Ranch

Ye Chuan paid no attention to the two dumbfounded people.

He looked up at the father and daughter, changing the subject,

"Right, I have something else to ask you. Earlier, Kalisia said that it's impossible for a Hero to appear on the Aether Continent ever again. What's that all about?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the study instantly sank.

The excitement on the Duke of Storms' face faded, replaced by helplessness.

He first glanced at Kalisia beside him, then let out a heavy sigh, sat back down in his chair, and bowed slightly to Ye Chuan:

"Lord Xi Xi, did you... ever see the legendary Heroes in ancient times?"

"Never seen one," Ye Chuan shook his head, playing along with his words.

"Back then, I was wholly devoted to researching space-time magic and didn't pay much attention to these worldly lineages."

If he had known about the Hero, how could he have been stabbed to death by that damn Demon King?

"That explains it." The Duke of Storms smiled bitterly. He picked up his teacup and took a sip, but couldn't taste the tea at all.

"There is something you don't know, My Lord. The birth of a Hero never happens out of thin air."

"The Church of Light's Hero's Sacred Canon records the sole condition for a Hero's descent into the world."

Ye Chuan raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What condition?"

"Only when the Aether Continent faces an apocalyptic disaster and the human race is on the brink of extinction, will the World's Origin send down the Soul of the Hero, choosing a destined person to become the Hero who fights against the crisis," the Duke of Storms said word by word.

"To put it more bluntly, the birth of a Hero is directly linked to the number of human casualties."

"Only when the death toll of the entire human race reaches more than one-tenth of the continent's total population does the world have a chance to birth a Hero."

"The more people die, the stronger the born Hero will be."

Ye Chuan's brows instantly furrowed.

He hadn't expected the Hero birth mechanism in this world to be such an outrageous rule.

Was it real or fake?

Huh?

If that was the case, shouldn't a Hero have appeared long ago?

"That's strange," Ye Chuan said with a hint of confusion in his tone.

"The demons have already occupied more than half of the Aether Continent's territory and destroyed so many nations. Could the number of humans who died at the hands of the demons not have reached one-tenth of the total population yet?"

At these words, Kalisia, who was standing to the side, clenched her fists. Her eyes turned slightly red as she softly added:

"It's far more than one-tenth... When the demons first invaded, the fall of the Golden Empire alone resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people."

"Over the past ten years, the towns and villages slaughtered by the demons are too many to count."

"We all thought the Hero should have appeared long ago. But ten years have passed, and let alone a Hero, there isn't even the slightest sign of a Hero descending."

The Duke of Storms looked at Ye Chuan's puzzled expression, the bitter smile on his face deepening.

"Lord Xi Xi, you only see the demons slaughtering cities and destroying nations, but you haven't seen that the Demon King did something even more terrifying."

Hearing this, Ye Chuan wondered, a terrifying thing?

Huh?

Ye Chuan seemed to understand something. "The human population hasn't been decreasing?"

The man before him nodded. "She built Human Breeding Farms in all the occupied territories."

Breeding farms?

The Duke of Storms' voice carried an uncontrollable tremble. "On those lands occupied by the demons, there are many pastures where many humans are bred."

"The demons provide them with the most basic food and water, using magic to force them to reproduce and multiply, just like herdsmen raising cattle and sheep."

"The life and death of the humans in these breeding farms are strictly controlled. There will absolutely be no large-scale deaths."

"To ensure the stable reproduction of the human race, they even limit diseases and famine in the breeding farms, ensuring that the total human population is always maintained at a stable number."

"Over the past ten years, the total human population on the Aether Continent has not plummeted due to the demon invasion, but has instead been slowly growing."

"But the people in those pastures can no longer be called humans."

"They don't understand our language, they don't understand our history... Born in the pastures, they only have the human instinct to continuously reproduce."

At this point, the Duke of Storms slammed his fist heavily onto the table, his teeth grinding together, his voice full of despair:

"My Lord, do you understand now?"

"That Demon King saw through the rules of the Hero's birth right from the start."

"After she slaughtered humans, she began breeding them in pastures, strictly controlling the human death toll so that the number of deaths will never reach the threshold for the World's Origin to trigger the descent of a Hero."

"In this way, she extinguished the possibility of a Hero being born right from the root."

The study fell into a deathly silence.

Kalisia kept her head down, her small hands tightly gripping the hem of her skirt, her shoulders trembling slightly.

She had lived in the shadow of the demon invasion since she was a child. She only knew that the demons were cruel and bloodthirsty, but she never imagined that the Demon King could be so terrifying.

Compared to slaughtering cities and destroying nations, this method of keeping humans like livestock and completely snuffing out any chance of resistance was a thousand times more terrifying.

Ye Chuan leaned back in his chair. After hearing all this, he was stunned for a good while.

Interesting.

It seemed that this Demon King was much smarter than he had imagined.

Instead of pursuing total extermination, she accurately grasped the loopholes in the world's rules, using the most effortless method to completely lock out humanity's only chance of a comeback.

That was...

Destroying civilization.

"No wonder you said it's impossible for a Hero to appear," Ye Chuan spoke, breaking the dead silence in the study.

"Heh, this Demon King actually has some brains."

The Duke of Storms was taken aback, clearly not expecting Ye Chuan to have this reaction.

In his eyes, this was a truth enough to drive people to despair, yet this legendary Lord could actually laugh?

"Hero..." Ye Chuan pondered for a few seconds.

The main issue was that the Demon King was a mechanic-based boss. Although he wasn't sure if that Demon King was the one he knew, at the very least, it definitely required a Hero to damage her health bar.

If that was the case, even with his raw stats, he might not be able to do anything to her.

A bit annoying.

He had originally thought that if this world had a Hero, he would just devour the Hero's power.

"Hmm..." Ye Chuan suddenly seemed to have thought of something and asked the Duke of Storms, "Say, if I were to wipe out the Holy Church of Light, would that allow a Hero to be born all at once?"

"The demons wouldn't be able to breed them fast enough to make up for it, right?"

The Duke of Storms froze, stuttering and unable to speak.

What did he mean?

He panicked immediately and dropped to his knees in front of Ye Chuan. "Lord Xi Xi, you... you wouldn't be thinking of using such a method, would you?"

"Oh, come on, I was just making a joke. Why did you suddenly kneel down?" Ye Chuan said.

The Duke of Storms wiped the cold sweat from his face.

Was it really just a joke?