I'm Trapped Inside a Prince as the Most Powerful Entity-Chapter 45: New Mayor

Adam stood amidst the carnage in the ruined courtyard of the Baron’s mansion. The headless body of the Baron lay nearby, his severed head resting beside it.

Lucas, the Baron’s son, was kneeling on the ground a short distance away, clutching his broken arm and bleeding from numerous shallow cuts, sobbing over his father’s death. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

The few remaining soldiers were either dead, pinned to the wall, or likely buried under the rubble of the collapsed mansion. Alina watched from near the gate, trembling with a mixture of fear and awe.

Adam turned his empty white eyes towards Lucas. He walked over to the grieving young man and stopped in front of him. Lucas looked up, his face streaked with tears and blood, expecting death.

Instead, Adam pointed the steel sword he held – not the tip, but generally in Lucas’s direction – and spoke, his voice cold and commanding. "From this day forward," Adam declared, "you are the acting head of this household. You are also the new mayor of Crestport City and its surrounding territories, until the King appoints otherwise."

Lucas stared up at Adam, his expression bewildered. Mayor? Head of the household? After everything that had just happened? After this being had killed his father and dozens of his men? It made no sense.

Before Lucas could even process the strange declaration, Adam reached out with his free hand, palm facing Lucas. A soft, warm light emanated from Adam’s palm. It washed over Lucas’s body. Instantly, the stinging pain from the dozens of cuts faded away as the wounds rapidly stitched themselves closed, leaving only faint pink lines.

Lucas felt the bones in his broken arm miraculously knit back together, the agonizing pain vanishing, replaced by a dull ache and then nothing at all.

He hesitantly moved his arm, finding it fully functional again, though sore. He stared at his arm, then up at Adam, completely stunned by the effortless display of healing magic, which seemed just as powerful as the destructive force he had witnessed moments earlier.

"You are healed," Adam stated simply, lowering his hand. "Now," he continued, his tone leaving no room for argument, "you will come with me. We are going to hunt down the Spider Syndicate."

Lucas remained kneeling, still trying to understand the whirlwind of events. His father was dead, his home destroyed, he was suddenly declared the new mayor, healed by the same being who had injured him, and now he was being ordered to hunt the very criminal organization his father had been secretly working with. He felt lost, scared, and utterly confused.

Adam didn’t wait for Lucas to fully recover. He turned and walked towards Alina, who flinched slightly as he approached. She still looked terrified of him. Adam stopped a few feet away from her.

"That man," Adam said, nodding briefly towards the Baron’s body, "claimed he killed your parents." He paused, his empty white eyes seeming to look right through her.

"But my senses detected no bodies matching their likely energy signatures nearby, nor did I see their deaths clearly in his recent memories. He might have been lying to hurt you, or perhaps they were taken elsewhere before being killed." He stated it plainly, without emotion. "Don’t give up hope yet, girl. They might still be alive."

Hearing this, a tiny flicker of hope sparked within Alina’s grief-stricken heart. Could it be true? Could her parents still be alive somewhere? The thought was almost too painful to hold onto after the Baron’s cruel words, but Adam’s statement, delivered with such certainty, planted a small seed of possibility.

She still felt incredibly scared of this powerful being, but his words offered the first glimmer of light she’d felt since hearing the Baron’s claim.

"I have found the Spider Syndicate’s local hideout," Adam announced, addressing both Alina and the still-dazed Lucas. "You two will come with me now."

Lucas slowly got to his feet, his newly healed body still trembling slightly from shock. He looked at Alina, then back at Adam. He was the new mayor, apparently.

And his first task was to follow this terrifying being into the den of the criminals his father had served. He felt a strange mix of fear and a dawning sense of responsibility.

Alina looked equally uncertain, glancing between Adam and Lucas, clearly unsure who to trust or fear more..

Adam didn’t give them time to debate. He simply raised his hand again. "Teleport," he commanded, not to Alina, but seemingly to the air itself.

Instantly, the world dissolved around Lucas and Alina. The ruined courtyard, the smell of dust and blood, vanished. For a heart-stopping moment, there was only swirling color and a sense of disorientation far more intense than Alina’s own teleportation.

Then, just as suddenly, their surroundings snapped back into focus.

They were standing in a different place entirely. They were no longer in the relatively open area of the Baron’s destroyed estate.

Now, they stood in a narrow, dark alleyway, the same one Eric and Alina had arrived in earlier. Lucas stumbled, feeling dizzy from the sudden shift, much like Eric had. Alina, surprisingly, felt less disoriented this time, perhaps because she hadn’t initiated the teleport herself.

She looked around, recognizing the grimy alley. Then she looked back at Adam, who stood perfectly steady, unaffected by the teleport. Realization dawned on her face. "Wait," she gasped, staring at Adam with wide eyes. "You... you can teleport too? You have a special skill like me?"

Adam completely ignored her question. He was already walking towards the end of the alley, his attention fixed on the dilapidated, boarded-up shopfront that concealed the hidden entrance to the Syndicate base. Lucas and Alina exchanged a quick, nervous glance, then hurried to follow him.

As they reached the end of the alley, Lucas, still feeling shaky and overwhelmed, hesitated. "Where... where are we?" he asked nervously, looking around at the rundown buildings.

Alina answered before Adam could. She recognized the area, even though it looked slightly different from this angle. "This is the Old Market district," she said, her voice hushed. "The Mayor – Karlos, I mean – had this whole area closed off months ago. Said it was unsafe. No one comes here anymore."

Adam stopped in front of the boarded-up shop, the one Bryan had entered earlier. "Correct," he stated flatly, confirming Alina’s identification of the location. "And this," he gestured towards the seemingly abandoned shop, "is the Spider Syndicate’s hideout."

Lucas’s eyes widened. He knew, vaguely, that the Syndicate operated in the city. His father had sometimes hinted at dealings with shadowy groups, warning Lucas never to interfere or ask questions.

Seeing their base hidden so brazenly in a district his father’s predecessor had conveniently closed off filled Lucas with a sickening feeling of regret and shame for his family’s complicity. He also felt a surge of fear, wondering if this powerful being would punish him for his father’s crimes.

Adam, however, seemed completely uninterested in Lucas’s internal turmoil. He stepped up to the boarded-up shopfront. Instead of looking for a hidden switch or secret door like Bryan had, Adam simply reached out with one hand, palm facing the dilapidated wooden wall.

He didn’t touch it. He just held his hand there for a second. Then, with a low grinding sound, the wooden boards and the stone wall behind them began to move. They slid apart smoothly, sections retracting into the sides like parts of a complex machine, revealing a dark opening and the stone steps leading down, just as Bryan had seen.

But Adam didn’t stop there. He kept his hand raised, and the opening continued to widen, the walls pulling back further and further, until the entire front section of the shop and the ground beneath it had rearranged itself, transforming the hidden, narrow staircase into a wide, open ramp leading steeply down into the darkness below.

Alina and Lucas stared, mouths agape, at the impossible display of power. He hadn’t just opened a secret door; he had reshaped the building itself with a mere gesture.

Lucas looked from the transformed entrance back to Adam, then quickly glanced at Alina. ’What kind of monster did you bring to our city?’ his terrified eyes seemed to say.

Alina ignored Lucas. Her fear of Adam was still present, but it was now mixed with a growing sense of awe and that tiny, persistent seed of hope. This being was terrifying, yes, but he was powerful enough to destroy Barons and reshape buildings. He was also powerful enough to find her parents if they were truly still alive.

Adam lowered his hand and started walking down the newly formed ramp into the darkness of the Syndicate base below. He didn’t look back. "Stay behind me," he commanded over his shoulder, his voice echoing slightly in the passage. "Both of you. If you find any innocent victims down there, get them out. Leave the rest to me."

Without waiting for a reply, Adam increased his pace, moving swiftly down the ramp and disappearing into the shadows below.

Alina and Lucas exchanged another wide-eyed look. Then, spurred by a mixture of fear and the need to follow, they both started running down the ramp after Adam. Lucas didn’t have a sword, but he clenched his fists, remembering his hand-to-hand combat training from the Academy. He was a skilled warrior, even unarmed.

Alina had no fighting experience at all; her only thought was to stay as close to the terrifyingly powerful being in Eric’s body as possible. Despite Adam’s casual healing of Lucas, she still didn’t trust the young nobleman whose father had caused her so much pain. Adam felt like the safer bet, despite his frightening power.

As Alina and Lucas hurried down the ramp and entered the main corridor of the underground base, they immediately stopped, horrified by what they saw.

Adam was nowhere in sight ahead of them. But leaning against the rough stone walls just inside the entrance were the bodies of three Syndicate thugs. Two of them were pinned to the wall by their own swords, which had somehow been driven completely through their chests and deep into the stone behind them.

Blood dripped slowly down the wall beneath them. The third man lay crumpled on the floor nearby, his body cleanly sliced in half at the waist.

Alina gasped, covering her mouth, feeling sick again. Lucas stared, his face pale, recognizing the brutal efficiency of the being they were following. They hesitated for only a moment, then forced themselves to move forward, deeper into the corridor.

The further they went, the worse it got. Every few steps, they encountered more bodies of Syndicate members. Some were impaled on the walls, others lay dismembered on the floor, some looked like they had been crushed by immense force, their armor dented inward, bones clearly shattered. It was a gruesome path of destruction, left in Adam’s wake as he carved his way through the base. The corridor reeked of blood and fear.

They didn’t stop to examine the bodies or react to each new horror. Driven by the need to catch up to Adam, they ran faster, their footsteps echoing eerily in the bloody corridor.

After running for perhaps a minute, turning a corner, they finally heard sounds ahead – shouts, screams of pain, the clash of metal, and a low, menacing hum of power. They rounded another bend and saw Adam.

He was standing in a wider section of the corridor, where it perhaps intersected with other tunnels. He was surrounded by at least twenty Syndicate thugs, all armed with various crude weapons – rusty swords, axes, heavy clubs, poisoned daggers. But they weren’t attacking Adam. They were trying desperately to escape.

Their faces were masks of pure terror. They had clearly witnessed what happened to their comrades further back, and they wanted no part of fighting the monster with the glowing white eyes. They scrambled backwards, bumping into each other, trying to flee down side passages or back the way Alina and Lucas had come.

But Adam wasn’t letting them escape. He moved like a whirlwind among them, a blur of deadly motion. In his hand, he now wielded a short, wicked-looking knife – likely taken from one of the first thugs he encountered. He flowed through the panicked crowd, the knife flashing. With each flicker of the blade, throats were slit, tendons were severed, limbs were lopped off. He moved with terrifying speed and precision.

He wasn’t just using the knife. He struck out with his fists and feet, shattering bones with casual, brutal force. A thug swung an axe; Adam sidestepped and shattered the man’s sternum with a palm strike, sending him flying backward into a wall.

Another lunged with a spear; Adam snapped the wooden shaft with one hand and drove the splintered end through the man’s own neck with the other. Bodies piled up quickly, adding to the gore already staining the floors and walls. The entire corridor became a slaughterhouse.

Alina and Lucas watched, frozen in horrified fascination for a moment, before shaking themselves out of it. They continued moving forward, cautiously now, staying well behind Adam as he systematically eliminated the remaining Syndicate members in the area.

As they advanced past the site of the brief, one-sided battle, they noticed something else. Lining both sides of this wider corridor were heavy iron doors, set into the stone walls at regular intervals. Bars covered small windows set into each door. These were the cells Bryan had walked past earlier, the cells holding the Syndicate’s prisoners.

Through the bars, they could see frightened faces peering out – old men, young women, terrified children, captured merchants, and others. Dozens of people were locked away in these dark, filthy cells. Lucas stared, horrified by the sheer number of captives his father had allowed the Syndicate to imprison beneath his city.

Alina frantically scanned the faces in each cell they passed, her heart pounding, desperately searching for any sign of her mother or brother, praying the Baron had lied, praying the Third Prince (or whoever this being was) was right about them possibly still being alive.

She reached out instinctively towards one of the cell doors, wanting to try and open it, to free the people inside. But just as her fingers touched the cold iron bars, the heavy door suddenly groaned and screamed under immense pressure.

Lucas saw it too and quickly pulled Alina back. "Get back!" he yelled. "Something’s happening!"

Right before their eyes, the thick iron bars of the cell door, and then the door itself, began to bend inwards, buckling and twisting as if squeezed by a giant, invisible hand. With a final, tortured screech of metal, the entire cell door crumpled inwards like paper, ripping free from its hinges and leaving a mangled opening.

Alina and Lucas stared at the destroyed door, then looked further down the corridor in the direction Adam had gone. They knew, without a doubt, who was responsible. Adam was opening the cells.