Maxine spent several hours touring through the botanical gardens with Emily, Madam Neshan, Maxwell and Orianna. Grandma Victoria and the others had already left to see the other sights.

After they had left, Maxine had wanted to get some privacy in order to be more intimate with Emily, but Madam Neshan had watched them like a hawk. It was frustrating, but regardless of anything else, Maxine still enjoyed the time spent with Emily. 

However ten minutes ago, Maxine began to feel uneasy. It almost felt like she was being watched from at least two angles. However she didn't feel any hostility directed at her. Still it bothered her knowing that people were watching her

Without a second thought, she scanned her surroundings with her spiritual sense to find whoever or whatever it might be. However she only found a young woman with what looked like a recording crystal. Huh? Why is she.. Oh, now I get it. She is here to confirm the rumors about Orianna and show the proof to the young masters. Unfortunately, they will also find out that Orianna's heart belongs to Maxwell, but I felt at least two people watching me. The other person is probably using a cloaking techniuqe. 

[Maxine, what's wrong?] Hellen asked via spiritual sense.

[I feel like I am being watched by someone or something. I found a young woman watching me, but she isn't the only source of that feeling,] Maxine admitted, [It would make me feel a lot better knowing where they are.]

[If it will put you at ease, I will find that other person. I just need a moment,] Hellen said and a moment later she gave Maxine an answer, [I found young Buck Wilder watching you roughly twenty feet to your left.]  

[Any idea why he is watching me?] Maxine asked. It's strange that I haven't seen him at all for two years and now he is here watching me. It's creeping me out. 

[No, I don't, but I will still inform mother about this. Just continue to enjoy your time with Emily. It doesn't seem like Buck is going to do anything aggressive for now, but if he does, Madam Neshan should be able to stop him before he can even cross half the distance to either you or Orianna,] Hellen answered.

[Alright, mom,] Maxine said, but she still kept awareness to her surroundings.

"Maxine? Is everything alright?" Emily asked suddenly, "You seem tense."

"There are people watching us," Maxine said calmly.

"What?" Emily said as she looked around carefully.

"It's a young woman watching us from the other side of those bushes to our right and that's the one that I found on my own. The one to our left is much better," Maxine stated honestly. 

"Why are they watching you though?" Emily asked.

"My guess is to confirm the existence of my sister for the young masters that have been harrassing me. Those fools probably want someone a bit easier to work with, but they are already out of luck. Orianna likes Maxwell," Maxine told Emily. 

"I think anyone with eyes can see that," Emily said as she glanced over at head at Maxwell and Orianna. Those two were intimately whispering to each other. Maxine had to concentrate to avoid hearing what they were saying. It didn't feel right to her to listen in to such an intimate conversation. She just hoped others would return the same curtesy to her when she wanted a private talk with Emily.

Inspired by Maxwell and Orianna's affectionate behavior, Maxine looked lovingly into Emily's eyes and was about to ask Emily a question when she felt intense hostility lock onto her from behind. She spun around and withdrew both of her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring to confront her attackers.

There were two masked people charging straight at her and she saw ten more were charging at Madam Neshan out of the corner of her eye. She sensed two more were behind her attacking Maxwell, but she couldn't spare anymore thought for anyone besides herself. She couldn't risk the distraction since all of the attackers were at the peak of silver stage. Fuck! 

Neesa and her sisters appeared infront of Maxine to protect her. However, Maxine knew for a fact that Neesa's cultivation was at silver rank seven and her sisters were a rank below her. They would be able to fight and win with difficulty one of those two, but not both.

Before Maxine could transform and join them, whip blade lashed out at the two charging masked warriors. They had to halt their charge to avoid it getting wounded. "She is my prey," Buck Wilder announced as he descended from above and landed beside Neesa. Maxine was stunned. Not so much that he came to her defense, but that he spoke. She had been under the distinct impression that he either didn't know how to speak or was an outright incapable of it. 

Her attackers looked at each other and charged once more. Maxine swiftly transformed and was grateful that her dress had quite a bit of elasticity as she charged at one of the two masked attackers while Neesa, her sisters and Buck attacked the other one.

As soon as their weapons clashed, Maxine knew that she was outmatched. Her opponent was stronger, faster and probably more experienced than she was. She had no chance at winning if she were to continue holding back her trump cards, but she could still stall for time without having to use them. It shouldn't take long for Madam Neshan to defeat her opponents or for others to arrive to help, but she still readied them in the back of her mind just in case.

Maxine frantically dodged and parried attacks, but she noticed that not one of them were aimed at her vitals. Their intent was clearly to incapacitate her. They want to kidnap me! She part of her wanted to panic at that realization, but she forced herself to remain calm as she continued to defend. By some small miracle, she barely managed to maintain her defense for the twenty seconds it took for Madam Neshan to finish her opponents and unleash a powerful sneak attack on Maxine's opponent from above. 

"That's more than enough," Madam Neshan said coldly to the barely conscious woudbe kidnapper, "Attacking the young miss of the Kavros Clan is an act of war, even if your intent was capture and not kill. I hope that you understand that." Maxine turned to where Maxwell was and saw two occupied craters on the ground next to him. Madam Neshan must have gone to his aide first and no wonder. Maxwell is pretty banged up. She didn't need to look where Madam Neshan had been. She knew that those ten people were probably dead or dying. Fortunately, Madam Neshan had held back enough that Maxine's opponent had retained their consciousness. 

"She started the war when she killed young master Adam!" the one that had been fighting Maxine roared greivously. Maxine realized it was a woman as soon as she spoke and was able to recognize her voice. She was one of Adam Marks' attendants during his stay at the Kavros Clan. What!? This makes no sense. Why the fuck would they think I killed Adam Marks after I made a show of banishing him from my clan? Even if I did, I had every right to based on my clan's laws and theirs.

"Maxine, I think you are being framed. Get everyone back to the mansion right now," Madam Neshan said, "Let your grandparents handle this."

Maxine didn't hesitate or ask questions since she knew that both she and Orianna were now targets and she knew that the chances of being attacked again would increase exponentially the longer they were out in the open. She could ask any questions that she might have later. For now, she needed to get to a safe location. 

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She used her essence to grab Maxwell, Orianna and Emily as she opened a portal to just outside of Orianna's room and pulled them all through it. She had wanted to look for that young woman that had been spying on her just before the attack, but she just didn't have the time for it.

Once on the other side of the portal, Maxine undid her transformation and quickly took stock of the condition of the others. Thankfully, Emily and Orianna were uninjured and Maxwell was just covered in small wounds. With that many, blood loss would become a real concern if he wasn't treated quickly. Unfortunately before any treatment could be administered, he collapsed onto the ground.

Without missing a beat, Emily rushed to Maxwell and started treating his wounds with Maxine directly behind her. Orianna was a weeping mess as she knelt on the ground beside him.

Maxine retrieved a healing potion from her dimensional ring and quickly brought it's contents to Maxwell's lips. "Drink," Maxine ordered him. He obediently did as she told him.  

"He ... he's hurt because he was protecting me," Orianna wept in recrimination.

"It's alright, Orianna. He will be fine with both of us patching him up," Maxine said soothingly and she felt that something was off. There was no way Maxwell had not lost enough blood to have collapsed this quickly. With a sudden realization, she touched his bloody wound with her finger and brought it to her lips to taste his blood to see if he had been poisoned. She wasn't afraid of being poisoned herself due to her Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline. It made her virtually immune to all but the deadliest of poisons. 

Not suprisingly, she detected a quick-acting paralytic poison in Maxwell's blood. "Maxwell's been poisoned," Maxine declared as she quickly retrieved a general antidote and this time she didn't have to order him to drink the poition. She knew how to make a more targeted antidote, but she didn't have one on hand. Fortunately, this one would still work, but to a lesser extent.  

"Will he be okay?" Orianna asked fearfully as more tears flooded down her cheeks. She looked as if she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"He will be fine. This poison wasn't meant to kill, just immobilize," Maxine stated as she started using her own essence to staunch Maxwell's bleeding. She had the ability to heal others, but it was far less efficient than Emily's was. With both of them healing Maxwell, his wounds quickly closed up and scabbed over. From the looks of it, he wouldn't have any scars from that skirmish, but he would still feel weak from aftereffects of the poison.

"Maxine, your shoulder!" Emily shouted once she looked up from Maxwell and Maxine followed Emily's line of sight to find a very deep verticle gash on her left shoulder. It almost reached bone. Due to the lack of pain, she hadn't even realized that she had been wounded. However as soon as the wound came to her attention, that was no longer an issue as she groaned from the sudden pain. 

Emily wasted no time using her essence to mend Maxine's shoulder. She held still to let Emily work and let her arm hang loosely to minimize the pain. However Maxine's current regeneration had already stopped the bleeding.  

Boreas suddenly appeared twenty feet away and his eyes landed onto Maxwell with a look of approval. Orianna didn't even register Boreas' presence as all of her attention was on Maxwell while she brushed his hair with her fingers.

"Well done, young man. You managed to fend off two opponents a full stage above you while poisoned to protect Orianna. I can finally see why Guan approves of you and now so do I," Boreas praised Maxwell and turned to look at Maxine, "Maxine, you can be at ease. Myself and elders will handle everything from here on out. I will make the Divine Mark's clan pay for this transgression and I don't care if they believe you killed their young master or not." Orianna began trembling as soon as Boreas started speaking, but she hadn't retreated from Maxwell's side.

Boreas didn't leave as he did before when he upset Orianna. He seemed intent on staying. Maxine didn't get angry at him this time. She knew that he was staying there to protect them. She just wished that a female elder had come here instead of Boreas. 

Fortunately, Madam Neshan arrived after a few moments and said, "Thank you, Boreas. I can take care of it from here. You wouldn't have even needed to come if Maxine had thought to bring me with her when she transferred everyone else." Oops.

"As you wish and thank you for protecting my grandchildren. If there is anything you should ever need and I can provide it, just ask and it's yours," Boreas said before vanishing in the same manner as he appeared. Damn he's fast and it seems he knows the same trick that Guan does to avoid causing sonic booms.  

"So, what now?" Maxine asked.

"Now, we will go into Orianna's room and see what can be done about your clothes and injuries," Madam Neshan said as she gestured at Maxine's left shoulder that Emily had yet to finish healing and Maxwell, whom was still on the ground, "After that, I suppose we will get dinner delivered to this room." Maxine didn't want to move before Emily could finish her treatment. It bugged her that her main body took so much longer to heal than a clone did. Oh, that reminds me. 

Maxine had her clone to go to the shadow world temporarily since didn't want to explain why there was another her inside of the room to Emily or Maxwell. 

"You can't be serious," Maxwell spoke up as Madam Neshan caused him to levitate a few feet off the ground with a wave of her hand, "We were just attacked and you are acting as if nothing happened at all."

"And why should I get excited? None of you were killed and the injuries you sustained are relatively minor. In any case, there is little we can do to influence the war that is coming. Those fools attacking Maxine essentially ensured it that it would," Madam Neshan stated as she walked into Orianna's bedroom with the others following her.

"Who would be that crazy or stupid to frame me? If that kidnapping had succeeded, Guan would have definitely gotten involved and I'm pretty certian they wouldn't want that," Maxine said as she closed the door behind them. In the next instant, Emily forced her to sit down while she continued to heal Maxine's wounded shoulder.

"I agree. Clearly they didn't think things through. That is why I believe this was planned soley by members of the younger generation since they have not witnessed Guan's ruthlessness first hand. Regardless of that, whoever framed you wants bloodshed between the two clans and the possibility that they are currently residing in the Kavros clan's territory is too high for comfort. It is virtually the only way they could have had access to Adam Marks flight plan early enough to plan an ambush," Madam Neshan stated as Maxwell floated onto the bed, "It will be only a matter of checking to see who looked up his flight plan to find the culprit and punish them." That part makes sense. Every ship is required to issue their flight plan ahead of time when they leave a system and are guided in by a dedicated AI when they approach their destination.  

"Why did the Divine Marks clan believe that I had anything to do with it in the first place?" Maxine asked.

"I don't know the answer to that question. I believe that's why Victoria has yet to come here to check on you," Madam Neshan answered, "Oh, and don't worry about Maxwell being here for much longer. A couple of maids should be along shortly to take him back to his room."

"No!" Orianna roared, "I will take care of Maxwell!"

"Orianna...," Maxine said in frustration, "He can't stay here while I get changed and cleaned up. It would be uncomfortable for him and me." 

Oriann opened her mouth to reply, but Emily chimed in before Orianna could say anything, "Orianna, let's put it this way. Would you like a man that you had no interest in staring at you while you changed clothes?"

"Fine, I see your point," Orianna pouted, "But can I check on him later?"

"We shall see," Madam Neshan said non-commitedly and a gentle knock on the door announced the arrival of the maid, "It looks like the maids are here."

Madam Neshan opened the door to let two maids carrying a stretcher walk in. The two of them quickly got beside Maxwell and loaded him onto it. 

"Emily, could you go with them? I think would put Orianna at ease knowning he has a capable healer to keep an eye on him," Maxine said, but that wasn't the only reason she sent Emily away. She knew there was a possibility of more members of the Divine Marks clan lurking nearby and didn't want Emily to get hurt if there was another mellee.  

"Alright, I have done what I can with your shoulder anyways," Emily said as she pulled her hands away from Maxine's shoulder and she turned to leave with them. 

"Emily, thank you for everything," Maxine said before Emily could leave the room.

"Any time, Maxine," Emily said with a smile as she left with the maids.

Maxine leaned back into the chair and thought about what had just happened. It's a good thing I wasn't captured. I can't imagine what they would do to me. Or rather I don't want to think about what they would do to me if they captured me. Still I wonder who had the balls to start this bullshit. I will find out shortly anyways. I can only imagine what grandma will do to that poor soul. Regardless, there is still the issue of a Shadow Demon being in the clan. I almost thought it was Buck Wilder after reading that damn book, but he doesn't have that fear aura that Shadow Demons should possess. That just begs the question, who is the Shadow Demon?