The number of these vanished Heaven-Piercing Sect core loyalists—or rather, experts with countless ties to the Blood Soul Temple—was by no means small. Like the Wen Family of Flat Sand Valley in Central Province, which had been wiped out before, these exposed loyalist families and core members of the Heaven-Piercing Sect had been able to secretly establish Blood Sea Divine Pools across the provinces without detection. They were never ordinary local families or powers to begin with. Such a family would have at least one Black Iron Knight holding the fort. In fact, according to Great Xia's official report, among the Heaven-Piercing Sect loyalists wanted in connection with the Blood Men chaos and the exposure of the Blood Sea Divine Pools, there were 264 Black Iron Knights alone, along with 19 Earth Knights and 1 Phantom Knight.
That Phantom Knight came from the Gao Family of Ancient Flavor Hall, a prominent clan in Liang Province, one of Great Xia's nine great provinces. Han Zhengfang's wife was from the Gao Family. Had the incident at Xuanyuan Hill not occurred, no one would have imagined that the renowned Gao Family of Ancient Flavor Hall in Liang Province was actually part of the Heaven-Piercing Sect.
The wanted Phantom Knight was the Gao Family's former patriarch, the great-grandfather of its current patriarch—the Gao Family's old ancestor, Gao Tianzhao.
Besides Gao Tianzhao, the Gao Family's four Earth Knights and more than thirty Black Iron Knights were likewise placed on the Office of the Chief Justice's wanted list.
The Gao Family's knight experts had all fled. Those who could not escape either scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing in every direction, or were arrested and killed by the Office of the Chief Justice. Overnight, the once-glorious Gao Family of Ancient Flavor Hall came crashing down, leaving