Li Gan declined the Ming Family head's warm invitation, changed to a fast horse, and left Xiwu Mine to return to the Divine Sword Sect.
He rode without pause, pressing on through the night.
Late that night, as he passed a village, he saw that many of its houses were burning.
When he had passed through earlier, the adults had been busy while the children played and laughed, the village a peaceful scene of rustic country life.
How had it changed like this in the blink of an eye?
"Was it bandits or mountain robbers raiding the village and slaughtering everyone?"
Li Gan furrowed his brow.
He had heard of such things, but had never witnessed one with his own eyes.
Bandits might kill people while looting their wealth, but they rarely slaughtered an entire village so wantonly. To bandits, villages like these were fields of chives: after one harvest, they could wait a few years and harvest them again.
He stopped outside the village for a long while.
Apart from the crackling of the great fire, there was no other sound.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
After considering it for a while, Li Gan tugged the reins and guided his fast horse slowly toward the burning village.
Near the burning houses, corpses lay strewn about.
There were bodies near almost every house.
The villagers had died in all kinds of ways, their bodies too gruesome to look at.
There were adults, children, and elderly people.
"Most of them must have died less than an hour ago."
Li Gan extended his mental perception and discovered many traces.
It was horrific.
The entire village had become a land of the dead.
He had no idea what powerful force the village had offended to bring such a brutal attack upon it.
He walked around the