According to this world's rules, if that senior of his was right, then every time an outsider came in, the story of the demon king would begin.
The first signs of the demon king awakening were demon beasts growing in number and going out to attack people.
A person's ultimate achievements depended on their own efforts, as well as their setting.
If the common people did not suffer, why would they need a hero?
As such, every time the demon beasts would go out and rampage, the hero would appear.
It seemed that the demon king had awakened or was soon going to awaken.
Given that the demon king had appeared, what about the hero?
Perhaps Chen Heng's opportunity to appear would come soon.
Chen Heng thought to himself as he walked to the side.
Following this, he would also help to defend the town against demon beasts.
Of course, he did not personally act.
After so much time and using so many resources to raise the mercenary group, that was not for nothing.
He had not fed them well for them to just laze around.
It was time to finally put them to use.
Chen Heng did not have to act himself; just those mercenaries were able to stop the demon beasts themselves.
However, outside the town, they could not help much.
The town had walls and decent defenses.
However, this was not the case for other places.
As for Chen Heng, he had not acted himself. Most of the time, he would just give motivational speeches and give out resources to the needy.
It was not because he had decided to be kind but because he wanted to gain faith energy.
In order for him to gain faith energy, the positive emotions of the people had to be directed towards him specifically.
If he did not even show up, even if they were grateful to him, they would not know just who exactly he was.
As such, he still had to at least show up.
He would have others do the fighting and would only show up at the important times.
Time gradually passed.
Soon, it had been another half a year.
During this half a year, much had changed in the town—the biggest thing was that there were many refugees from outside.
Before this disaster, no one knew that there were so many people living around the town.
These people had been hiding in various small places, and many of their villages had been next to forests; as such, they were naturally affected.
In the past, these villages were usually quite independent. Apart from them occasionally coming to towns to do some trading, there was not much else.
This time, these people had been incredibly unfortunate.
These demon beasts attacked and killed as soon as they saw people; there was no reasoning with them.
This was to be expected.
After all, they were demon beasts and eating people was their instinct.
As such, most of those people had lost their homes and ran to this town.
Normally, if there were so many people in the town, the mayor would be excited to death.
However, right now, he felt quite troubled. The reason was quite simple—there was not enough food.
Even though the town's agriculture was doing quite well, because they relied too much on resources from the forest in the past, they were only barely self-sufficient now and were not that well off.
Now that the world was so chaotic, everyone had to rely on what they had stored up.
Things had already been quite tough, and now so many people had come in.
People were indeed valuable resources, but that was only if they could be put to work.
If that was not possible, they would just be a waste of space and food.
That was the current situation.
With so many demon beasts outside, agriculture was incredibly limited, and with so many refugees coming in, food was also limited.
Some of the food reserves were already nearly empty.
What would happen when people could not eat their fill?
It would not be anything good, that was for sure.
Because of this, the mayor felt quite worried.
During this time, he had been hurrying about everywhere, resulting in him losing much weight.
Chen Heng only watched on as the mayor fretted, even though he knew that the mayor would come to find him sooner or later.
However, before then, he would just sit by and watch.
Of course, he did not do nothing during this time.
Everything had been prepared.
Now, he just had to wait.
Following this, the developments were more or less what he had expected.
With no other choice, the mayor came to find him again.
However, Chen Heng was not as agreeable as last time; he just gave the mayor some things before sending him off.
He essentially acted like the others.
However, the mayor did not say much.
During times like this, ordinary crops' prices greatly increased, and it was impossible to hope that people like Chen Heng would give much.
To be able to give out a bit was already a great support.
In actuality, he had not wanted to give relief aid to the refugees; he had just come to ask for support.
As long as he had the support of the major factions, he would be able to do what he wanted to.
He interpreted Chen Heng's actions as approval.
Soon, the town's guards began to chase out refugees.
They did not allow any more refugees to enter and chased them out.
During this process, some guards even took away the refugees' possessions.
Conflicts continuously erupted around the town, but the mayor did not seem to care.
They were just ordinary people without weapons or food; they did not matter to him.
As long as the local factions supported him, he was not afraid.
After some time, large numbers of refugees had been chased away.
Negative emotions boiled and seethed.
Within his residence, Chen Heng could sense that unique energy.
This was also a kind of faith energy, but it was different to what he had obtained—it was a negative type.
If one obtained this kind of negative faith energy, they most likely also be able to become stronger, but their personality would be twisted.
This made Chen Heng fall into his thoughts.
"Could it be that the demon king and hero represent different types of faith energy?" Chen Heng thought to himself.
From how things seemed, the so-called faith energy had extraordinary effects in this world and could cause one to become stronger.
The demon king brought chaos and despair, and he represented negative faith energy, while the hero represented hope and possessed positive faith energy.
This seemed to be about right.
If his guesses were right, this little world was someone else's experiment.
Since it was an experiment, then he had to test all possibilities.
Chen Heng felt that he had obtained part of the answer.
However, what confused him was what kind of role an outsider like him played in this experiment?
After all, it seemed like that this experiment did not need an outsider like him at all.
What was the purpose of sending outsiders in?
"Is it to introduce variables?" Chen Heng wondered.
That was certainly a possibility.
As a Sorcerer, Chen Heng would also introduce some variables during his experiments to test different things.
Was that the case in this world as well? Was the purpose of sending in outsiders to introduce variables in order to produce different results?
Chen Heng had no way of figuring this out for now.
After all, he had no way of asking the creator of this world that question.
To be able to set up a little world like this and use it as an experiment, the creator was definitely very powerful. Even Chen Heng at his peak would not be able to rival this person.
In theory, True Lords could create secret realms, but creating a world that was essentially the same as the real world was completely different.
For that person to be able to do something like this, it was not something that True Lords could rival.
Facing such a monster, Chen Heng felt that it was better not to meet them.
The atmosphere in the residence had also changed.
The most evident change was that the sounds of children's laughter was rare and the old butler's expression became more serious. The guards in the surroundings became more grave and were always tightly gripping their weapons.
Seeing this, Chen Heng nodded.
"It's about time…"
Looking ahead, Chen Heng's expression was calm as he thought to himself.
In the following days, the status quo changed.
Within the town, large numbers of mercenaries suddenly appeared, and as the mayor watched on, they attacked his forces.
Chen Heng had finally acted.
Under his command, large numbers of mercenaries moved out and took down the mayor's factions.
Following this, they took out large amounts of food to give to the refugees.
As food was brought out, the tense and despairing atmosphere disappeared.
The town once again became calm and things returned to normal.
The only thing that changed was that the person in charge had changed.
However, apart from those who were now buried, who would care about that?
Chen Heng sent people to spread news that it was Ed Doyle who had provided food to everyone, causing his name to spread.
When he walked on the streets, the refugees would all look at him gratefully and thank him.
After all, no matter who gave them hope in this crisis, they were worthy to be thanked.
Of course, this would only be temporary.
Within half a year, this gratitude would fade away and Chen Heng's influence would fall.
Unless he could continue to bring benefits to these people, he would be forgotten sooner or later.
However, Chen Heng did not mind this.
He just wanted to turn the despair into hope and convert the faith energy that was produced.
Just as he expected, after those refugees walked out of despair, the hope and faith energy that they produced was even purer and resplendent.
This incredibly pure faith energy was also incredibly powerful due to the number of people.
Even though the power that this wave of faith energy brought could not compare to Chen Heng's own power, it increased his power greatly.
With his foundation as a true Sorcerer, this was quite impressive.
This made Chen Heng think of something.
If just the faith energy from a small town could give him such great power, what about a city, a kingdom, or even half the world?
Just how great would his power become?
However, in actuality, Chen Heng did not care too much about this power.
Even though faith energy was incredibly powerful, in the end, it was not his.
Faith energy could make one far more powerful, but once it disappeared, one would immediately return to one's original state.
...........
This kind of power was too limited and could be affected too easily.
If Chen Heng was his own enemy, he would have many ways to have him lose this faith energy.
No matter if it was by slaughtering the people he protected or by slandering his name, it would be quite easy.
This power was not something that Chen Heng could rely on, and it was only something to be observed and occasionally taken advantage of.
Right now, Chen Heng only planned on observing it.
...
"Ahead is another town."
On an overgrown path, some people were riding horses as they headed forwards.
A middle-aged man looked at the young man next to him and said, "We'll be able to arrive soon."
"I see."
Next to the middle-aged man, the young man rode on a horse with a poor complexion.
The young man looked like he was in his early twenties, and he still looked somewhat tender.
He was somewhat handsome and gave off a valiant aura, but he had a worried expression on his face.
"We have to hurry!"
As their horses sped, the young man panted and said, "The demon beast catastrophe has begun and the town ahead has most likely been surrounded. We have to go and help them."
"But… your body…"
Looking at the young man, a look of hesitation appeared on the middle-aged man's face, "Can you endure it?"
"I'm fine," the young man shook his head.
Even though his face was pale, there was a resoluteness in his expression, "If we're late, many innocent people will suffer at the hands of the demon beasts. We have to hurry…"
Looking at the young man, the middle-aged man hesitated but could only sigh as he nodded.
Soon, they arrived at the town.
What surprised them was that this town looked quite calm and peaceful.
There were some traces of blood outside of the town, but they were already dried.
There were also some soldiers patrolling in the surroundings, looking quite serious.
There seemed to be some traces of demon beasts, but most of them were corpses.
"This is…"
Seeing this scene, the young man and middle-aged man were both quite surprised.
They had rushed here as quickly as they could, thinking that this place needed their support.
However, it seemed that they were completely fine.
"This place has been protected very well."
Looking at the town, the middle-aged man was quite surprised.
"Let's go in and have a look," the young man nodded as he said, "I wonder who was able to protect these innocent people during the demon beast catastrophe."
Seeing the two people come over, some soldiers came over to talk to them.
"Are you here for the enlisting?"
"Enlisting?"
The two people became interested, "What enlisting?"
"Mr. Doyle is currently enlisting soldiers to attack the nearby demon beasts," one soldier said, "Those who enlist will receive generous payments. Are you here to enlist?"
He asked this because he saw that both of them wore armor and carried weapons.
"Attack demon beasts," hearing this, the young man looked quite surprised, "Forget the payment, but please count me in for any demon beast subjugations!"
He was not in it for the money?
There were idiots like this?
The soldiers instinctively wanted to mock them, but seeing how serious that young man looked, they held back.
They seemed to be able to feel something from this young man that made them want to agree with him.
If someone else said those words, they might have thought that that person was just bluffing or being stupid. However, they felt that coming from this person, those words felt incredibly sincere and made them feel respect.
The soldiers began to feel respect for this person, and they did not say anything and only nodded before taking them into the town.
Everyone else looked at each other but did not say much.
During this period of time, more and more people came to join the demon beast subjugation army.
Under such circumstances, the young man and middle-aged man did not draw much attention.
Following this, they entered the town, and the scenery within was revealed.
After some renovations, even though there were still some traces from the chaos before, everything was essentially restored and settled.