Today's second update: Chapter 3498! 2/4!
To the Crocodile Race, this territory had long been a hot potato.
Occupying it was like walking a tightrope between two giants. The slightest misstep in trying to please both sides would mean being attacked from both.
With the Grand Canal now fully open to navigation, its strategic and economic value had soared. This place had become even more of a chicken rib—tasteless to eat, yet dangerous to discard for fear of strengthening an enemy.
Using it to trade with the Huang Race was truly a poisonous scheme that killed two birds with one stone: it not only cast off a burden, but also lured the up-and-coming "hungry tiger" that was the Huang Race into the most perilous jungle.
Once the Huang Race took over and attempted to establish itself and build, it would inevitably face the instinctive wariness and rejection of the Asura Race and the Human Race.
For an emerging force with no solid allies and a hardline style to rashly insert itself into such a core region of interests was no different from placing itself between two blades. At that point, the two races would not even need to deliberately seek an excuse. "Safeguarding the canal's security and smooth operation" was already a ready-made and legitimate reason to send troops.
What a vicious scheme of Divert Calamity Eastward!
It targeted the Huang Race's fatal weakness of having no foundation, intending to leave them mired in endless border frictions and the quagmire of war the moment they returned to Blue Star after winning glory on the Myriad Races Battlefield. They would be run ragged, with no ability whatsoever to focus on development.
Xu Buwan had previously devoted most of her thoughts to cultivation and the affairs of her race, and had