After Sahara had left, the mass that entered the Empress’s quarters shuffled about. The guards didn’t enter directly into the bed chamber but could hear the Empress order them to imprison the Thirteenth Young Miss. Not only was her title of Princess not used, but also that of ‘Divine Healer’…But the guards knew who the Empress was talking about and scurried off in search of her.

Knowing that the Empress was awake, they were strangely conflicted, because it was obvious that the person they were after, was the person that they should thank for the Empress’s health…Yet they could only do as they were told, because the Empress Dowager was indeed…Gone!

Of course, the Empress was going to take full advantage of Sahara making the Empress Dowager disappear! Having the miss make such a huge blunder like this on her own, was not something she should pass up!

After the maidservants rushed to either get warm water for a bath or to go to the kitchen for food, there was only one left when the Empress asked for her personal bodyguard.

Looking at the guard, she said, “The special liquid that we had put away for that enchantress…Go and get it! Give it to her now!”

This was indeed the stocked poison that she had…Having wanted to use it for months now, whether it be on the favoured consort or the Thirteenth Young Miss Rolland, it didn’t matter!

The bodyguard bowed and was off in a flash…But Matthew, being a higher cultivation base, was able to keep tabs on this personal bodyguard. He was glad that he hadn’t left when Sahara had, as he was sure that the ‘enchantress’ that the Empress was talking about was his beloved Princess, and he wanted to stop this personal bodyguard from completing his mission!

Following after him, waiting for him to get the evidence, Matthew then not only took the evidence, but took the unconscious bodyguard and jumped away.

Giving the unconscious bodyguard to Band Two, Matthew opened the container, that supplied the ‘liquid’, and smelled it, not noticing his shaking hands to his anger…

It didn’t seem familiar to him, and Matthew knew that he had to get someone to tell him what it was, to understand what kind of threat the Empress had wanted to do to his beloved Princess.

“Go get a cultivator intelligence and meet me at Band One.” Matthew stated harshly, almost like he spat it out!

Then, taking the unconscious person again, not wanting to take his eyes off of him, Matthew tried to think of what he should do but found it hard to think when his mind was repeating the words that not only his Imperial Mother had said, but that too of his Imperial Grandmother!

After taking the Empress’s personal bodyguard to the Emperor, the Emperor had him locked up and ordered for his cultivation base to be blocked.

If what Matthew said was true, then, yet again, the Empress was trying to harm his daughter in law, even though she had just been healed by that same person.

Before Matthew left, he quickly stated that Sahara had teleported the Empress Dowager.

Upon being asked why, Matthew let out a deep breath and showed a very angry face at the emperor, “They were planning to steal our child away from us! I am not going to hold this against Sahara, as it was, this Prince wanted to kill both of them for planning something like this and treating my Princess so terribly!”

The emperor frowned, Sahara always seemed to make trouble! Or was it that trouble seemed to revolve around her!?

Yet…Were they really going to steal the child? It had not even been born yet…

With Matthew showing how angry he is and Sahara teleporting the Empress Dowager…

…Something like taking a child to put into another’s care wouldn’t be something asked of him, as the emperor, as the Empress would have the power to do this without his consent...

Sighing and feeling a headache coming up, the emperor put a hand to his forehead, “Let this King hear what Sahara has to say, bring her here.”

Matthew humphed and left. Not only did he also want Sahara in his arms, but he hadn’t given the emperor the evidence yet, only giving him the Empress’s personal bodyguard. He should have told his Band to take the cultivator intelligence straight to the emperor…Now that he remembered, why did he say to send the cultivator intelligence to Band One?

Band One had been captured a long time ago and now put into the palace dungeon...Having been moved months ago, yet still unable to find a way to plead his innocence, he could only be detained and forgotten about till now...Why did he send the cultivator intelligence there!?

But…

Clenching his fists, Matthew shook his head in disgust.

How dare they!

And this was the reason he hadn’t thought of where to send the cultivator intelligence…Because he was deadly angry about the so-called plans of the Empress and the Empress Dowager!

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Rage that felt similar to when Isabella had died, was pouring in waves through his veins and he felt his blood flowing all over his body!

He was that angry that he wasn’t able to think properly!

They had not treated his beloved well at all!

No ‘thank you’, no happiness for what she had done! They had even dared to pretend that she was not even there!

It was known by even the emperor, that Sahara had been forced into healing the Empress, yet they treat her as such!

Either here, or at Purple Haven, people were treating her like she was nothing! They wanted to take advantage of her, disrespect her, be ungrateful to her and be nasty to her!

This…Was not going to continue!

Going towards Band One, Matthew tried to calm himself down, yet…It was so terribly hard to do…Especially when his son, who hadn’t even been born yet, was becoming somebody else’s pawn to use as they see fit…

But…Seeing most of what happened in front of his eyes, he was even wondering if Sahara would even return back to Green Haven now at all!

He knew that she had literally already left and was mostly here to help Purple Haven…But she will most likely never return back to Green Haven this time...

And…Matthew did not blame this potentially from happening in the future at all! No…If anything, he wants to stay away from those who want to take his son away!

His pride was that child…His future held his full family! There was simply no way…No way at all, that his family was going to be separated!

Having gone lost into his thoughts, suddenly Matthew found that he had taken a wrong turn...Changing directions once again, Matthew focused on breathing in and out, trying to calm himself down. He had to finish dealing with this ‘liquid’ and find Sahara once again, so he took the last two minutes to Band One, to think properly once again.

But he wasn’t even too sure where Sahara was, and he was hoping that she hadn’t left without him but was instead in a safe place still here in Green Haven…

***

Back in Purple Haven, and before the Empress Dowager was teleported, Steven had been doing his usual of helping cook for five thousand people…Sahara had been gone now for an hour or so and Steven could only do his best in filling in for her. He hardly spoke, he didn’t understand the ‘sports’ and would finish the same workload as everyone else in a fifth of the time.

His routine involved that of helping those who hadn’t finished harvesting crops or watching over the children with the foxes. But, whatever he did, he still felt like he had not been able to fit in till this day…As, he was either too powerful or too quiet…Maybe something else too…

Sadly, on this day, he feels the loneliness that little bit more…Until…

The sudden new people who had come to help cook dinner…And having them come on their own, made Steven feel like he was finally fitting in somewhere. Perhaps the people liked him after all…

For twenty minutes, he scurried around happily and got the new people something to do. They didn’t say much in return to his words or gestures, but Steven did not even care!

To have the people come to him like this!

…But after an hour, the new people completely stunned Steven’s good thoughts, by having suddenly attacked him all at once…

The entire reason of them volunteering, was for them to detain Steven at the best time possible…Which they decided, was at the time that he was cooking.

And…It had worked…

They had easily obtained small knifes, so that they could cut up vegetables or fruit, and they used these knifes to cut into Steven. They hadn’t thought that Steven would have been so happy that they had come to help, but it had been a bonus distraction to help them with their objective in the end. It did occur to two people, that Steven had been extremely happy and that they were being very harsh upon their mission, but they still did as they were told…Because this was their Haven…This was getting their freedom back and claiming leadership…

At first, two knifes entered into his body, but before Steven could retaliate, another four cut into him and he found himself falling to the ground in pain.

Two knifes went into his arms, to prevent him from using them easily, just like another two entered into his thighs. The other two knifes were randomly placed onto his body, one in his side and the other in his shoulder.

As Steven was then roped up and put up onto display outside, that was when a fox came, growling at the people who were hurting Steven.

Even though the fox attempted to help Steven, the ten people around were able to fight back and in the end…The fox was also pinned down and slashed into!

It hadn’t been an easy fight, as the beast would run quite fast around them and bite them quickly. But the reason these ten people were picked to have done this to Steven, was because they still had unblocked cultivation bases…And that helped keep up with the little fox that was running around.

They didn’t have a net or anything like that…No, in the end, they had distracted the mutt by calling a name that made it look around and lose focus on what it was originally doing…In that moment, it was all that was needed to impale the beast with a wooden spear…Making the little fox unable to move.

…A rebellion was then officially in place!

They had noticed Sahara’s disappearance the last time that she had gone, so they had taken this chance to take advantage of two highly ranked cultivators not being around…To take back Purple Haven!

Presently, Steven was looking at the dead fox laying lifelessly in front of him and he squeezed his eyes shut.

He would never had wished for the fox to help him, never!

It should have stayed away, it wasn’t worth having come here to attempt to free him!

Swallowing hard and feeling strength slowly leave him, Steven felt like he was back to the days where he had no one and was on the run again.

Sahara, she was gone for quite a few hours last time…So, she may not be back anytime soon. But…Steven was hoping that she doesn’t come back. It was unsafe, and he did not want any harm to come to her…Yet, at the same time, he felt abandoned. That…These people that he had thought wouldn’t go this far and with Sahara’s absence, he felt…Very lonely.

The people that had cut into him, had told him that he was to be killed in front of others…That his death will help bring the rise of Purple Haven once again!

Their idea was to show that they could fight back, even against someone at the peak of rank eight, it was also to try and get more people onto their side. So, they had not killed him on purpose, even though they knew they might have to if he was going to be able to fight back after his limbs had been stabbed…

The knife cuts were luckily not that deep, as the blood coming from them was not pouring out, just dripping. The problem was, where the knifes had been placed…It still wasn’t a good situation…

His arms were able to move, but it hurt, just like his legs, what made him more upset though, was that he felt no energy to fight…

A fox had died for him, the people had already been separated and the reason for him to fight didn’t seem to reach out to him at all…So, he stayed there, in the wide space where the flag was to go up upon Prince Seth’s return.

He was…Alone…Alone and wondering if there was any point to saving these people…

Taking this time, Steven saved his energy for when he would leave. Since the people had gone against him, what was the point of staying? Yet…He found himself thinking of hiding, instead of running away…Just because…Just because he didn’t want to leave the only person who had taken him in and been nice to him…