Massacre

When he arrived there, the scene made his heart drop. The once magnificent buildings now stood in ruins as if a natural disaster had devastated the area. Only his family's personal residence stood somewhat still resembling a building. All others were completely destroyed. He had thought that this place would still be safe but it was just a mirror of what was happening in the outer area.

Corpses strewn about as if they were ragdolls littered the floor. He could even see the corpses of some of his mother's maids who had taken care of him since he was younger. The scene was very tragic.

As Adrian tried to calm his emotions and make his way down the hallway, he found even more corpses. They included those of his martial uncles. People who he thought unbeatable were now lying in their own pools of blood. This scene made him even more anxious.

When he finally entered the hall, the scene inside immediately made him drop to his knees. His hands quivered in shock as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was his mother's corpse as well as the corpse of his father's second wife. Both of them were killed just a few feet apart from each other.

Their skins were already pale, making him realize that it wasn't a recent occurrence. 

Tears flowed uncontrollably from Adrian's face as he couldn't even muster up the courage to move closer to their bodies. It was as if his body was trying to deny their deaths. He could only kneel and watch their bodies as it grew colder and colder. Time seemed to stop for him as his vision became blurred from the tears.

The deaths of both women were a great shock to him. It wasn't just his mother's death that hurt him. His father's second wife's death was also included.

Even though she wasn't his mother, they got along well. She would always give him treats after his long and arduous training during the day. She also didn't favor his brother, her own son against him. Something that was uncommon among noble families.

As this thought arose, he seemed to have been jolted awake. His brother, where was his brother? He looked around frantically and could not find the body of the twelve-year-old boy anywhere. This made him calm down a bit as he started running towards his father's study. There had been a massacre, so where the hell was his bloody father?

He soon found his answer as he barged into the grand hall and found him sitting at top, with his eyes closed, and a hole through his chest.

Adrian stood frozen at the entrance to the study in a daze. He didn't know what to do or say. It was as if everything in front of him was an illusion. He hadn't imagined that his father, who was the strongest person he knew of and one of the strongest people on the Floating Cloud continent, would die just like that.

He walked forward slowly. His steps were shaky as if he would collapse if a gust of wind blew at him at this moment. As soon as he arrived in front of his father's corpse, something broke inside him. Tears started flowing uncontrollably as he stared at his father's lifeless body.

The gravity of the whole situation finally hit him as he realized something.....

The Thorne family was destroyed. A family that had stood tall on the floating cloud continent for over a thousand years was gone in the span of just a day. Even though he was already sad about the death of his mother and the rest of the family, he still truly hadn't realized the seriousness of the whole situation.

Only after seeing his father's body did he realize that all was truly lost. Due to his raging emotions, Adrian didn't realize that there were two people slowly approaching his current location.

"Brother, what kind of rewards do you think we'll get for this operation?"

"I'm not sure, but the rewards from this operation would not be small. I mean, we destroyed the f*cking Thorne family. Even if the sect doesn't give us anything, the resources in their treasury are probably enough for us to break through to the soul formation realm."

"By the way, what are we looking for? Aren't we supposed to be raiding their treasury?

If the others get to it first, I'm afraid we'd only be left with scraps."

"Don't worry about that. Elder Crow sent us to find the patriarch's token. Without it, the treasury can't be accessed. If we tried, we'd probably all be killed before we could even get to the door. "

"The security measures of the big families are not something that can be broken into casually. And the Thorne family's methods are even better than the other families."

"I heard the elder say that the runes and arrays that are used to protect the Treasury are all ancient ones. The methods used to create them have all been lost to time.

Even the Thorne family can only access them with the patriarch's token; otherwise, no one on this continent will be able to open the Treasury."

"I'm afraid even the sect master would have to risk serious injury just to get to the door."

As the two men were conversing, they slowly made their way towards the patriarch's study, where Adrian currently was. Because of the size of the Thorne family, the Treasury was, of course, in a secret location that was a distance away from where the family resided. It took them a whole day of searching in order to find the treasury that was located deep underground.

Of course, this bit of distance was nothing to the two men who were at the ninth level of the nascent soul realm.

As they casually approached the study, Adrian was still trying to come to terms with the situation. After a few minutes, he had somewhat calmed down. He started thinking about his next course of action. Clearly, he couldn't keep staying here. What if the people responsible were still around? As he thought of this, he wanted to start making his way out of the room.