The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 231

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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 231
That name had been completely forgotten.
No one remained who remembered the name Adelaide. Everyone who had known Adelaide’s name was dead.
Tiel would never have known either, if she hadn’t glimpsed the Princess’s memory, if she hadn’t heard Liam’s voice whispering to the Princess.
Adelaide.
As if responding to the name, the Subspace brightened in places. Blue sprouts emerged from the pitch-black void. Tiel waited quietly, holding the Emerald in her hand.
‘Was the name the key to unlocking the Princess’s Ability Runaway?’
Sprouts budded and flowers bloomed everywhere. The sound of a river flowing came from far away. Tiel couldn’t tell if she was being drawn into memory again, or if the Princess’s Subspace itself was transforming.
But soon she could tell.
‘It’s not inside memory.’
The sprouted shoots were not hallucinations. The flowers tickled Tiel’s ankles. Tiel watched as life stirred in the Princess’s pitch-black Subspace.
And not long after.
“You…!”
The Princess rushed toward her, startled. She still wore the black robe, but something was different from before.
Unlike before, when her face was hard to see or seemed hidden, the Princess’s beautiful face was now visible.
Her frizzy long hair and brilliantly emerald eyes gazed at Tiel with a confused expression. Her pupils trembled finely.
“You, you… what did you do?”
“…Pardon?”
“I asked what you did!”
The Princess cried out. Her expression was furious. She thrust out her hand sharply.
Instantly, the Subspace darkened further. The budding sprouts stopped. All the flowers drooped, their stems snapped.
“What scheme are you running, child of Lucette!”
The Princess cried out. Tiel saw flames flickering in her pupils.
Her eyes were filled with resentment and hatred. Just as the Emerald held all the world’s malevolent emotions, the Princess’s eyes held all the world’s malevolent feelings.
“Don’t interfere with me! I must have my revenge. I will have it—I’ll kill Liam Hillis Crasion and all of his descendants…”
The Princess cried out.
In that moment, Tiel understood. She understood why the Princess, dead, still remained trapped here.
The Princess must have realized in her final moment. That the necklace Liam had given her was a betrayal.
That her beloved younger brother, whom she had raised with care, had betrayed her and taken the throne.
How crushing must that betrayal have felt? She couldn’t even imagine what was in his heart when his blade pierced her abdomen.
Yet the Princess alone could never have achieved revenge. The dead cannot return to life.
No matter how wronged, how sorrowful—the dead cannot return.
‘So that’s why Orpheo intervened.’
Just as Lucette had resurrected her, the Evil God Orpheo had manipulated the Princess’s spirit. He had remade her body from her soul and brought her back to life.
“Liam doesn’t exist anymore!”
Tiel interrupted the Princess’s words.
“Liam Hillis Crasion died very long ago. The people you’re trying to harm now are innocent.”
“Dead? That can’t be! He’s alive, he’s alive and well!”
“You just said you’d kill his ‘descendants,’ Your Highness. Deep down, you know he’s dead too.”
“…No, I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t!”
“Liam Hillis Crasion is dead, long ago. Your target for revenge has already vanished. Not even ashes remain now, Adelaide.”
In that moment, the Princess’s Subspace transformed again. The flowers whose heads had drooped in death bloomed back to life, and fresh grass sprouted at their feet.
The dark, pitch-black Subspace where the two stood became a vast meadow in an instant. A gentle breeze drifted down from somewhere.
Tiel looked into the Princess’s eyes, which were overwhelmed with all kinds of sorrow.
Could the human heart also be governed by light? Just as she had purified the Emerald, tainted by malevolent emotion?
“I won’t tell you to forgive him or disappear, anything like that.”
Tiel took a step closer to the Princess. Her beautiful white hair rustled in the wind that blew from somewhere.
“I won’t say such things. Because I know how wronged and sad you felt. I saw it all.”
Seen up close, the Princess was about the same age as Tiel. She was young and beautiful. She had met an unjust death at a tender age.
And as if that weren’t enough, the very record of her existence had been erased entirely.
“…You saw it all? How?”
“Your Subspace showed it to me. Your Highness’s memories.”
“What…!”
“I won’t tell you to forgive him, or ask you to pity us.”
Tiel spoke.
“Your Highness should act according to your feelings. I will stop you.”
The Princess had died ages ago, and her grudge, her fury, her sorrow had gnawed at her heart for all that time.
Hunched in darkness, waiting all these long years for the day she would have her revenge on the brother who betrayed her.
But how could a few words soothe such deep anger and grief?
Tiel harbored no such expectations. She merely intended to stop her. By any means necessary.
Light flared in Tiel’s hand. It was brighter and more massive than anything before.
Her white hair turned opal in an instant. Immense power flowed through Tiel’s body.
Had the god looked upon her?
Tiel felt a strength incomparably greater than before flowing through every corner of her body.
Tiel’s light was not merely light.
Tiel’s light drove away darkness, repelled cold, chased away loneliness, and warmed the heart.
Tiel had said she would stop the Princess, but she harbored no intention of subduing her by force.
Rather, just as she had done before, she would use her Ability to dispel the black aura surrounding the Princess.
Did the Princess notice?
Behind her, from just before, something very dark and massive had been standing.
And as the Princess grew more agitated, it grew steadily larger. Tiel could not bear to leave it as it was.
Immense light began to swell in Tiel’s hand. The Princess’s eyes widened. Tiel’s light transformed into the shape of a gigantic fish.
It was the Ability that accompanied Tiel daily, a fragment of her Ability, a shard, the one that had cared for and protected Tiel whenever she was in danger…
Orpheo.
A part of the god.
A grand, vast, and sacred voice rang through the Subspace. Tiel felt warm, soft wind and light gently enveloping her body.
At the same time, that light swallowed the Princess’s body, and no matter how she struggled, she could not shake it off.
“Ahhhhh!”
She writhed in agony, then fell to her knees, sinking down.
Only then did the vast darkness reveal itself. A part of the Evil God Orpheo, hidden within the Princess’s Subspace, behind the Princess’s body.
[…Lucette! By resurrecting that girl, your power should be greatly weakened. How?]
[It is time. Time for you to come with me.]
Lucette’s voice sounded both like a man’s and a woman’s. As that sacred voice rang out powerfully, the remaining darkness in the Subspace responded.
Darkness stirred, rising up to drive back the light. Tiel felt it approaching, trying to consume her body.
But this time, Tiel’s power was stronger.
Until now, she had been overcome, consumed, tormented by darkness in each encounter… but not this time.
[Light is always stronger than darkness.]
The gentlest voice in the world rang in Tiel’s ears.
[You simply never realized it before.]
As soon as those words ended, everything around brightened in an instant. All grew luminous and clear as darkness vanished.
[Ahhhhh! No! I don’t want this! Just a little more, just a little more and it would have been complete. Why now of all times!]
Orpheo shrieked. The god’s scream was so vast and terrible it could shake the earth itself, but thanks to the warm voice shielding her ears, Tiel did not hear the cry.
How much time had passed?
The gigantic fish of light that appeared in Tiel’s hand swallowed the darkness whole, then spat back out just a trace of it.
That darkness flowed beneath Tiel and the Princess’s feet, becoming shadow.
When the fish spat out a tiny bit more darkness, that too vanished into the sky somewhere.
And not long after, the fish burst in midair and transformed into a handful of light that rained down upon Tiel and the Princess’s heads.
Tiel approached the Princess and knelt, examining her condition.
But there was no time to assess her state—the Subspace where both of them stood began to crumble.
Cracks spider-webbed across the sky and the vast meadow split open. Flowers vanished in the gaps, grass dissolved.
‘The Princess’s spirit is disappearing!’
When the Princess’s spirit vanished, this Subspace would vanish with it. And if the Subspace disappeared, Tiel too would be trapped here forever, unable to escape to the outside.
‘I have to get out!’
But how?
There was no Iandros to open a door for her now. She couldn’t escape this Subspace with her own power. Just as Tiel’s golden eyes filled with despair.
“…Give me that Emerald.”
The Princess lifted her head and spoke. Her beautiful face was wet with blood and tears.
After a brief hesitation, Tiel carefully placed the Emerald in the Princess’s hand.
The Princess gazed at the jewel with a complicated expression.
What emotion pooled in her eyes? Sorrow? Anger? Or perhaps… longing for a time that could never return?
Since Tiel was not the Princess herself, she would likely never know what that emotion truly was.
“I can feel your Bonded Partner waiting for you at the far end.”
The Princess whispered faintly. She remained kneeling, but her body was becoming transparent, like the countless illusions Tiel had seen within the Princess’s memories before.
“I will take you to him. In exchange…”
The Princess brought the hand holding the Emerald to her chest.
“Call my name once more…”
“…Adelaide!”
Tiel cried out. In that final moment, before the Princess scattered and faded, Tiel embraced her with all her might.
“If I survive, I will record your name. That there was a Princess Adelaide. That she surely existed, in this history of Crasion.”
But Tiel could not finish speaking.
At some point, the Princess, who had created a passage through the Subspace, pushed Tiel into it with all her remaining strength.
“Goodbye. Go well.”
The Princess murmured. Tiel gasped in surprise, her eyes widening, and instinctively reached toward her.
“Thank you.”
With those final words, the Subspace closed completely, and Tiel fell into a very deep darkness.
Falling and falling and falling.
And finally…
Splash!
She felt someone embracing her. Large, solid hands. Tiel turned her head to look at him.
“Tiel!”
It was Iandros, of course. Iandros had barely maintained consciousness at the edge of the Subspace, waiting for Tiel.
As the Princess’s Subspace, which was connected to Iandros, collapsed, his own mind was half-shattered as well…
“Iandros!”
Tiel embraced him with all her strength. Her small frame fit snugly into his arms. Tiel held him tight, checking his condition with her hands on his cheeks.
“Are you alright? Let’s leave here quickly. Your Ability…”
“I’m fine. So…”
But Iandros swayed while holding Tiel. Tiel felt his Ability beginning to Runaway in a dangerously unstable manner.
Because Tiel and Iandros were connected by a Companion Bond, she could sense it clearly and certainly.
Holding his cheeks, Tiel used her Ability. Bright light flared in her hands once more.
“Iandros! Snap out of it and look at me…!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Tiel bent down and kissed Iandros, whose mind had not yet cleared.
Tiel’s Ability grows stronger the more direct contact there is. And Tiel and Iandros were Bonded Partners.
So this way was certain.
As Tiel kissed him, the space around them transformed in an instant once more.
Iandros’s old, decrepit Subspace revealed itself in the darkness.
A Mansion where lights would never turn on. That was the curse-like Ability that Iandros possessed.
And yet…
As Tiel held his cheeks and kissed him, breathing her Ability into him, lights began to turn on one by one in the Mansion that seemed as though they never would.
Lights came on in the long corridors, rooms brightened, and a grand, ornate chandelier blazed with radiance.
Bright light illuminated Iandros’s Subspace, illuminating the two of them. Only after confirming that Iandros’s Ability had stabilized somewhat did Tiel finally break away.
“…A-Are you alright?” she asked, her cheeks blushing bashfully.
“…I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Iandros’s cheeks were equally flushed now that he had regained his senses.
He pulled Tiel close to him and looked up at his Subspace, now filled with light.
There was a time he had imagined such a scene.
Lights turning on in his old Mansion, brightness filling everything, that chandelier shining brightly once more.
But he had thought such a thing impossible and had only kept it as a fantasy.
In that moment, beyond the corridor, he saw very familiar, longed-for figures disappearing in a line.
They were Iandros’s parents, and the servants who had worked in this Mansion.
Why could he see them now?
Why were they only now disappearing in a line, with expressions of relief and contentment? He couldn’t understand.
Iandros stood rooted in place, holding Tiel, quietly watching the entire scene.
And not long after,
Whoosh!
Against Iandros’s will, a passage to the outside opened. Iandros looked at Tiel.
Tiel looked a little exhausted. She had used her Ability extensively.
“You saved me again.”
Iandros whispered briefly and lifted Tiel, cradling her in his arms. He stepped outside, holding her against his chest.
“Without you, I would never have entered the Subspace…”
“Without you, I would never have escaped here.”
Iandros replied as he walked outside. A warm breeze drifted gently, brushing past the hair of Iandros and Tiel.

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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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