The Thorne of Destiny

Adrian stood 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 persons 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 stared flowing uncontrollably as 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 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 is probably enough for us to breakthrough 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 John 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 can 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 method 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 one. 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 just 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.

Just as he was about to leave, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye in his father's robe. He moved closer and took it out. It was a small token made out of a material that resembled wood but was far stronger. On the front was a plant covered in thorns that had a ferocious dragon coiled around it while on the back was only one word, "patriarch".

It was the patriarchs token that the two men were looking for. As soon as he saw it, he was hit with another wave of emotions. Only the patriarch could have the token and it was part of the things that he was supposed to inherit.

Well, he had indeed inherited it now but rather than feel joyful about it, he was sad and despondent. His father was dead, and now, that was supposed to be his responsibility. But the whole family was gone. He put the token in his storage ring and was about to leave when he sensed the aura of two individuals approaching him.

Adrian felt his heart drop to his stomach because these two aura's were at the ninth stage of the nascent soul realm and judging by the fiendish nature of these aura's. They didn't seem like friends.

Adrian panicked because if he could sense them from this distance, then they could definitely sense his presence. Since he could not hide anymore, he decided to run for it. He jumped through the window and started running through the courtyard. He had to escape as soon as possible or else he would be in danger.

He ran as fast as he could and soon left the main family's courtyard.

Alas, escaping from them was a pipe dream as he was soon surrounded by the two brutal men.