You have to live
Bodies of those from the great families were scattered on the surface. All of it done by the one and only Blade family. Some of them upon seeing the old man didn't know it would be the last thing they saw before they moved on from this world.
They were fighting for peace, fighting against the Dalki, but they never expected to be fighting against an unknown enemy. When attacking those on the surface Hilston was sloppy, some would think this wasn't in line with what the Blades did in the past.
The truth was, Hilston was always sloppy, leaving traces of the Blade family behind wherever he went, there were plenty of witnesses that had seen his power before, yet no one outside the big families knew who the Blades really were. Why? Because someone was always there to cover their tracks, to silence those that knew about them.