Reincarnating As A Prince in the DC Universe

Aiden's POV.

I didn't really see the threat of the Dark Order since I had never had to clash with them till just now. 

In my perception, they were just your usual Villain Group that'll end up destroyed by some hero of this era if they weren't all wiped out During Darkseid's invasion…

…Nah, I'd never really thought of them as important. 

Now that I think about it, I've never really settled down to think about this world as just more than this world. 

For the last twenty one years, although I had travelled around Atlan in my younger years, I had never seen this as the real world. 

An Earth. 

Just different from the one I came from and a couple millennia in the past. Other than that, this was just like having an opportunity at time travelling, and as luck would have it, Darkseid's invasion has been thwarted. 

'Doesn't this means there's a whole new world waiting out there to be experienced?' As soon as this thought came, it was as though an explosion went off in my head and my steps came to a halt. 

Why haven't I thought about this before? 

"Aiden?"

Hmm? That voice. It's familiar. Wait a minute…

Mother 

"Mom?" Anyone could imagine my shock when I see my mother after I've just annihilated. No…survived a group of powerful assassins. 

And this ones were not your average assassins, but assassins who were Archmages with loose morals. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked in a deep voice, withholding my thoughts and allowing her to explain herself. 

"I had just received word from your sister that you were awake and was coming to see how you were." His mother replied as she elegantly walked in with a retinue of maids. 

However the sight that greeted her within the courtyard sent her reeling in shock as, with a loud gasp, her soul nearly flew out of her body. 

"A-Aiden..?" She stuttered as she pointed to the front area of his castle that was entirely decimated along with the entire area outside the castle. "What in the God's name happened here!?"

Normal POV 

Aiden was already regretting allowing the internal monologue that began in his head, leading him to give the dark mages enough time to recover a bit. 

This was a classic villain move and Aiden was not a villain. At least not yet. 

"I had a few acquaintance come over for a quick spar." Aiden smoothly lied and withdrew his domain before simultaneously snapping his finger and creating an illusion that covered the potentially dead Archmages. 

It wasn't that he was deceiving his mother, but he just didn't have the time and emotion to waste narrating it, not to mention the repercussion of telling her that. 

Elara looked at Aiden with a scrutinizing gaze before snapping her gaze to the castle front, a sight which made her lips tremble before turning back to Aiden with reddened eyes. 

"I don't know what usually goes on in that mind of yours, Aiden," she began softly as she gazed deeply into Aiden's eyes, in the next moment however, that very gaze suddenly turned cold and distant that it subconsciously sent shivers down Aiden's spine. "Which doctor of ours prescribed that you could partake in such a careless and dangerous show of magic?" 

Aiden could swear he saw an aura flared around her and couldn't help retreating reflexively before he recalled that his mother didn't have magic and could not exude physical aura and calmed down.

"It's not like that mother." Aiden said placatingly while approaching his mother. "I'm fully recovered, see?" He said and pulled up his upper wear to show her his perfectly fine body. "I was just too tired of lying on the bed and thought to get some exercise."

Elara's cold gaze softened a bit but didn't diminish as she gestured to the surroundings and said. "You call this 'some exercise'?"

"Mom…" Aiden drawled and rolled his eyes at her display of majesty. "Even if you weren't on the battlefield to see me fight, you should have heard a thing or two. This much damage is minute in comparison to what I could do if I went all out." 

Elara didn't reply but held her son's gaze for a while before shifting them to take in the level of damage his so-called exercise caused to his castle. She couldn't help but be glad that Mages were prohibited to be used in wars between nations. 

What human army could remain standing in front of someone capable of causing this much damage?

Not to mention, if her son's words were to be held as truth, this wasn't even him using his full strength. 

At that moment, the ground trembled causing the maids behind Elara to squeal in fright and hold each other. The two at the forefront and closely behind Elara promptly held her steady. 

Meanwhile, Aiden stood unaffected by the quake but his expression changed and took a serious turn. Narrowing his eyes, he unleashed a psychic wave that picked up on a couple energy signatures with two burning brighter than the others. 

'Did they have people coming over or what?' Aiden thought offhandedly because he knew that although one of those two strong energy was Mira's, as for the other…'I will just call him X.'

The two, Mira and X were in close proximity and Aiden could immediately sense the cause of the tremor back to the energy around the two. At the same time, he noticed something peculiar. 

At the level those two were at, they should have shattered and brought down the castle long ago, however, they hadn't. This could only mean one thing.

"An Energy Field spell." Aiden muttered to himself in comprehension before turning off his senses and sending out a mana pulse which immediately did the exact same thing the psychic wave did but on a magical level. 

"What was that!?" Elara cried out as she pushed away the maids holding onto her. "What's going on!? Don't tell me that's your friends playing a game!"

Aiden didn't answer immediately but his eyes flickered as the mana pulse returned with the information he needed. 

The air inside the castle was thick with condensed mana, too dense for a simple sparring match. The fluctuations were erratic, surging in waves as if the battle within was escalating beyond control.

The energy field spell was advanced, carefully woven to contain the destruction within a set boundary. 

Whoever cast it was powerful and meticulous, ensuring the castle remained standing despite the sheer force being exchanged. However, something about it felt off.

Aiden's brows furrowed. The field wasn't perfect. There were cracks forming in its structure.

'It's breaking.'

Another tremor rippled through the ground, stronger this time. 

Dust and debris loosened from the high walls, a small crack forming along one of the castle pillars. The maids shrieked again, stepping back in terror.

Elara's frustration turned into concern. She could tell, even without understanding magic, that something was wrong. "Aiden," she demanded, voice firm, "tell me what's happening."

Aiden exhaled sharply. "Mira and…X are fighting inside. And from the energy they're using, it's not a simple spar." His voice was calm but his stance slightly shifted, preparing for immediate action. 

"Someone set up an Energy Field spell to keep the battle contained, but it's reaching its limit. If it collapses…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence as the consequences were clear.

Elara's eyes widened in realization, but before she could respond, a deafening crack echoed through the castle grounds.

Then…silence.

For a brief moment, it was as if the entire world held its breath.

Then…

BOOM!

A violent shockwave erupted from inside the castle, tearing through the outer walls as golden light and violet lightning surged outward. 

The Energy Field spell buckled under the pressure, the Magic circles flickering and distorting, barely holding on.

Aiden reacted instantly as a wave of mana pulsed from his body, protecting space around him, Elara and the others, preventing the shockwave from reaching them. 

The maids who were caught in the chaos, gasped as the air around them twisted unnaturally, sheltering them from the force of the explosion, but before they could continue marveling, Aiden vanished.

He didn't teleport conventionally, he shifted, bending the space between himself and the group so that he simply arrived.

And when he did, he was met with a sight that made even him pause.

Mira stood amidst a storm of emerald energy, her fiery red hair whipping in the wind, eyes glowing with unrestrained magic. Her entire body pulsed with power, tendrils of green mana wrapping around her like sentient vines, restraining the violent storm of destruction around her.

Opposite her, X hovered in the air, his body crackling with violet lightning, arcs of energy surging off his body and grounding themselves into the castle ruins below. 

His expression was unreadable, but his eyes burned with fierce determination.

Aiden could only imagine what had transpired between them, but he didn't care. Someone had to pay for this castle and it most definitely wasn't Mira.

Between them, the air was twisted as space distorted even the gravity around them appeared unstable.

Aiden's gaze snapped to the Energy Field spell. It was already crumbling, barely holding together.

They're both beyond what it can contain now. He traced the origin of the spell and found Jaxon coughing out blood with Finn supporting him. 

"Tch." Aiden clicked his tongue. 'So he was the one who set it up.' he thought but didn't dwell on it for long. He was alright and that was what mattered for now. 

There was no more time to analyze. If this clash continued, there wouldn't be a castle left.

And without warning, he raised his hand.

"[Domain Expansion: Spatial Domination]"

The world shifted.

Space bent, twisted, then collapsed inward like a vortex.

In an instant, the battle between Mira and X was forcefully dragged into his reality.

The castle, the sky, the battlefield, it all vanished.

They now stood in the endless expanse of Aiden's domain.

An empty, infinite void where only he dictated the laws.

Mira's raging mana was snuffed out, not through force, but through sheer absence of space for it to exist.

X's lightning stuttered, arcs of violet energy flickering, their momentum stolen by the absolute stillness of the domain.

Both Mira and X paused, their bodies suddenly bereft of the energy they had just been wielding and their instincts screamed that something was wrong, something fundamental about their surroundings had changed.

Aiden exhaled, lowering his raised hand.

"You two are getting out of control," he stated, voice calm but absolute. His crimson eyes glowed in the endless void of his domain. "If you want to fight like this…"

His smirk was razor-sharp.

"…then you'd better be prepared to fight me first."