Demon King: Hero, don’t run away!

In the aerial attack on Benliang City, Yang Yu and his team recaptured the city without breaking a sweat because the Luo Ze Empire had abandoned it and fled.

The urgent task was completed easily, but ease didn’t mean there were no gains.

On the contrary, Yang Yu received a fairly good reward, which included twenty lottery draws and 100,000 Experience.

Yang Yu guessed it might be because he had tied up Aslit, which to a certain extent affected the decision-making of the city’s defenders, and hence he got the reward.

After Ajiket announced the end of the winter offensive, Yang Yu didn’t hesitate to use all his remaining lottery draws.

Aside from the usual trinkets, the biggest gains from the lottery this time were a piece of camouflage clothes (Rare), a hand-held tractor (Epic), and a luxurious carbon fiber bicycle (Epic).

To show that he had the capabilities of a Grand General, Yang Yu had been suppressing his urge to complain so he wouldn’t remember something funny, smirk, and potentially waver the morale of his troops.

Not voicing his complaints would make him explode.

After many draws, Lady Luck finally smiled on him, and he got Epic items twice out of dozens of draws.

And here I’ve just spilled gasoline, and you give me a hand-held tractor...

What’s with the tractor? Why not call it a high-end multifunctional manual-geared convertible? Doesn’t that sound better?

Then there’s the bicycle. I feel I can run faster than a bike...

If it were an ordinary bike, at least it could be disassembled, researched, and then mass-produced into an army of non-refundable rent-a-bikes.

But a pricey carbon fiber bike? If you take it apart and can’t put it back together, that’s a huge loss.

No matter how many times the lottery may torment Yang Yu, he remains as infatuated with it as first love, confident that with enough tries, he can draw all manner of weird and wonderful things.

Actually, Yang Yu had thought about the camouflage clothes from the start – if he hadn’t drawn it, he would’ve tried to cobble together his own. Now he had a sample...

It meant he’d miss out on showing off his Soul Painting Skill.

Closing the item bar, Yang Yu casually opened the task bar.

There was a new task in the task bar, handed to him by the Lu Hua Army before he left.

[Camp Task: Recapture of Qinghe Volcano

To gain the support of the races living near Qinghe Volcano, such as the Stripe Guardian and the Blazing Fire Clan, Ming Dalak promised to recapture Qinghe Volcano.

Task Requirement: Recapture Qinghe Volcano before the Blazing Fire Clan’s Fire Birth Festival.

Task Reward: Favorability of races surrounding Qinghe Volcano +10, lottery draws +30, Gold Coin +200,000, Experience 500,000]

Qinghe Volcano was also the location for Bai Jin’s [Destroy] task. Now in Luoze’s hands, Yang Yu needed to recapture the volcano to minimize risks while completing Bai Jin’s task.

But before taking on these two tasks, he needed to establish his own troops.

Once that was done, it was time to gather some more Experience.

Moving swiftly aboard Lotcar, Yang Yu and his team soon arrived at one of the facilities holding Luo Ze’s prisoners of war—Little Night Shelter.

Little Night Shelter comprised towering fences and numerous makeshift temporary houses, built along the perimeter of Little Night City.

As they got closer, Yang Yu could see many Luo Ze soldiers, clad in Luo Ze’s armor, training openly within Wansheng Country’s Prisoner Camp.

According to the giant dragon’s terms, both parties would provide their captives with the bare necessities—food, clothing, and shelter. Before the quarterly exchanges of prisoners, they retained a certain degree of freedom, and if necessary, officials from other nations could even come to manage them.

Thanks to Yang Yu’s excellent performance this year, the Shelter expanded to accommodate over fifty thousand Luo Ze soldiers.

But Luo Ze’s troops coerced even more Beastmen into surrendering. From the leaked rumors, it was estimated that at least seventy thousand Beastmen were in the hands of the Luo Ze Empire this winter, a full twenty thousand more than before.

The exact numbers would be known upon the exchange of the respective lists.

The method of exchange was one soldier for another of equivalent evaluation.

For officers, each side would list a ”price” and engage in bargaining.

Interestingly, before setting a price, both parties would exchange a list to understand what chips they held.

However, in this list, it was more about the Luo Ze Empire biting off more than they could chew.

The giant dragons had a rule that both sides had the right to use captives who were not exchanged in that quarter, or to put it more accurately, had the right to temporarily treat unredeemed captives as slaves.

The Luo Ze Empire built walls on the Sailuomen Plain, mostly relying on the strength of Beastmen labor.

Humans would also have Beastmen laborers till farms near the safe cities.

It could be said that the number of captives on both sides subtly influenced the course of the war.

Every year, Wansheng Country sent a large number of new recruits without any combat experience to the battlefield to make up for the difference in troops; whereas the total number of new recruits sent by the Luo Ze Empire each year did not even amount to one-fifth of Wansheng Country’s.

The longer the war dragged on, it became evident which way the balance would tip.

As they approached Little Night City’s checkpoint, it coincided with the Luo Ze Empire soldiers’ free time. The ones near the fence noticed Yang Yu’s arrival and couldn’t take their eyes off him.

Upon recognizing Yang Yu, a number of Luo Ze soldiers were so annoyed they felt an itch in their teeth.

It was because of this man that they were in this Prisoner Camp, living on thin soup every day.

”It’s the Colorful Hair Mask Man!”

”Is that really him? Why has he come here, with the prisoner exchange date approaching... He’s not planning to meddle, is he?”

”I always feel that nothing good happens when he shows up.”

The Luo Ze soldiers in the Prisoner Camp piled up, all wanting to have another look at the pomp of the Colorful Hair Mask Man.

One Luo Ze soldier gave Yang Yu the international friendly gesture ＝皿＝凸, and the other onlooking Luo Ze soldiers quickly followed, causing the atmosphere to become agitated.

If not for the giant dragons’ rules, these Luo Ze soldiers would surely burst out of the Prisoner Camp eagerly to give Yang Yu the warmest of welcomes.

They just couldn’t believe that with so many people inside the Prisoner Camp, they wouldn’t be able to beat him to a pulp.

Faced with so many enthusiastic Luo Ze soldiers welcoming him, Yang Yu naturally had to respond appropriately.

He had Lotcar halt, and Yang Yu dismounted, deliberately taking a few steps towards the nearby Prisoner Camp.

”Thorny Binding.”

Yang Yu smiled slightly and assumed an extremely exaggerated posture as he bent down, his left hand touching the ground; instantly, countless thorns burst forth from the earth.

The onlooking Luo Ze soldiers leaped back in alarm, safe inside the Prisoner Camp due to the giant dragons’ rules, but if, just if, this man attacked them, they’d have been done for.

However, they saw the sprouting thorns weave together into a circular platform, on which the Colorful Hair Mask Man placed a black square object, and then he took out a smaller, perforated rectangular object and placed it inside.

The Colorful Hair Mask Man pressed the device’s switch, and after a ”pfft—” sound of the tape read, a melodious voice emerged,

”My dad just killed him! Oh~ oh~ My dad just killed him~ Oh~ oh~ oh~”

Together with this odd melody, the Colorful Hair Mask Man danced gracefully before them in a strangely enchanting and bewitching manner.

All the Luo Ze soldiers present were simply dumbstruck...