Chapter 1144

Anthony put on the pinhole glasses and examined them carefully. Sure enough, he saw that every so often, a dazzling light ring congealed on the little angel's light wings. Pinhole glasses cannot see the origin power, but one can observe the existence of origin power through the dazzling light stimulated by it.

Just like the shadow of an object, it was clear that origin power was stimulating the dazzling light; these dazzling lights appeared so abruptly, as if origin power were congealing on the little angel's light wings.

Just as Anthony wanted to see more clearly, Ang floated behind the little angel and tapped her on the head with a finger: "Ow!"

The little angel held her head and responded in confusion: "Ow!"

"Why are you hitting me?!" Negris translated.

"Ow?"

"What are you doing?" Negris translated.

"Ow!"

"The sun is warm." Negris translated.

"Ow?" (Head petting).

"Sunbathing? Alright, let me pet your head." Negris translated.

With all the "ow-ing" back and forth, everyone finally figured out the situation. The little angel was sunbathing here because she had started feeling the sunlight was "warm" while in the void. Originally, everyone thought it was normal and didn't pay her any mind; sunlight is naturally warm, and it was even scorching—the light disaster could bake people to death.

They didn't expect that after sunbathing here for half a day, the little angel had learned a way to collect the "warm" things from the sunlight, and she hadn't intended to cause such a big commotion.

Of course, the so-called "big commotion" was Ang's opinion. Does a child at home getting rained on count as a big commotion? Others didn't feel anything at all.

The little angel, having been tapped on the head for no reason, was very angry. She flew over, punched Negris, and then flew back to collect the "warm" things.

Negris covered his eye socket and shouted inexplicably: "You hit him, why are you hitting me?"

After a noisy commotion, everyone dispersed. Ang returned to the fields, compared the crops, and reached a conclusion: "Forty percent yield reduction."

"Forty percent yield reduction? That much? Can the World Tree recover it?" Negris asked in surprise.

Ang shook his head: "World Tree, exert force, minus forty; no force, total crop failure; life force, not enough."

"Exerting force will reduce the yield by forty percent, not exerting force will lead to total failure, and the life force is no longer enough? In other words, the life force recovered under the protection of the World Tree can no longer offset the power required for the shelter?" Negris translated.

Ang nodded.

"Can't you upgrade it? Let the World Tree upgrade into a Void Tree?" Negris asked.

Ang guardedly covered the little sapling on his head and shook his head.

"Oh, I'm not talking about the little sapling. Can't you choose one from the World Trees below to upgrade? Why are you blocking the little sapling? Does the Void Tree need the Myriad World Divine Tree to do what it can do?" Negris asked in confusion.

Even though he was talking about upgrading a World Tree, Ang subconsciously covered the little sapling. It was very likely that this kind of thing had no benefits and might even have drawbacks; Ang couldn't bear to let the little sapling be overworked.

Negris also couldn't bear to tire out the little sapling, but besides the little sapling, couldn't other World Trees take on this heavy responsibility?

Ang shook his head: "Small."

Compared to a World Tree with a lifespan of one hundred thousand years, the entire Divine Light Alliance, including the one in the Feilie Empire, had been planted for less than five years. They were completely in the seedling stage and hadn't even birthed consciousness; how could they possibly evolve into a Void Tree?

After discussing back and forth, there was no better solution. Anthony said: "It seems we can only prepare for the worst. If we can't solve the light disaster, at least eighty percent of the creatures in the entire Divine Light Alliance will die."

"Ah? That many? Isn't it only a forty percent yield reduction? Why would eighty percent die?" Negris said in astonishment.

Anthony shook his head: "That's not how it's calculated. A five percent reduction in grain yield doesn't mean five percent of the creatures will starve to death; it means everyone will scramble for that ninety-five percent."

"But in a panic, people won't just grab enough to eat; they will grab all the grain and supplies they can. If the shortfall reaches forty percent, the vast majority of people will be drawn into this struggle, and it won't stop until enough people have died."

"In this process, order collapses, and secondary disasters will be more lethal than the lack of grain. Before the grain is even exhausted, most people will have already died. No one will go to plant grain, and next year's grain shortfall will be even greater. With nothing to eat, people driven by hunger will first eat the Tauren, then the Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves..."

Hearing Anthony's explanation, everyone could imagine that terrifying scene and immediately shuddered.

"Then what should we do? You have experience dealing with this situation; what should we do now?" Negris wasn't very panicked; they had experienced this situation before, and Anthony had eventually solved it.

Anthony gave a bitter smile: "I don't have experience dealing with this kind of situation. Back then, the Eastern Diocese never reached the point of grain shortage; it was mainly landlords and nobles hoarding goods. Once their homes were raided, there was enough grain. Even in the Western Diocese, the hard grain shortfall was less than five percent. Now, if the yield is reduced by forty percent, no experience can fill that gap."

"Ah? Then what do we do?" Negris realized the severity of the problem. It turned out that compared to now, the grain shortage in the main plane didn't count for anything at all.

"What to do? If there's really no other way, we can turn a portion of the people into undead in advance. This will free up some demand and allow the undead to maintain order," Anthony said.

"How is this proposal the same as Feilin's? Are we going to kill a portion of them first for fear they'll die? The undead conversion rate is so low; we'll just end up with a bunch of mindless skeletons and zombies," Negris said irritably.

When the Lich Dungeon was short of grain, Feilin had made the same decision. It was easy to say, but very cruel to implement; it was equivalent to actively killing a portion of the people. But which portion to kill? The elderly? Children? Men? Women? Elves? Dwarves, Gnomes, Tauren?

The probability of naturally turning into an intelligent undead is very low; the portion killed would most likely turn into skeletons and zombies. What is the point?

"Isn't there still that time in the Western Diocese? A five percent shortfall; how did you solve it?" Negris asked.

Anthony immediately rubbed his nose in embarrassment, fidgeted for a good while, and then said: "This is how I solved it at the time: My Lord, save me..."

"Pfft, you dead charlatan, what use are you!" Negris laughed in anger and roared right into his ear.

Ang happened to tilt his head at this moment, as if listening to something. After listening for a while, he tore open space and hauled Lisa over.

"Hello everyone," Lisa said, greeting them: "I don't know why the Lord hauled me over, but I just wanted to report that I don't know what kind of madness the algae in the Sea of Omniscience has gone into; it's growing frantically and has produced so much algae rice that we can't harvest it all. A lot of it is getting wet and rotting. You all better think of a way quickly."

Everyone's spirits lifted, and Anthony asked: "Growing frantically? When did this start?"

"It started just yesterday after the sun got brighter."