Ever since the Flower Thief's trail vanished, the area around the town had remained calm for several days. The tightly strung nerves of many wealthy households had eased somewhat, and they assumed the Flower Thief had moved on to another region.
Though the town's only major martial forces were the Su Family, the White Ram Gang, and the Black Tiger Gang, each with Bone Tempering Realm experts stationed within, there were also smaller martial Lineages and factions, some guarded by one or more Muscle Refinement Realm experts. Compared to ordinary families, these naturally counted as wealthy households.
Yet no one in town could have imagined that, in a sprawling estate more than a hundred miles away, broken walls and crumbling ruins lay everywhere, along with countless stains of congealed blood. This was precisely the martial force overseen by an Early Bone Tempering Realm expert that had suffered the Flower Thief's visit overnight.
Cao Ting, the inspection officer from the prefectural city government, hurried to the crime scene after several days of travel, leading a squad of constables.
As far as the eye could see, the entire estate was a complete shambles. Its walls had been smashed through in many places by brute force, the courtyard was littered with dead and wounded, and only a handful of survivors remained. Many of the women of the household had suffered horrors too terrible to behold. A Late Bone Tempering Realm expert possessed terrifying destructive power. A single kicked boulder could smash down a row of more than ten houses. This differed from the power of those massive machines on Blue Star in his previous life. Though such machines could easily reach three thousand jin of force, they were generally slow and inflexible, making it nearly impossible for a hurled boulder to carry three