The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 116

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 116
“Ah………”
Herod let out a soft moan. Brilliant light flooded the room in an instant. From within Tiel’s hands, streams of luminescence unfurled, wrapping gently and carefully around Herod’s body.
It was truly a wondrous sight.
Though light possessed no consciousness, the radiance blooming from the small girl’s palms gathered around Herod like a living thing.
Only then could the people see the face of the patient lying in the bed properly. Bearing the marks of long illness, his complexion was ashen, and both cheeks were stained with dark blemishes—he looked almost like a dead man.
Had Herod not smiled upon seeing the light, most of those present would have taken him for already deceased.
Tiel held back from speaking and quietly illuminated both Ilum and Herod, allowing father and son to converse in peace.
Ilum drew near to the head of the bed, trembling fingers reaching out to trace his son’s cheek.
This was the first time he had seen his son’s face so clearly in such brightness.
Herod’s skin was paler than Ilum had imagined, and his eyes were a black darker than shadow itself, yet they did not seem ominous.
Ilum had often wondered where Herod was looking when they spoke in darkness, and only now did he understand why.
The black of his eyes was so profound and deep that in darkness, they could emit no light at all.
“……Herod.”
Ilum whispered his son’s name one last time, caressing the sickly face. Herod blinked softly in response to his father’s voice.
“My son.”
Ilum lowered his head, pressing his weathered cheek against his son’s brow. His lined face grew damp with tears. Karl, Eren, and the other children watched the two in silence.
He had desperately wished for a miracle.
That morning would come to this land, that the sun would rise, that the darkness would lift and light could take root, that his son could live beneath sunlight…….
Yet a miracle, if it does not arrive at the proper moment bound to reality, is nothing but a handful of sand.
A girl bearing the Light Ability appeared. Perhaps this girl might truly be the one to lift the darkness draped over this land and call forth light.
……But what use was that to those who could no longer live beneath light?
Separate from such thoughts, Ilum held infinite gratitude toward Tiel. His son had longed his whole life to see light as it truly was, just once. And that desire……was fulfilled before death took him.
Thanks to this small girl.
“……I loved you so very, very much.”
The father whispered these words into his son’s ear one last time. The ill son, mustering his final strength, grasped his father’s hand in return.
“……F-Father.”
Herod called softly to his father. This too was his first time seeing his father’s face in such brightness. His father looked older than he had imagined. Herod found this deeply saddening.
Then it happened.
“……What?”
Karl, standing nearby, was the first to notice the change appearing on Herod’s body—not Ilum, not Tiel, not even Herod himself.
Karl opened his mouth in disbelief, pointing at Herod.
“H-Herod’s blemish—it’s disappearing!”
At Karl’s words, Ilum’s head snapped up to examine his son’s face. Everyone in the room turned at once to look at Herod.
The blemish that had covered more than half of Herod’s face was fading away beneath the light…….
“H-Herod!”
Ilum cupped his son’s cheeks. The blemish disappeared at first slowly, then accelerated, vanishing at remarkable speed. Herod’s skin swiftly regained its natural color.
“……What on earth……?”
The man who had sensed his approaching death wore an expression of bewilderment and shock. Ilum, indifferent to his son’s state, tore away his upper garments like a man possessed.
“F-Father!”
“Good heavens……!”
The dark blemishes that had blackened his entire body were fading away.
‘When they were exposed to my light, they all vanished. So perhaps……the darkness that gnaws at the bodies of the demi-humans here might do the same. Could you show them to me, just once?’
Tiel’s words had been right.
The darkness that had stolen their lives dissolved beneath this small girl’s light at a speed that seemed miraculous.
“Tiel.”
Ferdi placed a light hand on his sister’s shoulder. Tiel, having seen Herod’s blemish disappear, nodded and raised both arms high.
The light gathered in her palms drifted gently upward into the air, and the room grew brighter still.
Yet it did not hurt to look at. Clemens, Olivier, Ludian, and Ian watched from a step away as Herod, unbelieving, embraced Ilum on the bed.
Karl and Eren looked once at Herod and Ilum, and once more at the light flowing and undulating from within Tiel’s hands.
The miracle came at a time they had never expected, in a form smaller than they had imagined.
Yet smallness did not diminish or cloud its meaning.
Karl gazed at the girl’s golden eyes, catching and reflecting the light.
They were the most beautiful, most radiant, most sublime things he had ever beheld, and the boy could not tear his gaze away.
Karl felt a surge of hot emotion rising in his throat so intense he could barely swallow it back. He did not wish to show tears at this joyous moment of Herod’s salvation.
Tiel, seeing Karl scrub at his reddened eyes with his sleeve, turned to the boy of nearly her own height and smiled warmly.
For those who long desperately for a miracle, a miracle comes at last.
Never too late.
***
[Unbelievable!]
A roaring voice erupted from the darkness. The rumbling cry rippled like waves through the deepest, darkest places, filling their ears with tumult.
The small girl now stood in the heart of Arcadia, in the very center of the territory consumed by darkness.
She stood as if at the core of his influence itself. And so that girl should have been devoured by darkness as he wished, or lost forever within it…….
[But why does that tiny thing obstruct even my great design? How, having lived only seven years, does this small creature possess the power to thwart my plans?]
Only seven years. Time far too brief for her to have matured, and she was but a child who had awakened her Ability less than a year ago.
Yet in Arcadia—his domain—he found himself powerless, and his strength was waning.
He had grown stronger by absorbing the life force of the demi-humans dwelling in Arcadia. True, he had drawn a touch too much of late in his effort to suppress that brat, but he was far from depleted. He had no intention of being depleted. He meant to keep them all alive for long, drawing their essence slowly.
The demi-humans’ life force was stubborn; they would survive long and become his sustenance, bearing children and flourishing as his progeny and his power.
And yet.
[My strength wanes…….]
His power was gradually fading. All because of a single small Luminescent Stone that had rolled into his domain. A tiny candle flame. A single beam of light. In short—because of something small!
[This cannot stand…….]
That small thing was not yet old enough to sweep away the darkness that had accumulated here layer upon layer. Being still immature, it could likely do no more than clear the darkness nearby.
And yet he could not dismiss the possibility that the small thing might succeed. For in only seven years of life, it had repeatedly exceeded his expectations.
And he preferred to prepare for every possibility. It did no harm to prepare, though negligence brought loss.
[There is no choice. I must gather it all…….]
The darkness murmured. The desolate voice spread from low places like mist, heavier than any water-laden fog, as though it would sink away at any moment.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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