The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 82

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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 82
Ah.
The Subspace twisted once more, and this time it deposited Tiel and Iandros into absolute darkness—a void with nothing at all.
Tiel sat motionless in the middle of it, her mind turning over what she had just witnessed.
‘What did I just see?’
So, Tiel herself… she seemed to have glimpsed Iandros’s past memories.
‘Or was it? Could it have been a hallucination?’
But this place was Iandros’s Subspace.
The owner of a Subspace would never show hallucinations to someone who entered against their will—especially not when that owner was currently unconscious.
What Tiel had seen was most likely not a hallucination, but rather a fragment of Iandros’s past.
Tiel brushed his hair back gently, blinking.
‘I saw something I shouldn’t have…’
He’d be upset if he knew.
She made a silent vow to never breathe a word of what she’d seen—not to Iandros, not to anyone.
She didn’t even know if what she’d witnessed was real or illusion, but she couldn’t dredge up painful memories that weren’t hers to disturb.
So she would forget it.
The small girl nodded to herself and carefully lifted Iandros’s head, settling it gently upon her lap.
How much time had passed?
“…Why won’t he wake up?”
Tiel blinked.
They needed Iandros to regain consciousness if they were ever to leave this place, but he showed no sign of awakening.
It felt like they’d been waiting for an eternity, but surrounded by nothing but darkness, she couldn’t tell how much time had actually elapsed.
Burst—!
Tiel used her Ability to illuminate their surroundings, but there was nothing to see. They were in a space of absolute emptiness.
She eventually had to withdraw her power without learning anything useful.
Iandros might wake at any moment, so she had to conserve her strength.
‘I’m hungry…’
Her stomach ached, and now the sense of being trapped was beginning to feel suffocating. At least she had Iandros with her; if she’d been alone, she wasn’t sure she could have endured it.
After sitting in silence for some time, Tiel used her Ability again to illuminate the unconscious Iandros.
And then—
‘What is that?’
Something strange was moving near his neck.
Smoke black as if it had been gathered from all the darkness in the world coiled around Iandros’s neck, moving with a sinuous, suffocating motion.
Tiel gasped in alarm and reached out, placing her small hand against his throat.
The moment her hand touched him, the dark mass recoiled as if fleeing, pooling itself into a tighter form.
‘What in the world is this…’
Then it suddenly shifted direction and lunged straight for Tiel.
Tiel cried out in shock, but she couldn’t pull her hand away—it was still pressed against Iandros’s neck.
The terrible sensation crawled up her wrist. The same sickening feeling she’d experienced on the street that day, and again on Iandros’s body. This made three times. Her small face went deathly pale.
Tiel squeezed her eyes shut and carefully summoned her Ability.
Whatever this thing was, it seemed to despise light.
Light bloomed from Tiel’s palm, and the dark tendrils strangling Iandros’s neck writhed and convulsed before—Screech—they burned away and vanished.
It had been far easier than she’d feared. Tiel stared blankly, then carefully felt Iandros’s neck again.
‘It just… disappeared like that?’
It had been that simple?
Then she should have used her Ability in the carriage back then.
That time, when her touch had threatened it, the darkness had only coalesced more tightly in resistance—but the moment it saw light, it scattered and vanished.
The ease of the resolution left Tiel blinking in disbelief.
But then—
“What is this?”
Tiel carefully traced the marks that had appeared on Iandros’s neck with her fingertips.
They were shaped like a fish.
Moreover, they glowed with a faint luminescence, so when Tiel withdrew her Ability, only those marks on his neck remained visible in the darkness.
Alarmed, Tiel tried to rub them away, but they wouldn’t fade.
Instead—
“Eh?”
She felt something twist in the darkness. Tiel instinctively furrowed her brow and suddenly pulled Iandros into her arms.
The space flipped over once again, and her vision spun twice.
***
“Is there… truly no way?” Alpheus asked, his expression clouded, looking toward Wilhelm. Wilhelm shook his head.
“There is not.”
Opening or closing a Subspace was something only its master could do.
This was precisely why Subspace Creation was considered both the most powerful and most dangerous Ability in the empire.
Once someone entered a Subspace, they could not be retrieved without the master’s permission, nor could those hiding within be extracted against their will.
Alpheus and Cassius stood with Wilhelm the Emperor, the Imperial Palace Knights, and the Heads of the houses of Wolfgang, Iker, and Arne—gathered at the spot where Iandros had vanished.
The Head of the Nestian house was absent.
“Still, we cannot simply stand here and do nothing,” Cassius said quietly.
“Then what do you propose? Our power cannot reopen that Subspace.”
“We must search for some method. Perhaps if we examine the records in the Imperial Palace Archive, we might find an answer.”
Cassius’s voice was utterly composed, yet everyone present understood that he was exercising tremendous restraint.
None of them dared provoke Cassius and Alpheus.
Why would they?
They had just recovered a daughter and granddaughter they’d believed dead for seven years, only to lose them in an instant before their eyes.
They stood here trying to devise a way to rescue Iandros and Tiel from the Subspace, but they all knew there was little they could actually do.
Arne and Iker did not grieve. These were not their children.
They only sympathized—as parents themselves.
And at the same time, they felt a measure of relief.
‘The child with the Light Ability has disappeared…’
Asterian would never become more formidable than it was now. It wasn’t something to say to the child’s face, but perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Yes, perhaps it was…
Then.
Pop—!!
This time the sound was not an explosion, but something light bursting open.
Those who had been hanging their heads in shame like condemned prisoners suddenly jerked their eyes upward toward the source of the noise.
Thump-crash—!
Two small figures tumbled out of the confined space and rolled across the floor.
Tiel was still cradled in Iandros’s arms, and because he held her instinctively even in unconsciousness, she remained unharmed.
Still.
“Ow, ow, ow…”
Tiel rubbed her bumped head and looked up.
Shadows fell across her small form.
‘Huh?’
The girl lifted her head, taking in the many adults standing before her.
“…”
“…”
“Um, hello?”
She carefully bowed her head in greeting.
Then Cassius, who had been standing rigidly in the back, strode forward and scooped his daughter into his arms.
Tiel flinched, bracing herself for a scolding, squeezing her eyes shut.
She deserved whatever rebuke was coming.
She had rushed into danger to save Iandros, ignoring her family’s pleas.
But instead of scolding or pressing her, Cassius simply held her close against his chest.
As if he had longed to hold her like this for ages.
For the seven years since your birth that I could not embrace you like this,
that absence became a wall in my heart.
And when you vanished, I was afraid.
I’m a coward, and the thought of losing you again terrified me—I could not even breathe.
Cassius said nothing, simply holding his child close, but Tiel seemed to hear those words anyway, as if they were whispered directly to her ear.
The girl reached up gently and held her father tight in return.
“Father.”
“Yes, my daughter.”
“I’m sorry for worrying you. I won’t do it again.”
“That’s all I need to hear.”
Cassius said nothing more. Neither did Tiel.
The others could not bring themselves to intrude on their conversation, and simply watched.
They continued watching even as Wilhelm carefully gathered the unconscious Iandros into his arms.
“What are you all standing around for? Move the Crown Prince,” the Emperor commanded quietly to the Palace Knights behind him. They bowed and stepped forward to receive Iandros from the Emperor’s embrace.
The Emperor gazed long at the sleeping face of Iandros as the Knights carried him away.
He watched until Iandros was settled into the carriage.

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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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