It was undeniable that the number of properties that Lionheart possessed were a lot. From what Zhao Hai calculated, his total net worth should have reached several tens of millions of gold coins. But this amount of money shouldn't be enough for the Radiant Church to employ such a number of people to save Lionheart. One should know that the Radiant Church was risking the destruction of all of its forces inside Rosen Empire with this operation.
But upon further deliberation, Zhao Hai came to understand why the Radiant Church did so. It was to please the members of their Knight's Congregation! This group had members among the nobles all across the continent's various nations. Although their positions weren't that high in their respective countries, there were still those who had the same level of standing as Grand Duke Lionheart.
Now, if Lionheart fell without receiving the Church's help, what effect would this situation bring to the Congregation? Will they still continue to help the Radiant Church? So in order to appease the hearts of these people, the Church had no other choice but to rescue Lionheart.
From this conclusion, the Radiant Church decided to use all of their manpower inside the Rosen Empire to rescue the Grand Duke while also sending out six 8th rank Mages. This mobilization of manpower was nothing less of excessive. If the Church didn't fear Rosen Empire's 9th rank experts, they would've also sent in a 9th rank of their own.
Zhao Hai didn't immediately move to crush these believers of the Radiant Church. He knew that the Radiant Church wanted Lionheart out of the Rosen Empire, and the best way was to leave the continent and go to a faraway place. But the Rosen Empire was sandwiched by two empires to the north and south, and the route towards both empires were bottlenecked. If they pass through those paths, it would be extremely easy for them to be detected.
On the other hand, the Rosen Empire's coastline was very long, with sections fully uninhabited. As long as they know the patrolling schedule of Rosen Empire's navy, they could leave undetected.
Therefore, Zhao Hai only followed them while also taking note of the identities of those who provided help to the Grand Duke. After he deals with Lionheart, he would then give the list to the Calci Family.
Zhao Hai knew that the Calci Family didn't want him to participate in this matter. They wanted to show Zhao Hai the strength of their family. Naturally, Zhao Hai also wanted to show off his capabilities. He wanted to make it known to the Family that his strength wasn't that small.
At the same time, aside from tracking Lionheart, Zhao Hai also did another thing, it was taking away everything that Lionheart didn't manage to bring.
Actually, the fire on Lionheart's palace was caused by Zhao Hai. When the Grand Duke departed, he left behind his spacious palace to the Shelley and Calci Family. Lionheart wasn't able to bring much with him due to the urgency of the matter. There were a lot of good things that weren't taken, such as those furnitures and the like. Since he wasn't able to leave with all of his belongings, Lionheart didn't think of burning his house. He wanted to mock the two families by leaving behind an empty palace for them to find.
But how could Zhao Hai possibly leave such good things behind? So he received all of them inside the Space. And when the Calci Family arrived at the palace, he decided to burn it to the ground.
In the hands of Lionheart was a spatial item, a spatial ring. He placed all of his family's valuables inside and then immediately departed.
Those who aided him were small nobles, which were aplenty inside the Rosen Empire. They live day by day doing their businesses, they were one of the most unnoticed people in the empire.
This made Lionheart's escape from his territory extremely smooth. Time after time, he was sheltered by these people as he headed towards a small noble's territory which was by the sea.
This noble's territory was not suitable for establishing a proper harbor. Nevertheless, the territory had made itself a small port which was not enough for large ships to dock in. This made it so that the noble could only trade salt that he produced in his territory, becoming one of the forgotten nobles inside Rosen Empire.
While on the road, Grand Duke Lionheart was extremely careful. He completely adopted the identity of a merchant, he stayed at ordinary hotels, travelled normally and didn't hurry along, avoiding suspicion.
It was just unfortunate for him that Zhao Hai was present, Zhao Hai found out that all of the places they stayed in were in fact hideouts of the Radiant Church. Since these places were used for cover, it was natural that there were no flaws in their operations. Of course, Zhao Hai also noted these places down.
As Lionheart was moving forward, Zhao Hai was more and more surprised, the route arranged by the Radiant Church went without a hitch. They didn't receive even a little questioning, they just passed smoothly.
When Lionheart's group arrived at the small noble's territory, Lionheart became relieved. The only thing for them to do was board a small boat here and transfer to a bigger boat out at sea. If they manage to board the ship, then they would be safe.
The small noble family was called the Eugene Clan, they had a wave as a family insignia. Inside the Rosen Empire, their family was as insignificant as their emblem.
Zhao Hai just looked at the Eugene Clan quietly. He didn't want to take action at this time since nobody was supposed to know that Lionheart was here. If he were to attack right now, he will certainly attract attention and he might even be pegged as being the bad guy.
…
The most concerned about Lionheart's fate were naturally the Calci and the Shelley Families. The other nobles were indifferent whether Lionheart lives or dies. After all, Lionheart was currently on the run, his territory has been left empty, it was their turn to scramble and grab some land for themselves.
Because of this, the Calci Family's efforts in finding Lionheart didn't go smoothly as planned. It can be said that they didn't have any progress at all.
But Zhao Hai was already carefully following the Grand Duke's footsteps these past several days. He didn't go out, he didn't go see Smith, he just stayed inside Sweet Plum Courtyard observing Lionheart's every move.
Laura and Meg naturally knew what Zhao Hai was doing, so they didn't disturb Zhao Hai. Instead, they continued to follow Megan around Sky Water City to play around. At this time, they were already very close friends with the City Lord's daughter.
Megan saw that Zhao Hai wasn't going outside lately, she felt curious and asked Laura what happened. Laura just smiled and said the Zhao Hai had been busy, but as to what Zhao Hai was doing, she didn't say.
Megan looked at Laura and didn't ask anymore, she knew that it was not good to be overly inquisitive. But this made her even more curious of Zhao Hai, she thought that Zhao Hai's state of being indoors all this time should be extremely uncomfortable. She couldn't imagine herself not going outside for several consecutive days.
But Zhao Hai didn't need to wait so much anymore, Lionheart was finally about to head towards the sea. For Zhao Hai, this meant that his battle was about to start.
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Grand Duke Lionheart's group didn't stay for long in the Eugene Clan's territory. This was because the longer they left Rosen Empire, the more they would be in danger. They saw the influence that the Calci Family was capable of, so naturally they would want to leave the Rosen Empire as soon as possible.
Lionheart only took a day to rest with the Eugene Clan. The next day, they rode a small boat out towards the sea. In Lionheart's family, there was only 32 people who came, the less who came the better, otherwise, their travels would be more inconvenient.
The boat sailed slowly, and before long Zhao Hai was able to see a huge ship with five masts in the distance. Compared to the Swordfish that Zhao Hai acquired before, this one was a lot larger.
Another thing to point out was that the ship was wrapped in armor, it looked like an ocean faring attack cargo ship. Apart from being able to transport cargo, this ship looked like it could defend itself as well.
Zhao Hai carefully looked at the ship, the vessel had hoisted the Ocean Waves Dynasty's flag. And on the hull of the ship were three large characters that read, Poseidon!
The ship's armor was more than ten inches thick, it had magic cannons as well as ballistas. The crew of more than a thousand inside the ship looked very busy.
Naturally this ship was mostly equipped to transport cargo. From what Zhao Hai could see, this vessel could be considered as a thousand ton freighter.
This was a good ship, this was exactly the ship that Zhao Hai needed right now and it was very fortunate that the Radiant Church had sent it to him. Zhao Hai couldn't help but sigh when thinking about how good of an organization the Radiant Church was, they were truly the servants of the Radiant God, they surprisingly provided for your every need.
At this time, Grand Duke Lionheart and his family embarked on the ship. And as the ship was starting to sail, Zhao Hai knew that this was the signal for him to begin, his figure immediately appeared on the ship.
Naturally he didn't just instantly appear on the ship. He first used the dark mist to surround the deck before he appeared. When his silhouette was seen, he was already holding his Ghost Staff. He didn't change the appearance of the staff, it retained it skeletal appearance along with the skull on top.
A man appearing on the poseidon holding a skull-headed staff and wearing black robes, those who couldn't see that Zhao Hai was a Dark Mage were idiots.
Obviously they weren't, so the people onboard began to form reactions to Zhao Hai, especially Lionheart. Once he saw what Zhao Hai wore, he couldn't help but change his expression.
This was not because the Grand Duke was afraid of Dark Mages, what he thought was something else, the Calci Family.
Calci Family was a family of Dark Mages, and this time he has forced their hand, now a Dark Mage appeared on board, what did that represent? No matter what the other people thought, the first thing that came to Lionheart's mind was that the Calci Family had managed to catch up.
Who differed from Lionheart's idea were the mages from the Radiant Church. They weren't Light element Mages, in fact, Light element Mages were unpopular inside Rosen Empire. If the Church sent a Light element Mage to rescue Lionheart, then it was probable that the Grand Duke would end up dead, after all, Light element Mages were quite conspicuous inside the empire.
These six 8th rank Mages composed of three Water element Mages, two Wind element Mages, and one Earth element Mage, moreover they had hidden their strength.