Blackwater City

Blackwater City was a major city located at the border between the Central Continent and Southern Jambudvipa, and it was also the city Shen Gui had been sent to guard this time.

However, unlike many of the cities recently built across the Central Continent, Blackwater City was an ancient city—it had once been the foremost battlefield where the Kirin Race and the Phoenix Race clashed during the Great Tribulation of Dragon-Han.

Blackwater City had also received its name because the highest commander of the Kirin Race stationed there at the time had been a Blackwater Kirin at the Taiyi realm. In the Primordial Wilderness, it was common for a city to be named after its most powerful guardian.

Qingluan City, for example, had been named because Qingluan was its first guardian after the city was founded.

Of course, by now, that Blackwater Kirin of the Kirin Race had probably perished long ago during the Great Tribulation of Dragon-Han. The city no longer belonged to the Kirin Race either, so if Shen Gui wanted to rename it something like Turtle City or Tortoise City, no one would object.

Still, Shen Gui was naturally not bored enough to do something like that.

Thus, although Shen Gui had been dispatched to Blackwater City by Nuwa, Blackwater City remained Blackwater City.

As mentioned before, cities at this stage were different from cities in the traditional sense of later generations.

The Demon Race cities on the Central Continent were really just places for weaker demons to live, perhaps with a trading function in the city center at most. Beyond that, they served no other purpose.

However, as a city that the Kirin Race had once vigorously constructed for war, Blackwater City differed from most cities on the Central Continent today.

Most of Blackwater City's residents were members of the Beast Race that had once relied on the Kirin Race. Once war broke out, they were expected to join the Kirin Race's army at any time, so the city's residents had assured combat strength.

The main residents of Blackwater City were now the Rhinoceros Clan and the Water Buffalo Clan, who had once followed the Water Kirin lineage.

These two clans occupied most of Blackwater City. Only in its outlying corners did some demons who had moved in later reside.

If Spirit Transformation and Void Return demons were rare even among the residents of those newly built cities, then Blackwater City had quite a few Immortal-realm cultivators. The Tribe Leaders of both the Rhinoceros Clan and the Water Buffalo Clan were Golden Immortal realm great demons.

For this very reason, the guardians Fuxi and Nuwa had historically sent to Blackwater City had been at least at the Taiyi realm. Otherwise, even with Nuwa and Fuxi backing them, they might not have been able to win the trust of those two clans.

After gaining a general understanding of Blackwater City, Shen Gui discovered that under the joint administration of the Rhinoceros Clan and the Water Buffalo Clan, it had already been moving ever closer to the cities of later generations.

So compared to the cities built by the three races during the Great Tribulation of Dragon-Han, were the Demon Race cities of the Central Continent now actually a step backward?

But after giving it a little thought, Shen Gui understood the reason.

During the era of the three races, a city was generally handed over to one clan, or perhaps two or three clans, to manage. As a result, most of the demons living in a city belonged to the same race, so the city would naturally develop toward the form of cities in later generations, much like the Wu Clan's tribes.

But the cities on the Central Continent now had been established by Nuwa and Fuxi to shelter weaker demons. Every city contained demons from all sorts of races, and there could even be hatred between those races. Under such circumstances, a city was really only a safe place to live. Giving it any further functions would be difficult, at least until the barriers between those races had been eliminated.

Still, that was beside the point.

Shen Gui's task of guarding Blackwater City for three thousand years was actually quite simple.

After all, Blackwater City already had the Rhinoceros Clan and the Water Buffalo Clan, its two major native residents. Even an ordinary Golden Immortal would gain nothing by coming to cause trouble there.

Shen Gui's role was more to show that Blackwater City was still under Nuwa and Fuxi's protection, preventing beings of a higher level from targeting it.

Therefore, Shen Gui had no complicated duties as the city's guardian. If nothing unexpected happened, he could probably cultivate in seclusion for three thousand years before returning to be replaced.

However, Shen Gui's journey was not merely about guarding Blackwater City. He also had to complete the additional task Nuwa had assigned him, and that was the key.

He had to go provoke Southern Jambudvipa and vent Nuwa's anger for her.

The problem was that Southern Jambudvipa was so vast. Even though Di Jun and Tai Yi had joined forces to establish the Demon Country, it occupied only about a quarter of Southern Jambudvipa. Shen Gui had never even been there before. If he plunged in just like that, he might not even know which places lay within the Demon Country's sphere of influence.

If he made a mistake and fought some great demon who had claimed a mountain as king, he might even end up reducing the pressure on Di Jun and Tai Yi when they unified Southern Jambudvipa in the future.

So, if he wanted to complete Nuwa's task, intelligence support was absolutely indispensable.

But then came the question: unfamiliar with the place and having no connections, where was he supposed to obtain intelligence about Southern Jambudvipa?