The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 142

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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 142
Cassius accepted the Glass Marble from Tiel’s small hands and gazed at her quietly.
After handing her precious sphere to her father, the girl’s earlobes flushed slightly with embarrassment.
“It might help somehow. If my guess is correct…….”
Cassius took the marble and stroked Tiel’s head. Beneath his large palm, her fluffy white hair rippled like waves.
“Thank you, Tiel. I’ll keep it safe.”
“Yes! Don’t do anything dangerous! Please be careful, Father.”
“Don’t worry, my daughter.”
Cassius tucked the Glass Marble into his chest and knelt down to embrace Tiel gently.
Nestled in his arms, Tiel leaned her cheek against his shoulder. Her soft face pressed against him.
“Go well now. Play nicely with your brothers. And just to be safe, don’t go anywhere near that girl.”
“You mean Lys?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry! I won’t go near her carelessly.”
Only after securing Tiel’s promise did Cassius seem satisfied. He released her and rose to his feet.
The pocket containing the Glass Marble bulged visibly. He stroked Tiel’s head once more before leaving her room.
***
Cassius was watching through the Black Mist by means of the Salamander.
But was it even proper to call it mist?
It was somehow different from smoke or fog. Through the Salamander’s eyes, Cassius wandered within it, his brow furrowing deeper as he looked.
With ordinary smoke or mist, one’s vision would naturally blur and cloud, but not here. Everything was, in fact, starkly clear.
It was a supremely lucid darkness.
After searching through it via the Salamander for some time, Cassius eventually withdrew empty-handed.
Whatever lay within clearly possessed a special power that made those who entered lose their way and wander helplessly. The Salamander that could not escape proved it.
In the end, Cassius had the Salamander burn itself away from within.
“How do matters stand?” the Knight Commander of Asterian asked.
Cassius pressed gently at the corner of his eye, which had been connected to the Salamander mere moments before. The sudden shift from prolonged darkness to light left him struggling to adjust.
“I see nothing. It was wise not to enter beforehand. Whoever ventures in will lose their way without fail.”
“Then we cannot breach it?”
“We could burn this entire mountain to force those inside to emerge of their own accord.”
But to incinerate a whole mountain merely to apprehend these criminals seemed excessive.
Of course, the old Cassius would never have hesitated—he would have set the fire without a second thought. But Cassius was now a father to three children.
He no longer wished to do such things.
Moreover.
‘They said there are young children inside.’
Several of them, he had been told. If the culprits panicked at discovery and fled, abandoning the children, or worse—killed them—Cassius would never forgive himself for striking the match.
So instead of fire, he led the knights forward to stand before the Black Mist.
The sinister, rippling black force reached out as if to engulf the knights, then withdrew, only to reach out again. The knights grimaced, watching the scene in tense silence.
Were the Mad Experiments being conducted within this very phenomenon? Was this their result?
Cassius raised his hand, ordering the knights to step back one pace at a time, then withdrew the small marble his daughter had given him from his pocket.
“What is that?”
“A gift from my daughter. It contains her Light Ability.”
Having examined its interior, Cassius was nearly certain of one thing: this force was no ordinary mist or haze. It was darkness itself. He could not say whether such an Ability existed in the world, but of that much he was sure.
Not some crude Ability born of mere mist or smoke.
And so the only thing they could now trust was the single small marble Tiel had placed in Cassius’s hands.
With a gesture from Cassius, a massive leopard made of flame appeared beneath his horse.
Fire danced and flickered across the creature’s fur, while eyes that shone with the same golden hue as Cassius’s own fixed upon the Black Mist.
He tossed the Glass Marble to the leopard. The beast caught it deftly mid-air.
“Go.”
The instant Cassius gave the command, the leopard bolted into the Black Mist with the small marble gripped in its teeth.
Within the leopard’s jaws, the Glass Marble cast a faint gleam of light.
The knights stood fast, eyes never wavering as they watched Cassius’s leopard vanish completely into the darkness.
Countless knights of Asterian held their ranks, waiting for Cassius’s next order.
Then it happened.
“Look there, sirs!”
One of the knights pointed toward the Black Mist. Cassius, along with all the Asterian knights, lifted their eyes to the spot he indicated.
A thin beam of light was leaking out from within.
It was a small, faint radiance—as delicate and diminished as Tiel herself, Cassius’s daughter.
Yet however small and faint, light was unmistakably light.
The slender beam fractured into many threads within the darkness, and the Black Mist enveloping the space began to unravel and disperse.
The knights stared in disbelief, eyes wide, while Cassius—who had faith that such a thing was well within Tiel’s power—observed the scene with serene composure.
The vast darkness that had covered the entire area crumbled helplessly beneath Tiel’s single fragment of light.
The Black Mist shattered like glass, burned like flame, and flowed away like water. And soon, the manor concealed within began to reveal itself.
The modest manor was precisely the right size for the Russell Family’s financial standing. Of course, compared to Asterian, it was barely larger than one of Asterian’s storehouses.
As the darkness fully lifted, the leopard holding the light marble stood firm before slowly walking back to Cassius and placing the sphere in his hand.
Then it crumbled into ash and vanished. Cassius grasped the heated Glass Marble and examined it closely.
Moments before, small fragments of light had been glimmering within,
‘but now it has turned completely black.’
It was as though the marble had absorbed all of the Black Mist. Cassius narrowed his brow, studying it, before returning it to his pocket.
This, too, would need investigation.
He dismounted lightly and gestured to the knights with a tilt of his head.
“The vanguard will enter the manor and locate the perpetrators. The rest surround it from outside. Not a single ant escapes. I will tolerate no mistakes.”
“At your command!”
The Asterian knights surged into the manor. Cassius followed behind them, stepping slowly inside.
But something felt wrong.
‘There’s no sign of anyone within.’
Perhaps they had learned of the discovery and fled in advance.
The Black Mist had consumed considerable time before it; flight was certainly possible.
The knights who entered the manor found mysterious apparatus and various substances, as well as beds still warm to the touch.
Though many other items were recovered, the Beastmen presumed to have lived in the manor were nowhere to be found.
Not a single child remained. It was at that moment the Knight Commander’s face fell with bitter disappointment.
“Aaahhhhh—!!”
“Osian Russell is here!”
A knight who had entered the farthest room, the smallest and narrowest of all, discovered Osian Russell hiding in the wardrobe and dragged him out roughly.
The knights thoroughly searched the room for anyone else hiding within, but no one besides Osian was found.
“Let go of me! Damn it! No, stop—!!”
The knights ignored Osian’s screams and hauled him before Cassius like a sack of grain, forcing him to his knees.
Cassius looked down at him with cold, composed eyes and asked,
“Where are the others?”
“I—I don’t know. Hic—when I arrived here, they were already gone. Jay, that bastard, betrayed me and fled! I don’t know where he went, I don’t—!”
Osian rambled and stammered in panic.

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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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