Several days later, Cui Ciyou and his companions, following the hide map Rowin had given them,
finally reached an important settlement marked on it:
-Rikarisu Town.
It was said that, during the distant First Human-Demon War, this town had served as the main base of the Great Demon Eye Empress-Kishirika Kishirisu.
As a result, many long-lived Demonfolk, as well as those familiar with history,
still preferred to call it Old Kishirisu City.
This city was also an exceedingly rare sight on the Demon Continent-perhaps its only tourist city.
Rumor had it that Old Kishirisu City revealed an indescribable, dreamlike beauty at night.
It therefore attracted daring traveling merchants and adventurers interested in exotic sights.
Viewed from a distant hillside, Old Kishirisu City had an exceptionally unusual layout.
The entire city stood inside a vast crater, like a natural basin.
The towering, steep crater walls served as the city's strongest and most impassable natural defenses.
Historically, it had been an important fortress city during the First Human-Demon War.
Its strategic importance was comparable to that of,
the fortress city the Humanfolk relied upon during the Third Human-Demon War-Roa City.
It had successfully repelled fierce invasions by Humanfolk armies on several occasions.
Even now, thousands of years later, that natural barrier
still effectively prevented large-scale incursions by monsters from outside.
Old Kishirisu City could be called a stronghold with a natural protective barrier, easy to defend and difficult to attack.
Yet, on closer inspection from the foot of the mountain,
the center of town presented a scene of destruction, with half of it collapsed.
Ruined walls stood interspersed with relatively intact buildings, bearing witness to the ravages of history.
Cui Ciyou knew that the damage must have been inflicted during the Third Human-Demon War-the Laplace War.
Why hasn't anyone repaired it?
*Even