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

"Anything is possible."

Leng Ruolan thought to herself that what was said before probably already happened—after all, someone came up as a black panther with six eyes, which was not much different from this big bird with four roasted wings.

"Well, it seems the forbidden area is finally getting serious."

Ou Yun chuckled. "We thought it was just raising gu in this thick fog, but it seems the entire third phase was about raising gu."

"real?"

Ou Yun said he was just guessing. "The first stage is survival, the second stage is confrontation, and the third stage is raising 'gu'—or, to put it nicely, selection."

"filter?"

"Throw all the contestants and creatures into a constantly shrinking arena, leaving only the strongest, like a battle royale."

Looking at the clouds rushing past the window, Ou Yun said, "It's not to make us kill each other, but to use mutual killing to catalyze something."

Leng Ruolan didn't speak, but she vaguely felt that Ou Yun was right.

From the first stage to now, every step of the forbidden zone has been guiding the players to compete, plunder, and devour each other—just like the monsters in that basin.

Players can obtain double resources by attacking each other.

Monsters can merge and evolve by devouring each other.

The underlying logic of these two rules is the same thing.

"The forbidden area is breeding poisonous insects."

Leng Ruolan's voice was very soft, as if she were talking to herself, "It's not about raising monsters, it's about raising us."

The helicopter pierced through the clouds, and the outline of the Dragon Kingdom camp came into view on the horizon.

The lights on the watchtower still flickered faintly in the morning mist.

The waterwheel in the mill was still turning slowly and steadily.

Smoke rose from the bonfire in the square.

Everything seemed so peaceful and serene.

But both of them knew that this peace was about to be shattered.

*

The helicopter landed on the temporary helipad behind the camp, and the roar of the propellers gradually subsided.

Chen Hao had already run down from the watchtower.

"Big Brother! Captain Leng! Are you guys alright? I heard that explosion all over the camp—"

That was a really loud explosion!

Although he anticipated that this trip would likely not go smoothly, judging from the national mission notification...

Good heavens, the monsters being released at a 10,000x multiplier are now at the Abyss level!

When Chen Hao heard this, he immediately thought of China.

A monster of the abyss level... I wonder if the real world could withstand it.

However, since it's a product of a 10,000x multiplier, it's not the same as the Forbidden Zone version, so there shouldn't be any problems!

"It's nothing, just a bat got blown up."

Ou Yun jumped out of the helicopter, patted Chen Hao on the shoulder, and said, "I have good news and bad news."

"...Every time you say that, I have a bad feeling."

"The good news is that we found the canyon and pillars that Mike mentioned, and they do exist, and they're even bigger than we thought."

"And the bad news?"

"That pillar is alive. It's absorbing the energy from the monster's death and then transporting it westward."

Ou Yun pointed to the west, "And that basin is full of monsters that devour each other. We blew up one that could fly, and it was immediately torn to pieces and eaten by the other monsters."

Ou Yun then said to Chen Hao as he wrote: "Living pillars, energy transmission... mutual devouring... this seems very similar to the energy core of the Abyss Bone Demon."

After all, he spends his days in the camp studying the strange things and rules in the forbidden area whenever he has free time, so he has already done some research on this.

Chen Hao thought for a moment, "If we consider those monsters as energy collection units and the pillars as energy conversion centers, then the energy being transported westward is the ultimate goal—what's in the west?"

"That place is the boundary of the forest area, which connects to another area."

Leng Ruolan walked over and transferred the footage from the flight recorder to a tablet computer, handing it to Chen Hao.

"These are the photos and videos we took of the basin. See if you can analyze them and figure out anything."

"oh oh……"

Chen Hao took it, "Hmm..."

"Wait a minute, why is there a tablet?"

"It comes with the plane."

"..."

No time for complaining, let's get down to business.

Chen Hao took the tablet and stared at the images for a long time, his expression gradually becoming serious.

"This pillar—you say it's made of bones, armor plates, and ore?"

"right."

"Then I feel it wasn't formed naturally."

Chen Hao said slowly, "Someone must have created it—or some kind of creature created it."

"Moreover, based on the arrangement of the bones in the pillar, each layer corresponds to a different type of creature. The bottom layer is for small mutated creatures, the middle layer is for medium-sized ones, and the top layer—look, this piece, see this reflective armor plate? This thing looks like the remains of a large mutated creature, maybe even close to the lord level."

"Lord..."

Leng Ruolan frowned upon hearing this. "You mean the thing that built this pillar might have already killed a lord-level monster?"

"Very likely."

Chen Hao pushed up his glasses. "These armor plates look a lot like those on the Abyss Monster. They might not be stronger than the Forest Lord's, but they're at least in the same league."

While listening, Ou Yun suddenly interjected, "Then could it be that those lord monsters created it themselves?"

"..."

After these words were spoken, both of them fell silent.

Are these energy collection devices built by the lord monsters themselves?

The three exchanged a glance, clearly having all thought of the same thing.

Ou Yun sighed, "Alas, lords all like to feed on the flesh and blood of the lowest creatures."

"Let's not jump to conclusions."

Leng Ruolan said, "Brother Chen, could you organize this data first and discuss it with everyone at the meeting tonight? Also, was there anything unusual today?"

After guarding against the forbidden area, we also have to guard against our own kind. It seems that our leisurely and carefree days are truly coming to an end for now.

Chen Hao confirmed, flipping to another page of his notebook, "At least three groups of probe marks from different directions appeared around the camp this morning. Although none of them were close-range, they were already within the warning line."

At that time, they ran back and forth between the north and south. The farthest group was about five kilometers to the northeast, and the closest was less than three kilometers to the south.

"How many people are there?"

"The exploration traces in the northeast direction were from a two-person team, and those in the due south direction were from a three-person team. There was also a group in the west where only one person's footprints were found, but the footprints were very fresh, so it is estimated that the person is still nearby."

Three groups of people, at least six contestants each, are approaching their camp.

The regional interaction function has been online for less than a day, and people have already come to their doorstep.

"They arrived quite quickly."

Ou Yun looked somewhat excited.

"Since we've discovered some, there must be others yet to be discovered. These people are probably still in the probing phase, too afraid to make a direct move."