Reincarnated as incubus: I didn't mean to seduce you!

Chapter 201 - 137: Prey Targeted by the Incubus, It’s Not So Easy to Break Free (10.2K, 60/65)_3

Because of the existence of this wasteland, communication barriers arose among the closely connected duchies of the federation.

Now, for the two major duchies to successfully establish contact with the Royal Court, they needed to take a large detour, entering from a neighboring duchy to avoid the threats from the monsters of the Dry Land.

Elanna suddenly felt a jolt of electricity crawl up her spine, her hand holding the tea paused for a moment, and she murmured, "If I remember correctly, the period when the Dry Land emerged just happened to coincide with our war against the Supreme Forest, didn’t it?"

Old White, having lived through that era, knew more about the Dry Land, so he explained to the others:

"Miss Elanna, before the Dry Land descended, the dungeon in that area was the Withered Forest, which produced materials called ’Withered Wood Essence.’ For the elves at that time, it had a very strong restraining effect.

With the series of miraculous items made from this ’Withered Wood Essence,’ we achieved nearly overwhelming results on the front lines against the Supreme Forest.

That battle brought fame to the Yibel Federation, forcing the Supreme Forest to sign a series of treaties with us.

Back then, to quickly obtain this material, the federation abandoned long-term development strategies and chose to annihilate the Withered Forest, annexing that territory into the federation at the earliest opportunity.

But in hindsight, even though we achieved victory back then, the effort spent suppressing the Dry Land afterward was no less than winning that war."

This was something Elanna had never heard of before, making her frown deeply, thinking of many things:

"If I remember correctly, after winning the battle against the Supreme Forest, the territorial expansion of the Yibel Federation slowed down significantly, didn’t it?"

Kael nodded and said, "This is why we can’t randomly attack dungeons and why major factions now advocate annexing sentient beings from the dungeons.

After all, if we continue with a strategy of annihilation, the population of the territory won’t increase rapidly in the short term, but the enemies we face will become increasingly stronger.

Now, Lancaster is undertaking its second expansion, and we are already facing a leader who has grown to the Extraordinary Rank, the Shadow Wolf King.

But now, Lancaster’s military strength can no longer support us for a third expansion.

The same goes for the entire federation; the speed of population growth is limited.

If we don’t find a way to bring in more strong allies from the dungeons, in the short term, we can only rely on natural population growth for territorial expansion.

If we open up more land than the new population of the federation can sustain in the short term, there will definitely be some areas that go out of control."

By this point, both women understood what was going on, but there was still one thing Kael hadn’t said out loud.

In this world, where in principle, all major factions could infinitely expand territory and infinitely acquire resources due to a constant influx of fresh blood into new lands, the typical dynastic cycle didn’t apply.

However, a new variant of the dynastic cycle emerged here—

The population decline cycle.

On this continent, almost every power went through a period of rapid and unimaginable expansion.

Compared to the expansion of their own Blue Star Dynasty, it really paled in comparison to Shenhua Continent.

Just the Duchy of Ingram alone possessed an area equivalent to an entire continental plate of Blue Star, and although players had never accurately measured the size of the Yibel Federation, a 1:1 conversion suggested that it exceeded the total land area of Blue Star by far.

This made the teleportation array a necessity for all powers on this continent. Even for the Chamber of Commerce, transporting supplies had to be done via the most cost-effective teleportation routes, with goods being further transported by direct trade across vast lands.

This clearly showed that land in this world was an incredibly undervalued commodity.

The value initially attached to the land had now fully transferred to the indigenous people.

Only by having a sufficient population increase could a power occupy more land, defend more dungeons, and ensure long-term growth and progress.

But when the land area reached its limit, there would ultimately be a time when the central authorities couldn’t remotely control the local institutions.

If a power was given enough time to develop, with the continuously growing population, an unimaginable ultimate power would certainly emerge.

But obviously, no one wanted to see such an outcome.

So, whenever a power reached mid-development, other forces would inevitably intervene.

Even if it was as absurd as "another nation’s king stepping out with his right foot first, breaking a taboo of our nation," leading to all-out warfare—such a ridiculous reason wasn’t out of the question.

Of course, he didn’t say this explicitly, since given the timing, the Yibel Federation was precisely at such a critical juncture now.

It wasn’t wise to say it out loud, as it could easily break taboos and, if it leaked, might even be used to frame him.

But standing from a player’s perspective of his previous life, looking back at the Yibel Federation, which disintegrated shortly after their arrival, players generally believed that the fundamental cause of the federation’s downfall was because it was already in the late stages of the "population decline cycle" shortly after the players entered.