Chapter 483 – Eternal Alliance
For Zhao Hai, these materials were very useful. His current understanding about the carious Great Clans of the continent was pitifully small. With the Buda Clan having no intelligence unit, acquiring information about these families was very hard.
The other doc.u.ments were not very useful. Most of them were internal data about the Robert Family. But these information were no longer useful for Zhao Hai, the Robert Family was already exterminated by him. Those data were equivalent to waste paper at this point.
The group organized these doc.u.ments, some were discarded, some were saved. After that, Zhao Hai and the others went to rest.
The next morning, Zhao Hai took the doc.u.ment about Engraved Ark out of the s.p.a.ce. After eating their breakfast, he immediately handed the doc.u.ment over to Randolph. After that, he went out of the fort to release some undead and made them clean the toppled trees of Dark Mountain.
When Randolph saw the doc.u.ment, he was startled. Then he immediately took Robert Patriarch’s and Terry’s bodies with him as he rushed towards the imperial palace.
The emperor naturally knew about the happenings last night. Of the 9th ranks who went to check the fighting yesterday, some of them belonged to the Royal Clan. Even if those 9th ranks didn’t say too much, they still pa.s.sed the information about the conflict at the very least.
Randolph gave the doc.u.ment as well as the corpses over to the Emperor. The Emperor immediately had someone call the Royal Dark Mage over to turn Terry and Robert Patriarch into advanced level undead before interrogating them.
In the end, all the matters were made clear. From Robert Patriarch and Terry’s mouths, they admitted that they were members of Engraved Ark. Moreover, the Antimagic Powder was mostly manufactured by the organization.
Regarding these matters, the Rosen Empire immediately published the doc.u.ment out to the world. At the same time, they also communicated with the other nations of the continent, making them pay special attention to anything involving Engraved Ark.
Rosen Empire was the continent’s most influential nation, their rallying power was formidable. With how they were perceived by the entire continent, this time’s announcement from the Empire naturally turned the continent in an uproar.
Zhao Hai did not seem to care about these things at all. He spent one day in taking care of Dark Mountain and then stayed in his residence from then on.
Green and the others were still uninformed about last night’s battle. Zhao Hai wanted to tell them and ask about what they think.
Zhao Hai didn’t worry too much about Engraved Ark. All of the people under him were slaves, and slaves weren’t allowed to be members of the organization. For Engraved Ark, slaves held zero value, therefore, it was impossible for them to join.
Moreover, Zhao Hai had also read from the doc.u.ment that the population of Engraved Ark was relatively small. However, Zhao Hai believed that the status of those people mustn’t be low. Otherwise, how could those people pull the Robert Family over into joining them.[1]
On the other side, people were in an uproar. They had just been informed that the Robert Family had been eliminated. When they received this new, all of them were very surprised. They cannot believe that one of the most powerful families in the continent was now nonexistent. This was too unbelievable.
Afterwards, the Imperial Palace had released some news, which made them even more startled. Antimagic Powder, Engraved Ark, all of these things seemed to be from their imaginations. After their initial uproar, people couldn’t help but turn speechless.
And then, another information from the Calci Family came, which made everyone shocked silly. This information actually said that the Robert Family’s demise was accomplished under Zhao Hai’s hands.
But this information was something that majority of the people from Rosen Empire didn’t believe. Then, another piece of news was pa.s.sed on. All of the Robert Family’s stores outside of the capital have been destroyed. All of their personnel were killed, their goods were looted, and lastly, their shops burned. It can be said that the Robert Family’s final chance of survival went up in smoke. From this day on, the Robert Family became just a word in the history of the Ark Continent.
These news went like bombs as it exploded inside the minds of all the residents of Rosen Empire. Millenium-old clans were much like the symbols of invincibility in the Continent. The number of Millenium-old clans that were exterminated in the entire history of the continent can be counted on one hand. Almost all of them were done from the inside, they all perished due to internal conflict. On the other hand, the Robert Family was actually destroyed completely by someone else.
In the past, when a millennium-old clan dissolved, there were generally some survivors left. But for the Robert Family, there wasn’t anyone left, all of their members were killed. This was too terrifying.
The Great n.o.bles of the continent were startled as well. They were even more startled when the Calci Family spread the fact that the extermination was Zhao Hai’s doing. Naturally, these people didn’t believe that it was Zhao Hai, one person cannot defeat the Robert Family. However, they were certain that Zhao Hai had a huge hand in the operation.
Now, all of them are changing the way they see Zhao Hai. The Calci Family’s strength was similar to the Robert Family. The Calci Family destroying the Robert Family was impossible. But now that Zhao Hai joined the Calci Family, they were actually able to eliminate the Robert Family. If they didn’t believe that this was because of Zhao Hai, then they might as well kill themselves for their stupidity.
Because of this, these Great Clans were now scared. Now that the Calci Family had united with the Buda Clan, their cooperation was much more formidable. Zhao Hai was far from what they previously thought; a playboy who liked playing around, eating and others.
Starting from today, all of the Great n.o.bles in Rosen Empire began to look seriously into Zhao Hai. His image of a playboy had now vanished.
The dissemination of information in the continent was very quick. In a day’s time, almost everyone in the continent knew of this matter. All the Mages in the continent became insecure. At the same time, all of the nation’s Mage’s guild decreed at once that all Mages must unite and look for this Engraved Ark, they must destroy this organization. Otherwise, if this group’s plans were to succeed, and they produce a lot of Antimagic Powder, all of the Mages in the continent would suffer a huge accident.
Right now, the thing that was in Zhao Hai’s mind was how this organization came to be. How this organization started, how they became a secret. From what Zhao Hai had heard, this information seem to have their own faith.
Faith was mysterious, people in the continent had different faiths. Warriors wors.h.i.+p the Martial G.o.d, Light Mages wors.h.i.+p the Radiant G.o.d, Dark Mages wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d of Darkness, Wind Mages wors.h.i.+p the Wind G.o.d, Water Mages wors.h.i.+p the Water G.o.d, Fire mages wors.h.i.+p the Fire G.o.d, Earth Mages wors.h.i.+p the Earth G.o.d, Elves wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d of Life, Beastmen wors.h.i.+p the Beast G.o.d, and the Dwarves wors.h.i.+p the Artisan G.o.d. But the Engraved Ark’s source of faith was actually out of the norm, what they wors.h.i.+pped seem to a Demon.
Why ‘seem’? This was because Zhao Hai had no concrete testimony that the organization wors.h.i.+pped a Demon. However, Zhao Hai had seen an image from the back of the doc.u.ment, it was a portrait of a devil. The devil had eight arms, three heads, six feet, and looked extremely terrifying. From this, Zhao Hai inferred that the Engraved Ark wors.h.i.+pped a Demon.
Zhao Hai knew that if a person didn’t have faith, he wouldn’t be such a lunatic. It was because of faith that people did overly extreme things.
While Zhao Hai was ruminating on these matter, a servant immediately came bearing a message that Jason had come to visit. Zhao Hai stared for a moment before he had the servant invite Jason to come in.
Jason was different from his usual wacky and joking face, now he had a serious expression on his face. Zhao Hai made him sit down and had the servant retreat. Then Jason turned to Zhao Hai and said, “Little Hai, are you really responsible for what happened last night? Is the Engraved Ark real? Did the Robert Family really use Antimagic Powder?”
Zhao Hai nodded and said, “I am, but my initial intention was to destroy all of the Robert Family’s businesses. I didn’t expect the Robert Family to a.s.sa.s.sinate me, moreover, they actually used Antimagic Powder. But since they were defeated, they became afraid that the Antimagic were to be made known to others, so they attacked Dark Soldier Fort. Later on, they were eliminated by the Calci Family. Then, I went to kill all of the remaining Robert Family members before looting their treasury. It was there that I managed to uncover the matter about Engraved Ark.”
Jason’s face had a heavy expression, he nodded and said, “I believe that this organization is real. You don’t know, but before I came here, I rummaged some data from my family and managed to see that there were a lot of strong Mages that suddenly died in the past. Moreover, their death actually didn’t involve them using any magic. These cases became one the mysteries of the continent. Now it seems like these incidents were caused by Engraved Ark, they were using Antimagic Powder.”
Zhao Hai stared, he truly didn’t know about this, he looked at Jason and said, “Really? There was such a thing?”
Jason nodded and said, “I just figured that out. As far as the information that my Crook Family has, there were at least 100 Mage deaths in the last ten years alone. 20 of them were 8th rank experts. But n.o.body thought more into these incidents, after all, these people came from different nations, their deaths were very far apart. But now that new information came about, people would certainly think that there was something wrong with the deaths of these Mages.”
Zhao Hai nodded and said, “It seems like this Engraved Ark has existed for quite a long time. No wonder they had such strength, but it’s a pity that there was no way to find out about their ident.i.ty.”
Jason nodded, then his face turned serious as he looked at Zhao Hai, “Little Hai, today I came to look for you because of Grandfather’s proposal. He wanted my Crook Family and your Buda Clan to be in an eternal alliance starting this day. What do you think?”
Zhao Hai stared, he didn’t expect the Crook Family to initiate forming an Eternal Alliance with him. This Eternal Alliance wasn’t easy to enact. There were too many people involved in it and there were too many matters to consider.
The Eternal Alliance was also called the Ironclad Union by the people of the continent. When two families form an Eternal Alliance, if one of them falls, the other would have to help them recover and achieve their previous strength. This alliance had the same meaning as a Beastman’s Beheading Blood Oath.
Zhao Hai stared for a moment before he became happy. The Crook Family’s influence in the Rosen Empire wasn’t much smaller than millenium-old clans. If Zhao Hai forms an Eternal Alliance with such a family, then his Buda Clan would benefit a lot from it.
Zhao Hai immediately nodded happily and said, “I fully agree. But I still have a few reservations. Just by our relations.h.i.+p, forming this alliance seems to be wrong.”
When Jason heard Zhao Hai, he couldn’t help but laugh and said, “I’ll go back to grandfather and express your concern. If you have time, go to my family’s fort and play. You can also discuss this matter with the family.”
Zhao Hai nodded, “Alright, I’ll go there tomorrow.” Then as he said that, a knock was heard. Zhao Hai immediately responded and said, “What’s the problem?”
The servant’s voice was heard, “Young Master Zhao Hai, the Patriarch had sent a message. His Majesty, the Emperor, wishes to see you in the palace immediately. He said that he has an important matter to consult with.”
Zhao Hai stared, Jason stared as well. They looked at each other, confused. But Zhao Hai immediately recovered and said, “Alright, I’ll go tidy my clothes and then I’ll immediately leave.” The servant issued a sound of compliance as he walked.
Zhao Hai frowned towards Jason and said, “Why do you think his Majesty called for me?”
Jason also frowned as he replied, “I really cannot say, but it should have a something to do about what happened yesterday. You should go, right, why haven’t I seen sister-in-laws today?”
Zhao Hai smiled and said, “They’re currently rummaging through all of the doc.u.ments from the Robert Family in another room. We didn’t expect that the Robert Family would have a lot of information about Great Clans in the continent, these things are very useful to my clan.” Actually, Laura and the others were sorting through all of the Robert Family’s doc.u.ments inside the s.p.a.ce, not in another room.
Jason smiled faintly and said, “You lucky guy. This time, you looted the Robert Family. The wealth of a millennium-old family, you’re really making me envious.”
Zhao Hai laughed and said, “Lucky, right? As it turns out, there’s nothing much faster in gaining money other than robbing people. It seems like I need to do this a few more times.”
Jason laughed as well, “Are you really a guy who likes to rob? I really didn’t see it before, but you actually have the potential to be a thief. Hahaha. Right, we shouldn’t be talking too much, the Emperor is waiting for you, we can’t have him wait too long.” Zhao Hai nodded and stood up, then he tidied his clothes before leading Jason to the exit.
When they came out of the courtyard, a servant was already waiting for them with along with a carriage. The two rode the carriage as they left Dark Soldier Fort. Jason rode his carriage, but before leaving, he reminded Zhao Hai about his visit to the Crook Family. Zhao Hai nodded before boarding the carriage that the Calci Family already prepared for him.
Since Zhao Hai’s carriage was destroyed, Randolph personally a.s.signed this carriage to Zhao Hai. The carriage was pulled by a Demon Horse, the carriage itself was very s.p.a.cious, it had a room inside that could fit six people. It also had a bedroom inside. The carriage was made from Iron Driftwood as well as Saint Lightwood, it looked beautiful and elegant.
1. A lot for a secret organization, but small compared to the population of the continent. I think xD