eDiscovery hold licensing

Dear Community,

I have read that an E3 license has to be assigned to a user in order to apply eDiscovery hold on it, but what if we remove the license or delete the account while the hold is active? The hold retains SharePoint and OneDrive only. If you know the answer, can you please write a referenced article where I can find the related official statement?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.