was universally loved, even in completely hostile foreign countries.

Even here, the Commoners didn’t even harbor a single ounce of resentment if he was outwardly rude or dismissive to them. They just smiled and praised his ’boldness’.

Prince Zephyr was so unbelievably tired of it... It felt like a psychological curse so, when he finally saw somebody... Klaus who actually, genuinely disliked him with every fiber of his being, he simply could not let the man go.

He had immediately rented a cheap, rundown inn right close to Klaus’s location just to keep tabs on him and when Eli had relayed to him earlier today that the grumpy man wanted to go somewhere specific, he had immediately rushed to the Carriage to follow him like a lovesick puppy.

Zephyr absolutely loved that Klaus hated him... It made his heart pound against his ribs in a way it never had before.

It made him genuinely... incredibly excited to see that dark annoyed, thoroughly disgusted look on the young man’s face whenever Klaus was forced to look at him. It was the only real unfiltered emotion he had ever received in his entire life.

"All I’m seeing is that you’re just deeply gay, my prince." The Spirit retaliated bluntly, her golden orb bobbing as she let out a heavy immensely disappointed sigh. "The Commoner doesn’t like you, and you obsessively like him... These are the fundamental, textbook workings of a very abusive, one-sided friendship."

"Stop talking..." The Prince said sharply though his face was still burning red.

He abruptly stood up and forcefully ran a hand through his illusionary blond hair.

With a soft hum of dissipating mana, he casually dispelled the complex, high-tier rune that served as his "Adam" disguise.

The blond man instantly melted away, and a breathtakingly gorgeous man took his place. Long, pristine white hair that flowed smoothly down to his broad shoulders caught the dim light and piercing predatory purple crystal-like eyes glowed in the darkness.

The "Adam" disguise was completely gone and Prince Zephyr, the true Heir of the Empire, had taken his rightful place.

"Come, Eli. Let us be on our way."

"Very well." The Spirit glowed a bit brighter next to him.

Without a single moment of hesitation, Zephyr stepped off the ledge and together, they dropped straight down the massive, vertical tunnel, plummeting through the darkness.

It took a while but they landed on the hard, rocky ground of the subterranean cavern with a heavy concussive thud that kicked up a cloud of dust.

Zephyr immediately took hold of the ornate, platinum hilt of his royal sword, drawing the blade with a sharp ringing hiss of steel.

He pointed the razor-sharp tip directly forward. His crystal purple eyes instantly analyzed the chaotic scene before him. He could clearly see Klaus, who was currently balancing on a flying sword with a terrified Cedric latched onto his back.

They were completely cornered, confronted by a massive, fanatical mass of the Death Cult members and standing right at the forefront was a terrifying woman emitting a strange aura wearing a pristine bone skull mask over her face and sporting long white hair.

The Prince stood up fully and suddenly, his monstrous, overwhelming aura flared violently to life. It didn’t just radiate; it etched itself into reality.

Blindingly bright, violent purple lines formed across the solid stone ground, spreading outward like complex, glowing magical circuits that illuminated the entire cavern in an oppressive light. He held his sword forward effortlessly in one hand, the tip aimed directly at the Heir of Death.

"If anyone moves..." Prince Zephyr commanded. "Then I will cut you down immediately."

Instantly, the frantic cultists froze in place as the whole massive underground cavern turned as dead quiet as a forgotten graveyard.

...

’What the hell is this fucker doing here?’ Klaus thought, his eyes widening in shock. His face immediately contorted, twitching violently in absolute disgust.

’Don’t tell me that he was actually stalking me... or something incredibly creepy like that...’

Also, why the hell did he just randomly remove his "Adam" disguise right now? The illusion had been completely stripped away, and now Klaus was forced to look at the man’s true form.

Looking at the Prince now, Klaus could vividly see just how much more objectively inferior he was to this man. It was genuinely infuriating. It didn’t matter if it was physical body proportions, sheer facial symmetry, or even the majestic, flowing quality of his hair. Klaus was utterly, completely outmatched in every single physical and aesthetic way.

It really served as a harsh, depressing reminder that there were massive, insurmountable biological and magical differences between commoners and high-ranking nobles in this fantasy world.

Klaus let out a bitter internal sigh. If only that Legendary Spin he had attempted back in his college’s public bathroom back on Earth had gone even a little bit better, then maybe his reincarnation luck would have made him a whole different overpowered person from the start.

’Whatever...’ Klaus thought, gritting his teeth. He didn’t actually hate the Prince in a homicidal way, but that absolutely wouldn’t stop him from actively sneering at the pushover royal for being a constant walking reminder of his own average status.

’Wait... Also, why is he lying right now?’ Klaus blinked.

It wasn’t like the man could actually instantly cut through that massive, football-field-sized distance in a single microsecond.

Well, realistically, Prince Zephyr could easily do it if he was properly prepared, but he was currently actively using the Lotus Current pattern style of the Royal Swordsmanship.

Klaus recognized the specific grip and the way the Prince’s knees were slightly bent. The Lotus Current was a highly specialized foundational stance which allowed the user to rapidly gather and compress ambient environmental aura in the air much better specifically to force it into their sword blade for a subsequent, devastating attack by spreading out aura in circuits.

It was a charging stance not a quick-draw stance.

Royal Swordsmanship had dozens of different highly complex sub-styles beneath it which all direct descendants of the Royal family that were aura users had to painstakingly master.

Klaus was at least deeply glad he didn’t ever have to go through the torturous stress of mastering such rigid martial arts. Regardless, the Prince was currently bluffing his instantaneous lethal range just to establish dominance and Klaus was absolutely going to exploit that.

Using this golden opportunity while everyone was completely paralyzed by the Prince’s oppressive threat, Klaus acted. He forcefully surged mana into his floating sword and accelerated instantly, violently bursting forward with a boom that shattered the silence.

As expected, the Prince didn’t do anything to stop him. He didn’t swing. Instead, Zephyr just stood there, completely lowering his guard to look directly at Klaus as the young man sped rapidly past him.

Klaus violently pushed his magnetic control to the absolute limit, forcing his floating sword to sharply ascend straight up through the massive vertical hole where the Prince had just arrived from.

As Klaus rocketed past... the two men made brief intense eye contact.

Klaus glared at him and gave a genuinely annoyed disgusted frown before rapidly ascending straight up the chute and completely disappearing into the darkness toward the surface.

Down below, Prince Zephyr simply stared at the empty space where Klaus’s face had just been. A massive, radiant red blush violently blossomed across his pale cheeks and his purple eyes practically sparkling with pure euphoria.

’He hates me... he actually hates me, even when he knows I’m the Prince! Yes!’

The Crown Prince of the Empire literally felt an overwhelming urge to jump up and down in pure joy... He was completely distracted, caught in his own twisted, obsessive daydream.

Seeing that the terrifying royal intruder was suddenly completely distracted and staring blankly into space, one of the fanatical cultist women saw what she perceived as a flawless opening.

"He dropped his guard! The arrogant fool!" The cultist screeched, letting out a highly skeptical crazed laugh that echoed off the stalactites. "Tear out his royal heart! We will sacrifice his noble blood to our god! For the Heir!"

She rushed him with terrifying, supernatural speed with her hands violently erupting with those soul-destroying black flames as she aimed a lethal, decapitating strike right at Zephyr’s exposed neck.

"My Prince!" The Spirit, Eli, shouted in genuine warning as her golden light flaring however, the Prince didn’t even visibly move a single muscle... He didn’t shift his stance neither did he blink.

Yet, before the screaming woman could even close the final three feet, a sickening, wet schlick echoed through the cavern.

The crazed cultist suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened in absolute, uncomprehending shock. Slowly, horrifyingly, her entire body simply fell into two perfect symmetrical halves. She had been completely bisected vertically, from the crown of her head straight down through her pelvis.

Her organs, steaming and hot, violently splattered across the cold rocky ground in a grotesque horrific shower of crimson and bile as her two halves flopped wetly onto the purple-illuminated stone.

"I’ll never be able to fully get used to you moving faster than my Spirit Sense can even process..." Eli muttered softly, floating slightly higher to avoid the expanding pool of blood.

Zephyr simply let out a quiet sigh. If he had actually wanted to, he could have effortlessly killed Klaus for moving and disobeying his order a moment ago, too but he had wanted Klaus to move.

He had actively created that specific opening just to watch him run away and glare at him.

"Now..." Zephyr’s crystal purple eyes suddenly stopped looking at the ceiling and snapped forward, locking onto the Heir of Death and the remaining army of cultists.

He slowly raised his platinum sword high above his head. The dense, circuit-like lines of purple aura that he had previously spread all around the cavern floor violently flared to life.

"For disobeying my direct orders..." Zephyr’s voice dropped. "Begone with the Thunderclap..."

The Prince ruthlessly slashed his sword downward and for a terrifying, agonizing fraction of a microsecond, there was absolutely nothing.

The entire cavern fell into a vacuum of absolute silence as all the glowing veins of purple aura instantly vanished from the ground, fully absorbing into the trajectory of the blade.

The woman who wore the bone skull mask, the terrifying Heir of Death, suddenly realized the sheer, catastrophic scale of the attack.

Her eyes widened behind her mask, and she desperately threw both her hands forward, rapidly erecting dozens of overlapping, high-tier barriers of dense black death-flames to protect herself but it wasn’t even close to being enough.

A massive, invisible wave of pure condensed kinetic annihilation erupted forward. The colossal slash violently went downward, expanding to the entire width of the cavern.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The sheer force of the slash effortlessly cleaved through the Heir of Death’s barriers like wet tissue paper. The sound of the impact was deafening with a horrific sonic boom.

The invisible blade sliced completely through the solid bedrock of the cavern floor, violently gouging an impossibly deep, perfectly smooth chasm straight down into the earth.

It brutally cut through the entire army of cultists in a single, uninterrupted sweep. There was a horrific, collective screech of absolute agony that was instantly silenced as every single woman in the direct path was effortlessly, violently sliced completely in half at the waist.

Blood, pulverized bone, and shredded black robes exploded into the air, instantly vaporized by the sheer heat and friction of the massive aura wave.

The top halves of dozens of bodies slid sickeningly off their waists with a tidal wave of gore washing over the newly carved stone.

The massive slash didn’t stop there. It violently blasted forward, cutting completely through the massive tunnel walls and heavily altering the entire geographical structure of the underground system.

When the deafening rumble finally ceased and the thick suffocating cloud of dust began to clear, the original stone ledge they were standing on had been completely annihilated.

The entire forward section of the cavern had literally been turned into a massive crater violently carving its own incredibly large impossibly deep tunnel leading straight downward into the abyss of the earth.

The Prince slowly lowered his arm, looking down at his pristine, completely bloodless sword with a soft slightly awkward sigh.

"Eli... did I overdo it?" Zephyr asked genuinely, casually reaching up and awkwardly rubbing the back of his head with his free hand as he pouted slightly. "I had actually meant to hold back that time."