<h4>Chapter 493 - Golden Ind Finally Belongs To Someone</h4>


    The scale of the Aksu Empire fleet was well known to all the people because all of them were looking into this event. What the Aksu Empire sent this time weren’t only ship crews and somebatants, they also sent in artisans to help make the naval base.


    The people on the more than 500 battleships, along with some artisans and coolies, all add up to hundreds of thousands of people, how many people was that? Moreover, those hundreds of thousands were turned into undead by Zhao Hai. If he wasn’t a devil, then what was he?


    Although there were other people who killed more than a hundred thousand people before, most of them were still rtively lenient. On the other hand, Zhao Hai didn’t even bat an eye when killing those more than a hundred thousand people and then turning them into undead.


    This announcement by Zhao Hai made every single person in the continent shocked, they were even more shocked by Zhao Hai’s strength. What kind of person can make more than a hundred thousand undead? How strong was Zhao Hai really? All of these questions ced Zhao Hai behind a mysterious veil.


    The major influences in the continent wanted to lift this veil not only because of curiosity, but also for their interests. Zhao Hai’s strength and methods were really scary.


    When people went to investigate Zhao Hai, they suddenly discovered that he quite had a terrible youth. For the first eighteen years of his life, he was a standard yboy; overbearing, prideful, and didn’t learn any talent nor skill. He was a low ss yboy.


    When he drank the Water of Nothingness and banished to the ck Wastnds, he suddenly made his transformation. Several monthster, a person named Zhao Hai appeared on the continent.


    As soon as he came out, he immediately took care of an group of undead mercenaries before he established his own business. Then, he became an enemy of both the Radiant Church as well as the Markey Family. After killing their people, Zhao Hai then ran away to the Prairie.


    Aftering out of the prairie, he turned into another appearance as he arrived at Rosen Empire. There, he managed to bring down Grand Duke Lionheart, having Lionheart’s entire n ughtered. Then, he was acted upon by the Calci Family, where in the end, the family admitted defeat. Zhao Hai also rescued the Purcell Duchy from their demise, obtaining about 100 thousand undead in the process. He also revealed that he had at least 10 thousand undead Beastman cavalry. When he extinguished the Robert Family, people found out about his method, he killed every single person of the Robert Family, not even a living witness remained. Moreover, he also turned all of the Robert Family into undead. Then, their investigations arrived to the Aksu Empire’s fleet.


    Now, from the people’s calction, Zhao Hai should already have about 1 million undead in his hand! About 1 million Advanced level undead? What did this represent? Not to say any ordinary noble n, even millenium-old ns and the giant Rosen Empire might not even dare to offend him easily.


    One could say that people cannot connect the previous Zhao Hai to his present form. In the past, the Buda n doesn’t even have a 9th rank expert, and was also dumped into the ck Wastnd. However, this was not the case this time, people have heard that Zhao Hai has 9th rank experts among his people. And adding on his status as the son-inw of the Calci Family as well as the Eternal Ally of the Crook Family, those who would dare offend him would probably might as well have their heads bashed in by a closing gate.


    The moment Zhao Hai stepped foot on Golden Ind, the whole continent turned silent, even the Aksu Empire didn’t make a sound.


    Then, Zhao Hai immediately stated that Golden Ind would be turned into the continent’s first free harbor. Anyone cane here for business, regardless of status and background. As long as they pay taxes and don’t stir up any trouble, they can do business on the ind. At the same time, Zhao Hai also stated that on a 1000 li radius around the ind, his policy of non-violence must also be followed. Those who dared vite his rules would be killed immediately!


    If it was the past Zhao Hai who issued this killing order, people wouldn’t have believed it. But now, Zhao Hai’s voice wasn’t something that the major influences wouldn’t dare to not listen to.


    Strength decides everything, and Zhao Hai did have the strength. Therefore, this killing order was immediately followed. This was because people were very aware of the current strength of the Buda n.


    The more than 500 undead-filled battleships of the Buda n can certainly enforce the rule on a 1000 li radius.


    After Zhao Hai released his statement, the Aksu Empire released another announcement that was very thought provoking: Count Zhao Hai Buda of the Aksu Empire has been awarded the title of Third-ss Marquis. The Buda n is also awarded the fief of Golden Ind as their perpetual domain.


    This statement was really interesting. The rtionship between Zhao Hai and the Aksu Empire was very well known. It can be said that this statement was the Aksu Empire’s way of admitting defeat.


    This made the people on the continent very puzzled. They couldn’t understand why the Aksu Empire suddenly admitted defeat. They should at least send 9th rank experts to deal with Zhao Hai.


    Then, a piece of information immediately circted. The Aksu Empire did indeed send out 9th rank experts to deal with Zhao Hai. But the five 9th ranks that they sent out to Golden Ind wasn’t able to return. This made the Aksu Empire ept their defeat.


    Although not confirmed, the people of the continent believed that this information was real. This was because they knew that if the Aksu Empire didn’t send 9th ranks to the ind, they wouldn’t admit their defeat this easily.


    No matter what reason, the Aksu Empire’s statement settled the matter of Golden Ind’s ownership once and for all. From now on, the Buda n would own the entirety of the ind.


    When this matter was settled, the people turned their attention to what Zhao Hai said before, turning the ind into a free harbor.


    ‘Free Harbor’, this was the first time that such a word appeared on the Continent. But even with this, the nobles immediately knew what this free harbor would do.


    This free harbor would give the pirates a ce to publicly sell their loot. This was very attractive, however, nobody still went to Golden Ind because they were scared. After all, this was a ce where hundreds of thousands of people have died, it was not a mystery that they would be afraid.


    With the people’s response, Zhao Hai didn’t worry. At this moment, he was inspecting Golden Ind.


    Although Zhao Hai had already seen the ind on the monitor, being here today felt very different. Zhao Hai now knew why pirates upied the ce, it was because the destruction brought by gold mining was extremely serious.


    The entire ind looked like a worm eaten apple, full of holes. The way the people mined this ce was much different from how Dwarves mined Iron Mountain.


    Dwarf mining didn’t leave behind a lot of tunnels, if there wasn’t ake in the middle, Zhao Hai would have been certain that the Dwarves made a city inside Iron Mountain. On the other hand, Golden Ind was very different. There were a lot of tunnels here, so many that Zhao Hai wasn’t able to count all of them. So he let Cai’er do the counting and in the end, therge and small tunnels numbered up to more than 20 thousand.


    These twenty thousand tunnels made the originally small Golden Ind look like face full of sores, horrifying to look at. Also, even if the vegetation slowly came back to the ind after a thousand years, with the prior destruction of the ind, there were no tall trees that grew here, only weeds were present.


    There were two mountains in Golden Ind, making a T-shaped structure in the ind. But these two mountains were riddled with tunnels as well, they had suffered very serious destruction.


    But fortunately, the original miners on the ind still had a bit of brain left. Although the tunnels weren’t connected, there were roads made on the mountainside since transporting ores was difficult. Although many years has passed since then, the roads can still be used.


    Zhao Hai looked at the tunnels in the ind and can see traces of people living on some of them. What Zhao Hai was puzzled about was the fact that there were no Magic Beasts that can be seen on the ind.


    Although it was strange, Zhao Hai didn’t think too much about it. Aksu Empire’s naval base was constructed on the tunnels of the ind. From what Zhao Hai saw, the naval based used nearly a thousand tunnels and caves for ces of rest. It also had one of thergest piers of the ind, which was also constructed in between stone walls. Looking at the naval base, it wouldn’t be a problem for it to be home to tens of thousands of people.


    The base was built underneath a part of the T-shaped mountain formation. Because of the joint effort from Mages, workers, and warriors, the base was built to a very high standard. This base waspletely ready for Zhao Hai to use. The undead who weren’t on board the ships were made to stay in the naval base.


    For the Golden Ind to sessfully be a free harbor, it needed irond rules that should be enforced. These undead would be the on the ind to keep the ce in order.


    Besides the undead, Zhao Hai had also releasedrge quantities of marine Magic Beasts to protect the waters around the ind as well as to monitor the surrounding activities.


    In reality, Zhao Hai wasn’t really very invested in Golden Ind. For him, this was only a ce to make money. When speaking about environment, he much prefers Ape Ind, where the atmosphere was better than Golden Ind.


    Zhao Hai decided to stay at the base after arriving at the ind. Then, he transferred some managers from Iron Mountain fort to manage the administrative matters of the ind. The other matters were handed over to the undead.


    What Zhao Hai needed to do right now was to repair the ind’s roads, only then can he befortable opening the ind for business.


    Zhao Hai already thought about the situation. Nobody came to the ind because nobody took the first step. But he wasn’t afraid of this not happening, he had the Calci Family, the Crook Family, the Shelley Family, and Charlie. All of them wanted to do business in the ind and open their own stores. Also, Zhao Hai didn’t believe that these people would be so clean to not have one or two privateer groups under their control. As long as those pirates enter the ind and take the first step, others would follow.