Survival of the Nation: My luck was a tiny bit worse.

Just looking at it gives off an ominous feeling.

Leng Ruolan frowned, then began to pull the control lever back. "We'd better not get too close. It would be troublesome if we got infected with something terrible like those foreigners."

Ou Yun said it was true, "This place is too eerie; getting any closer might trigger some kind of defense mechanism."

However, just as the helicopter began to turn around, the sea of ​​fog in the basin suddenly began to churn.

The fog was initially behaving peacefully, seemingly oblivious to their presence, but it appeared to sense the approaching helicopter and began to move—

A huge dark shadow burst out from the depths of the fog and rushed straight toward the helicopter!

It was a monster that looked like a hybrid of a pterosaur and a bat—its wingspan was at least twenty meters, its body was covered in dark purple scales, and its head had no eyes, only a huge mouth full of spiraling teeth.

"Holy crap!" Ou Yun nearly threw his binoculars away.

Is that a forbidden creature?

No, wait, rather than saying this is a forbidden creature, could it be the real forbidden creature...?

Leng Ruolan reacted even faster. Almost the instant she saw the shadow rush out, she yanked the control stick. The helicopter tilted at an extremely tricky angle to avoid it, the shadow barely grazing the belly of the aircraft—

Leng Ruolan stared at the terrifying black figure, her face expressionless, and said, "The forbidden area really doesn't play by the rules."

She pushed the helicopter to its limit, and the roar of the propellers suddenly rose a notch.

The pterosaur-bat monster circled halfway in the air, readjusted its direction, and chased after the helicopter, emitting an extremely piercing shriek from its mouth.

"Gah—!"

It was like a steel ruler scraping across a blackboard.

Ou Yun covered his ears with both hands and asked, "Can I shake it off?"

"The flight speed is about the same; if they fly straight, they probably won't be able to shake them off..."

Leng Ruolan remained calm. She glanced at the instrument panel and said, "But we have weapons."

Without even looking closely, she pressed the weapon button on the joystick with a snap.

"boom!"

Two small missiles were poised to be launched from the pylons on either side of the helicopter.

"Big brother, you take aim."

"Me...me..."

"There's a aiming interface on the headphones."

"Okay, sure."

Ou Yun thought to himself, "Cool Team really trusts me, haha, they're not afraid I'll miss!"

As Ou Yun put on the headphones, he noticed a transparent miniature display screen inside, connected to the headphones like a tactical goggle.

The screen displays the view behind the helicopter, with a red locking cursor in the center.

He adjusted the knob on his headphones, and the cursor hovered on the screen for a long time—

The pterosaur bat monster swooped down from the air, its two claws scrambling towards the helicopter like an eagle snatching a chick.

Leng Ruolan appeared calm on the surface, but inside she was panicking, gripping the joystick tightly for a moment.

The helicopter dodged the monster's attacks, going up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A.

Aiming at his worst opponent, Mr. Ou sighed, "Can't you fly a little more steadily?!"

In return, Leng Ruolan gave a cold reply: "If you fly too steadily, you'll die."

"..."

Ou Yun let out a long sigh.

Continue aiming with difficulty—

Finally, the aiming reticle was aligned with the pterosaur bat monster.

"Locked! Locked! Locked! Launch!"

"You press it."

Leng Ruolan was already focusing all her attention on flying and dodging.

Which one to press?

"That red button on the right!"

"this?"

"Wait, that looks like—"

Leng Ruolan thought for 0.1 seconds—

She slapped away the ejection seat button that Ou Yun had almost pressed by mistake, and then reached out and pressed the missile launch button herself.

A missile, trailing a white plume of smoke, detached from its rack, tracing a perfect arc in the air, and precisely struck the mouthparts of the pterosaur bat monster.

boom--!

The explosion burst open in mid-air, and purplish-black pus, blood, and bits of flesh rained down on the ground.

Half of the pterosaur bat monster's head was blown off, its wings tumbled uncontrollably in the air a few times, and then it plunged headfirst into the sea of ​​fog in the basin.

The sea of ​​fog immediately began to boil.

Countless shadows surged toward the still convulsing pterosaur corpse, tearing it to shreds in the blink of an eye, leaving not even bones behind.

Leng Ruolan had already taken advantage of this brief gap to pull the helicopter to a safe distance.

[Congratulations to Chinese players Leng Ruolan and Ou Yun for successfully defeating the Abyss Winged Bat!]

[Triggered 10,000x drop rate: Abyssal Winged Bat!]

You gain +0.5% to all physical attributes.

"...This thing can actually be deployed?"

Ou Yun was shocked. "Isn't this a bit too dangerous?"

Leng Ruolan breathed a sigh of relief, turned to look at Ou Yun, but didn't reply.

She thought to herself, "What's this guy doing complaining about all this time, having just arrived in the forbidden area and already having a six-eyed black panther thrown into it?"

Leng Ruolan let out a long breath, a thin layer of sweat already seeping from her forehead.

"Next time we find a monster's lair like this, mark the coordinates and get out of there. Don't fucking get that close."

"You were the one who flew the plane."

"...I was piloting the plane, but you almost ejected just now."

"That button was too conspicuous, it's not my fault."

"..."

Leng Ruolan decided not to argue with him.

She pulled the helicopter to a safe altitude, carefully checked the surroundings to make sure there were no other monsters suddenly appearing, then set the automatic return route, leaned back in her seat, and slowly closed her eyes.

"That pillar—you just said it's sending energy westward."

After recovering from the tension, Ou Yun began to sort through the information. "What's to the west?"

"It seems to be the boundary of the forest area? If Hassan's map is correct, there is a plateau to the west, and further west is another area."

"Another area..."

Ou Yun pondered the weight of those four words.

"So, the abyssal energy in the forest is being transferred to other areas?"

"Or they were transported from other regions."

Leng Ruolan opened her eyes.

"Regardless of the possibility, it shows that this pillar is of a high level. Monsters like the Abyss Bone Demon and the Abyss Scorpion are probably just scraps compared to it."

The two remained silent for a while.

This is really not a good thing!

*

The helicopter flew smoothly between the blue sky and white clouds, and the forest below unfolded slowly like a huge green carpet.

On the distant mountain ridge, several enormous mutated birds could be vaguely seen circling—not the Storm Black Hawk or the Frost Giant Roc, but some kind of bird-like creature with four wings that they had never seen before.

"The variety of monsters in the forbidden area is increasing."

Ou Yun looked thoughtfully at the four-winged birds.

"Were these originally in the forest, or did they appear after the third phase began?"