The Thorne of Destiny

It took Adrian a while to calm down. I mean, anyone would be surprised if their younger brother suddenly brought home a new sibling.

After listening to his brother's sheepish explanation, he finally realized the situation.

Olivia was actually a servant girl in training. She was brought into the family after he had left for the mountains.

Due to her cute looks, all the servants loved and doted on her. She even became a playmate for Jayson who was still sulking from his departure.

Jayson, who has always wanted to know what being an elder brother felt like told her to start calling him big brother.

Olivia was a bit hesitant at first, but after getting the permission of the matriarchs, she soon got comfortable calling him that.

After the attack, the two matriarchs took both of them and led them to the secret passage that led to the tunnel.

Before sending them off, they told Jayson to protect Olivia. Since she called him 'big brother', then he had to behave like one.

Jayson promised with tears in his eyes as he took Olivia's hand and ran through the tunnel as fast as they could.

He was young but he wasn't stupid. He knew that they were being attacked and that they might not be able to survive this time.

After the two of them arrived at the house, they were planning to hide there. They hoped that after the attack, someone would come and fetch them.

However, when they heard the knock on the door, they became afraid. Jayson told Olivia to hide in the corner of the room while he tried to put up some semblance of resistance against whoever it was.

They couldn't have imagined that the person that came for them was Adrian.

Perhaps it was because of the recent tragic experience, that Adrian was not really opposed to treating the girl like family.

His longing for his family made it easier for him to accept Olivia as part of his family. I mean at this point, they were all he had left.

He smiled at the little girl and told her that she could also call him big brother.

The little girl also smiled back and said in a cute and childish voice, "big brother Adrian".

After chatting with them for a while longer, he put both of them to bed.

They were already tired from running through the tunnels so they fell asleep quickly.

Adrian sat on a chair in the room and watched the two children sleeping peacefully.

His mind was racing with thoughts on what to do next. They obviously could not stay in the city anymore. Even if the people of the demonic faction left, other people with malicious intent would not spare them if they found them.

Those who were either envious of the Thorne family or those who had always been suppressed by them would try their best to eliminate them.

The greedy ones would want to take over the various businesses that the Thorne family had and having them around would be like having a sword over their heads at all times.

They would obviously want to remove such a dangerous variable.

Even without all these factors, the current Adrian could not re-establish the Thorne family.

He simply wasn't strong enough.

In this world, only the strong had the right to make decisions.

If he tried to do anything now, he would most likely be ridiculed and ignored.

After sorting out his thoughts, he was about to retire for the night when he suddenly thought of something, the Blake family.

The Blake family was also one of the twelve great families.

They were one of the three great families that occupied the southern region of the floating cloud continent alongside the Thornes and another.

They conducted regular trade with the Thorne family and both sides were on relatively good terms.

The biggest reason was that his fiancee was a member of the Blake family.

Adrian believed that as long as he could obtain the help of the Blake family alongside the sage's inheritance, it would only be a matter of time before he would be able to rebuild the Thorne family.

This thought finally relieved him a bit from his burdens as he was finally able to get some sleep while still sitting on the chair.

However, reality would prove to be far crueler than he imagined as he wouldn't expect the next turn of events.