The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 163

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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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Episode 163
“Damn it…….”
Iandros opened his eyes in the darkness. He rubbed his numb forehead and pushed himself upright.
“Why did I end up here?”
Iandros had been on his way to the Asterian Mansion to celebrate Tiel’s birthday when suddenly a Subspace tore open of its own accord and pulled him inside.
To make matters worse, his forehead struck something during the fall, leaving it tingling with pain. He suspected the skin might have split. The thought of it irritated him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the throbbing headache, then forced them open and got to his feet.
He tried using his Ability to escape the Subspace.
But.
“……?”
His Ability wouldn’t activate.
This was certainly Iandros’s own Subspace. Though pitch-black without a trace of light, he could tell. He’d passed through this place countless times before—there was no mistaking it.
And within his own Subspace, Iandros could do anything he wished. He could traverse space freely, rearrange objects that had entered the Subspace however he pleased.
Yet his Ability wouldn’t activate. That meant…….
“I’m trapped.”
Iandros muttered the words with frustration, then dropped heavily onto the bed beside him.
This had happened before, more times than he cared to count. There had once been an inviolable law: “Iandros can do anything within his Subspace.” That law had shattered long ago.
Iandros felt it acutely—his own Ability was unstable, crumbling beneath him.
At this rate, he could Runaway again at any moment. His Ability could consume him entirely.
But what frightened him most, what made his blood run cold, was the existence of his bonded partner—the one with whom he had Imprinted.
Since Tiel had Imprinted with him, whenever his Ability Runaways, her body suffers the backlash of that connection.
The thought of repeatedly causing her harm tormented him—it was unbearable.
“Someone outside will have to reopen the Subspace.”
Currently, Iandros was trapped in a bedroom somewhere within the of his Subspace.
It struck him as strange—normally when he used his Ability, he entered closer to the Main Gate of the mansion, not some small bedroom like this.
So he decided to make his way to the Main Gate and try using his Ability again. He pushed open the bedroom door and stepped out.
But.
“……?”
Iandros stood frozen before the sight that unfolded before him.
He’d opened the bedroom door to find another bedroom beyond it.
Iandros approached the door again with a puzzled expression and opened it. Another bedroom lay inside.
But worse—it wasn’t even a different room. It was the same one. The bed, the dresser, every piece of clutter was positioned identically.
The fourth room, the fifth, the sixth…….
By the time he stepped into the tenth room, Iandros gripped the doorknob like a man possessed.
Yet the result was identical. The same room again.
‘What’s happening?’
Had his Ability run away and trapped him like this?
It was possible. The last time his Ability had Runaway, it had dragged him into the Subspace the same way.
Iandros steadied himself, took a deep breath, and thought carefully.
If his Ability had Runaway and locked him in, it might be pulling others into the Subspace as well, just as it had before.
He had to stop that, but he couldn’t find any way out of this room.
It felt as though someone had deliberately trapped him here.
But then.
“……Tiel?”
Iandros’s eyes widened. His emerald gaze shimmered with recognition. He bolted from where he stood and rushed forward.
Because what now appeared before Iandros was Tiel’s Fish.
The Fish, born from Tiel’s Ability, seemed to recognize him, wagging its fins happily and swimming in spiraling circles.
“Why is it here? Could it be…….”
Was Tiel trapped too?
The possibility that Tiel might be trapped shattered his composure in an instant. Iandros’s calm dissolved into urgency, and he strode forward with purpose, looking ready to tear through the walls themselves.
But then.
Whoosh!
Tiel’s Fish blocked his path, circling frantically before his eyes.
Iandros paused, puzzled, but he didn’t look away from it.
Though he couldn’t be certain, the Fish seemed to be trying to help him in this moment.
The Fish spiraled around him a few more times, then moved toward somewhere else.
It was the door he had just come through.
The Fish scattering traces of luminous powder in its wake, swam through the doorway.
Iandros followed without hesitation.
This was Tiel’s Fish—he was certain of it. And Tiel would never harm him.
Even if she did, he didn’t care. He followed without the slightest doubt.
The Fish kept glancing back over its shoulder, as if checking that he was following properly.
Iandros continued after it.
The tenth room, the ninth, the eighth…….
He passed back through the rooms he’d come from, retracing his steps.
He’d kept count of how many rooms he passed when he’d burst through the doors earlier. Now, he counted again as he moved backward.
But something troubled him.
‘Was it always this dim?’
Tiel’s Fish was the very essence of her Ability—the purest, most radiant light given form.
Each time Tiel summoned the Fish, Iandros had thought its light burned brighter than the sun itself.
‘But now it doesn’t.’
Despite the absolute darkness surrounding them, the light was faint. The distance between them was not so great that he could have misread it.
Where once the Fish’s light had banished all shadows triumphantly, now it seemed as though darkness was swallowing it whole…….
Then the Fish began circling him, as if to say they had arrived.
Iandros looked around.
Though it was too dark to see clearly, this was unmistakably the first room where he had fallen.
Why had the Fish brought him back here?
This room had only one door. Open it and find more rooms with the same layout stretching endlessly forward.
And worse, there were no windows to break through.
Then, as if the Fish had read his thoughts, it suddenly began spinning rapidly in place.
Faster. Faster still.
As the Fish’s speed increased and it circled him, a line of light was born around Iandros.
And that light slowly spread, enveloping him in its embrace.
Iandros kept his eyes open, observing every detail of what unfolded. Tiel’s light had never hurt his eyes—it was the warmest light in the world—so there was no need to close them.
The room grew bright. The structure of the space began to shift.
The bed moved. The nightstand moved. A small table vanished. A chair disappeared.
Iandros looked around, bewildered.
The light illuminated the space, revealing its true nature.
This was the Main Gate he had been so desperate to reach.
‘Then where was I all this time?’
Iandros reflexively looked toward where the door had been.
In its place gaped a dark, suspicious void.
An Illusion. He’d been caught in one.
He’d been repeatedly entering that dark space, and Tiel’s Fish had pulled him back out.
‘What would have happened if I’d kept going?’
If he’d continued past the tenth room, the eleventh, without stopping?
Perhaps he would have been trapped there forever, unable to escape.
The thought sent shivers through his entire body.
The Fish then dissipated, its task complete, transforming into a handful of light.
Watching it vanish as dim and fading powder, he felt an inexplicable dread wash over him.
Iandros inwardly thanked Tiel once more for saving him and attempted to use his Ability.
Fortunately it responded, though weakly—the portal it created was half the size of the one he usually opened.
But there was no time to wait. Iandros grabbed the edges of the portal with both hands and tore the space open wider.
The boundary between two spaces tore beneath his hands like paper.

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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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