Although they had attacked the Windsor family previously, there was no direct enmity between the Smith and the Hunter family.
There was still a chance that Hogan could avoid any form of conflict with Smith family and the dark mage. But that route involved not harming the unconscious woman in any form.
Otherwise, not only would the Hunter family embark on the road of no reconciliation with the Smith family, but they would also end up earning the ire of the dark mage by harming his wife.
Zach was already aware of the courage that the Hunter family leader possessed after the incident where he healed the Windsor family leader. As soon as Marico was cured of his illness, all the schemes Hogan had been concocting were immediately dismantled because he was afraid of the retaliation of the revitalized Windsor family.
But now that the Windsor family was being backed by the dark mage Zach, it was almost an impossibility that the Hunter family leader would launch an attack on Zach or his forces knowing that the latter might find out about it.
Hogan had previously only felt that Zach was a thorn in his side. But since he was unable to guess the true extent of his power, he had employed the help of Blackbeard in order to avoid suspicion falling on himself or his family.
But now that Zach had survived the first attempt, Hogan no longer had the courage to attack Zach openly or discreetly because he was afraid of his retaliation even more than he feared the Windsor family's rise.
Therefore, he never wanted the situation to devolve by letting Nelson do anything to Zach's wife.
For the benefit of the Hunter family, Hogan concocted a devious plan that involved keeping Diana, Zach's beloved wife, hostage as a potent weapon against him and his allies. In Hogan's twisted strategy, Diana became a pawn in his malicious game, a vulnerable target meant to strike fear and despair into the heart of his adversary.
With a heart as cold as ice and a mind as sharp as a blade, Hogan saw Diana not as a person, but as a tool to exert control over Zach to some extent.
He believed that Zach wouldn't risk going all out against the Hunter family as long as they didn't go too far or harmed his wife. Her safety and well-being had the potential to become the shackles that would keep Zach from losing control and destroying the Hunter family.
As the moon cast an eerie glow upon Hogan's sinister countenance, he reveled in the prospects of his villainous triumph.
With each passing moment, Hogan's malevolence grew, fueling his determination to see his treacherous plot unfold.
The moon, a silent witness to his wicked machinations, seemed to illuminate the darkness of his maleficent intentions.
In the shadows of his sinister plotting, Hogan's mind worked like a labyrinth of cunning schemes, carefully calculating the ramifications of his actions.
He understood that to achieve his sinister goals, he needed to walk a delicate line, using Diana as a tool of manipulation to keep Zach and his allies in check without enraging them fully.
Before making all these plans, Hogan felt that it was necessary to ascertain Diana's value in Zach's heart. All this planning would be in vain if it turned out that Diana wasn't important to Zach at all. Dark mages had twisted sense of self and their relations after all. They hardly ever cared about anything other than their strength.
…
Zach pushed every task related to the organization of data related to the temporary commander and asked him to make decisions on his own and only to apprise him in case of an emergency greater than he was already busy handling.
Unless there was a threat that could destroy the very existence of the Smith family, there was hardly anything more important than their commander. Therefore, the temporary commander also understood the assignment and took the power of command into his own hands until their supreme commander could come up with a rescue plan for their field commander.
As such, Zach was left undisturbed to monitor the situation with Diana who was currently in the hands of Blackbeard. But the only way he could keep an eye on her whereabouts was by using the headphones she had brought with him. Otherwise, Zach would have been left with no other choice than to comply with any demand that the pirate captain might eventually make as ransom for the girl.
Following the blip across the vast stretch of ocean, Zach's heart lurched every time the sea dragon changed direction and headed towards the deep ocean. It appeared that the dragon was quite cautious because it was travelling in a zigzagging path as if to confuse any pursuers.
Zach's heart lurched several times but he managed to keep it within his chest at least until he could figure out the final location where the sea dragon might make a stop.
His happiness peaked when he suddenly found the sea dragon heading towards shallow waters, but the place wasn't too far away from his island. This confused him a bit considering the fact that the pirate captain had been trying to escape away from him. There was no meaning to taking an about turn in order to stop at a port that was closest to Greenland.
Zach pondered on it for a minute so as to take several perspectives into consideration.
He put himself in Blackbeard's shoes to think about what he would have done if he was in a similar situation to Blackbeard.
In the end, he came to the conclusion that he would probably leave the girl somewhere close after safely escaping death at the hands of the enemy so as to avoid his enemy's revenge afterwards. Or he would try to extort his enemy in some manner while keeping himself completely safe. For that purpose, he needed to hide Diana somewhere in order to keep the enemy from locating the target of his search.
As such, when the sea dragon made port, Zach began to think along the same lines. He began to wonder if Blackbeard was going to leave Diana right under his nose so that Zach would never even doubt the location where Diana was going to be hidden. Moreover, it came with the added benefit of irritating Zach, which Blackbeard would surely love after going through what he did on his island.
Zach held on to his breath and eyed the blip indicating Diana's headphones. He planned to watch it for a while in order to make sure that this was the final destination of the sea dragon or the spot where they planned to hide Diana for a while.
He desperately hoped that it was the latter reason because it would then make his job of retrieving Diana back countless times easier. He wouldn't have to plan so extensively in that case. Moreover, the distance between the island and the port wasn't huge. So, a small operation comprising of several elite soldiers would be sufficient to carry out the task without the risk of confronting the sea dragon.
Just when Zach was about to rest easy, the blip on the map began to move once again indicating that Diana was on the move again and the sea dragon was probably with her as well judging from the speed at which the blip was travelling towards the deep ocean. No such ship in this technologically backward world was capable of sailing at such a speed even when augmented by magic.
Therefore, it was possible that Blackbeard had stopped over at the port or had parted ways there. Whatever the actual case, Zach couldn't care less about Blackbeard's whereabouts as long as he knew where Diana was being held.
Zach began to monitor the blip once more not knowing that what he was interested in had been left behind in the clutches of the Hunter family in return for a lot of riches. The blip was no longer indicating the position of Diana but of the headphones hanging from the back pocket of the pirate captain Blackbeard.
Diana was no longer in the sea dragon's mouth, but Zach couldn't have known that without monitoring the entire event firsthand. Therefore, he mistakenly kept a watch on the whereabouts of the sea dragon and Blackbeard.
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