Pursuit

The Xiao family had once been a presence that made every faction tremble. With their arrogant, overbearing ways and wanton lawlessness, they had dreamed of dominating the entire continent. Their estate resembled a gloomy fortress, its thick walls built from towering black boulders. Sharp, fang-like banners snapped in the biting cold wind, and every flutter seemed to proclaim the Xiao family's brutality and greed, exuding a chilling aura.

Within the family, the doctrine that the strong were supreme had been twisted to its extreme. In their daily lives, the Xiao descendants relied on their family's power to run rampant across the continent. In prosperous towns, they extorted the people's wealth and trampled the dignity of ordinary civilians at will; in the resource-rich Spirit Grain and Spirit Ore regions, they drove away the native forces and claimed the precious resources for themselves through cruel, bloody violence. On the Training Ground, they could often be seen brawling over resources, blood splashing across the sand as shrill screams rang without end. In the secret chambers, the Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasures they had seized were piled as high as mountains, yet they squandered them recklessly simply to satisfy their selfish desires and increase their strength so they could continue plundering.

News of the deaths of a group of experts quickly spread throughout the Xiao family. The entire family first sank into a brief deathly silence, then erupted in a furious roar.

The family's higher-ups had grown accustomed to acting arrogantly, and now they were even more furious. The head of the family, Xiao Fengling, had a face already steeped in ferocity, but it had now flushed red, the veins on his forehead bulging like furious little snakes. He slammed his palm onto the table and roared, "Who was it? Who exactly dared lay