23 Escaping Pursuers and a Ancient Power Part 3

By taking the 14th Emperor remains, and hiding them from all but her, Livia is not only putting a target on her back but also actively changing a small element in the original story.

She doesn't really give two craps about this, though.

Her thoughts were a mess. She was tired, dirty, and hungry, with limbs that feel like weights attached to her body. Livia just dragged a fucking corpse up a mountain, while avoiding her fucking persistent as hell pursuers. She did not have the energy to care about the original story and all that shit. Her focus had been small and probably very petty. But she didn't care about that either.

Fuck Saer.

Fuck the Empire.

Livia hated them all.

She wanted to get back at them, to throw a wrench in there stupidly destructive plans, and hiding the Emperors' body was the only way she knew how, so she did it. And with a spell that no one could hope to ever lift.

Livia smiles and knows it isn't pretty at all.

Then the sounds of distant shouts is heard, and her head whips around in the direction it came from. Her body is already bolting forward, moving away from the clearing and back into the dense forest, but she stops just at the edge.

She looks back and is suddenly all too aware of the weight of his ring on her finger. It just a pretty trinket now, one she had taken without thought, but now claps it tightly with her other hand, slowly turning it.

The voices grow louder, but Livia still makes the time to bow her head and say a silent prayer. Her lips tremble and a single tear escapes and falls down her face. She allows it. It's the least he deserves.

'I guess you are no longer an Emperor,' She thinks sadly, still not moving.

Livia recalls how he once asked, very timidly, for her to call him by his name. She had shot down the idea ruthlessly. She had refused to see him as anything but The Emperor. He was her owner, the one she had to suck up to for her survival. He wasn't her friend, he wasn't her lover, he was just an obstacle she would eventually overcome.

Now...

'I owe you this much...'

"Goodbye Elias. You will be missed." The words barely escape her lips, whispered underneath her breath, before she turns and runs.

The clearing, with the two towering trees and the freshly dug grave underneath them, goes unseen by the two guards that stand in the exact same spot as Livia. They inspect the area carefully before one notices the small fabric on a tree branch and rush off in that direction in hot pursuit of the girl with the purple hair, the one who was powerful enough to cut even the strongest of them.

He is known as a great swordsman, The Slasher of Winds, ranked at number two in all of the Empire, now number one now that the 14th Emperor has fallen. At level 78, Saer Andre Kane was no easy foe to take on, but in a blink of an eye, he was bested.

At the base of the mountain, still in the garden, Saer turns over the severed harpoon in his right hand. His eyes it coolly with an expression that is hard to read.

His general speaks to a soldier before coming towards him.

"Sir, we found traces of the girl. It seems she is heading further up the mountain. Do you still wish to pursue her?" The general asks with impassive green eyes.

Saer ignores him, still looking at the damaged weapon. His arm has been dressed, but it still twinges with pain and blood slowly seeps into the bandages. It was still severed. If it had been cut with a blade or by normal magic, it could have been reattached by now. But that girl has used a hex. A nasty, destructive spell that was meant to cause permanent and lasting harm. Saer could feel the limb becoming steadily numb. It wouldn't be long before he lost all feeling.

It was vicious and intentionally malicious.

To think his brother would be so foolish to keep such a poisonous viper so close to him.

And even worse...Saer let that woman escape right under his watch.

It was inexcusable. But...

Saer gets up and drops the harpoon. He walks to the secret escape door of the garden and steps through, his general calmly following him.

"It's been two hours and forty-two minutes since that woman escaped," Saer comments lightly. The soldiers that still linger outside the forest tense up, while the general straightens to his full height.

Saer turns to the general, his face carefully blank, "It seems that my army, the soldiers that I have personally trained myself is not enough to capture a single woman fleeing on her own feet." The contempt in his words was thinly veiled.

"I apologize, sir, we hadn't thought she would stay in the forest." The general says, his brows crinkling slightly.

"Well, now that you know, I am sure it won't be long now? It would be rather troublesome if I leave Empire at such a... turbulent time. I'm sure you will personally make sure she is captured." Saer stares at his general with hard eyes.

The general bows deeply, "Of course sir, but..."

"What." Saer growls, stopping in the middle of walking away.

"You wish to have the girl captured? Not killed on sight...? I would think after what she had done, and the potential threat she brings..." The general trails off, not willing to continue talking once Saer turns around.

"I want her captured alive, general. Use the null weapons to subdue her. Without her magic, that woman is not a threat to anyone."

The general was tempted to question the Prince further but holds his tongue. He bows once more, and nods, "Yes sir, I will spread the word." He keeps his bow until Saer returns to the Palace.

Even after the general bark out orders, and enters the forest, he can't shake the sinking feeling in the pit of his gut. The look on Saer's face...it couldn't mean anything good. He almost hopes for the girl's sake that she manages to evade them a little longer.

It was never a good thing to pique the curiosity of a man such as Saer.

Now the hunt for the woman who became the 14th Emperors favorite in a short amount of time, the woman who was able to escape the Eastern Empire harem, and who wounded his pride, and put a dent in his winning streak, was on.