The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 194

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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 194
Whoosh!
Tiel pushed her Ability harder, testing its limits. Fortunately, it worked freely here without obstruction.
Bright light flooded the interior. Tiel and Iandros remained motionless, not daring to move.
Why had Iandros’s Subspace suddenly revealed this place?
“Something’s wrong.”
“What is?”
“My Subspace is literally the space within my unconscious. It’s composed only of things I’ve seen and heard. Nothing I don’t know appears inside my Subspace. But…….”
The Imperial Palace interior was rendered in remarkable detail. As if it were a true Imperial Palace from that ancient age.
As a prince, Iandros had received education on the history of the Crasion Imperial Family, and he could tell that this Imperial Palace matched exactly those of Crasion from ages past.
That was precisely what troubled him.
Things Iandros had never directly seen or heard did not appear in his Subspace.
Yet this Imperial Palace had appeared.
No—it had been overlaid onto his Subspace.
“Just to be safe, be careful. Don’t let go of my hand, understood?”
“Yes, don’t worry…….”
Tiel gripped Iandros’s hand more tightly as she spoke. Iandros nodded.
Still holding Iandros’s hand, Tiel looked around cautiously.
‘What I glimpsed then was Iandros’s memory.’
Iandros’s memory, submerged in his own unconscious.
Then could what she was seeing now also be Iandros’s memory?
No, that couldn’t be right.
Iandros had never lived in an old Crasion Imperial Palace with this structure.
Which meant that if what she was witnessing truly was someone’s “memory,” then it certainly wasn’t Iandros’s.
Then something rushed past in front of Tiel and Iandros.
“What?”
“That’s…….”
Tiel and Iandros recognized it at once.
It was a serpent.
The serpent that had haunted Tiel even in her dreams, and recently appeared in reality with jaws open wide as if to swallow all of Tiel’s Ability.
The serpent flashed past them in an instant, yet neither Tiel nor Iandros lost sight of it even in the darkness.
“It’s a serpent…… It looks exactly like the one I saw before being dragged into this place.”
“Why is that…… here?”
Iandros spoke in a confused voice. This Subspace was Iandros’s Subspace, yet simultaneously it was not his alone.
So all Tiel and Iandros could do was follow the serpent.
“Might…… might this be a trap to lure us?”
“Even so, we can’t just stand here. We need to get out. Don’t worry—it can’t harm me.”
Iandros said so.
Iandros was the master of this Subspace. In other words, the moment he died, this Subspace would collapse and vanish forever.
If that happened, everyone inside would either perish together or become trapped together.
Therefore, if there was an intruder in this Subspace, the probability that they would carelessly kill Iandros was low.
Moreover, Tiel and Iandros were connected by a Bond—albeit an incomplete one.
The moment Tiel died, Iandros’s mind would collapse, and the Subspace would likewise crumble. So if there was an intruder, they would not dare lay a hand on Tiel either.
“And this is just my thought, but I think only the two of us are in this Subspace right now.”
“There’s no intruder like before?”
Tiel asked.
Someone had invaded Iandros’s Subspace once before.
Golden hair and eyes of emerald hue.
A woman with features strikingly similar to Iandros. Since then, he had lived with the anxiety that someone might invade his Subspace again.
But not this time.
“Yes, I can tell. This time there’s no intruder. In this Subspace, there are only the two of us.”
“Then that serpent is…….”
“So we’ll have to follow it and see.”
Iandros firmly grasped Tiel’s hand and began to move forward. Tiel cautiously followed, placing one foot in front of the other.
Golden fish made of Tiel’s light trailed behind them, scattering particles of illumination densely along the path they had traveled.
The serpent seemed to move at great speed, yet also at a crawling pace.
Certainly when it first rushed past Tiel and Iandros, it had been moving at terrible speed, but now it crept forward with deliberate slowness.
Hidden in the darkness, it crawled onward, and they had to squint their eyes to follow where it was heading.
They could not shine their light. Like the serpent from Tiel’s dream, this one would disperse faintly when touched by Tiel’s radiance.
Iandros and Tiel passed through long corridors.
Following the serpent, they wandered through various chambers of the Imperial Palace.
Along the way, they passed before what appeared to be a massive frame holding the current emperor’s portrait.
‘I can’t see it.’
The face was darkened as if painted over with black pigment.
For this reason, Tiel and Iandros could not determine which of Crasion’s past emperors this palace belonged to.
Then.
“Oh? I hear voices.”
Tiel whispered softly to Iandros. Iandros paused for a moment, tilting his ear to listen.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right—I hear voices.”
“Could there be an intruder?”
“Let’s go check.”
Iandros and Tiel stopped following the serpent and headed toward the source of the voices.
The voices became clearer with each step.
Only then did it occur to her that these voices might not be from an “intruder,” but rather from Beastkin within Memory Fragments, as she had witnessed before.
‘Perhaps, like then, a memory is being replayed.’
Just as she had glimpsed Iandros’s rampaging memory, she might now be witnessing someone else’s.
With each word that grew clearer, her certainty crystallized.
Tiel and Iandros came to a halt before the door from which the voices emanated.
It was an immense chamber, and its occupant was surely of the Crasion Imperial Family.
Only the royalty could possess doors of such magnitude.
Iandros pushed the door open.
Tiel carefully illuminated the interior with her Ability.
A silhouette came into view. Tiel and Iandros gazed at “it” with narrowed eyes.
“You know, when I become emperor, there’s something I want to do.”
A young girl seated on the bed spoke in a sweet, singing voice.
The silhouette of a boy beside her, as it seemed, asked carefully.
“What do you want to do, sister?”
“I want to…… …….”
Tiel’s brow furrowed.
All other words came through clearly, but that particular word became muffled or grew too faint to hear properly.
Had she simply not listened carefully enough? Tiel glanced up at Iandros.
Iandros too seemed to be unable to catch that one specific word. His brow deeply furrowed, he stared intently at the silhouettes of the two children in conversation.
“Who could they be? They both look so young…….”
Tiel whispered.
“Emperors always had many children, so there’s no way to know. And besides, their faces aren’t visible now.”
Indeed, Iandros was right.
Like the portrait they had seen earlier in this “Subspace,” the faces of both children were obscured by black smoke.
The black smoke did not dissipate even under Tiel’s light, leaving their faces invisible to both of them.
“Most of the Imperial Family left behind portraits, so if we could see their faces, we might identify them…….”
Iandros, who had been murmuring to himself, suddenly opened his eyes wide as if struck by a thought.
“Wait a moment.”
“What is it, Iandros?”
“That woman who invaded my Subspace before. She had golden hair and emerald eyes. That’s the symbol of the Crasion Imperial Family.”
Tiel nodded.
“So I investigated her in the Imperial Palace Library. A mad princess of Crasion…….”
Iandros continued.
“Most records about her were lost. But a single portrait-like image remained. So I saw her portrait. And…… it bore a striking resemblance to the woman who invaded my Subspace. At the time, I thought perhaps a descendant of hers was still alive…… but now…….”
Iandros trailed off in thought.
“Tiel, I know this sounds absurd, but what if the one who invaded my Subspace back then wasn’t some ‘descendant’ of the princess, but the princess herself…….”
Iandros stared intently at the boy and girl laughing merrily on the bed as he spoke.
“Could that girl we’re seeing now be…… that princess?”
“Surely not…….”
“A Subspace is the realm of the unconscious. Within it, nothing is truly real and nothing is purely illusion. If when she invaded my Subspace, her consciousness and mine became mistakenly connected…….”
Iandros murmured.
“It would be entirely possible.”

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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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