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

They'd been dreaming about this stove ever since they were still living in the real world.

You don't need to look at basic household items anymore—

Just that little dagger with the surname Leng that could spray spray and generate electricity made them incredibly envious, even just looking at it on the screen.

"But... that furnace is indeed very powerful, so there must be a lot of guards nearby, right?"

Abdullah and Karim exchanged a glance, both looking shaken.

"What, it's only now that you've remembered the danger?"

Natalie snorted coldly, "The less you understand the principle that the bigger the storm, the more valuable the fish, the harder it will be for you to gain a foothold in the forbidden area."

In this forbidden area, every step is difficult, so why not take a chance?

Besides, this is already the mid-to-late game, and the difficulty of survival has increased noticeably.

That means all living things have mutated, and all those attributes have been added to you. Do you still expect to live like a normal person, constantly trembling and struggling to survive, just like in the beginning?

dream!

"If we can get these, our chances of survival in the forbidden area will increase at least tenfold."

Natalie repeatedly emphasized, "We now have only two paths before us: either live a life of misery, or die a life of freedom. What do you think?"

Karim thought to himself, "If I wanted to die, why wait until now? I would have hanged myself in the real world long ago."

But neither of them said a word.

"I know what you're worried about."

Natalie lowered her voice, "So our strategy isn't to charge, it's to wait. We'll wait for the other groups to make their move first, and then we'll reap the benefits."

"When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits."

Karim finally spoke, uttering a proverb in broken Longman.

"Yes. You should know that there are definitely many people who are more impatient than us. With all the resources in China, no one can resist the urge to seize them."

Natalie's lips curled into a cold smile. "Once they and the Dragon Kingdom's defenses are both exhausted, we'll flank them from the side, grab the loot, and run."

"Can you escape?"

Abdullah was still somewhat hesitant. "That giant tortoise guards the waterways, and there are watchtowers and early warning lines on the land—"

"So we have to find a path they haven't thought of yet."

Natalie raised her binoculars again and looked in the direction of the Dragon Kingdom camp. "For example—go around from the other side of the cliff."

Following her gaze, on the north side of the Dragon Kingdom camp was an almost vertical cliff, covered with vines and moss, which looked completely impossible to climb.

But precisely because it's impossible to climb, the defenses there are practically nonexistent—they've also checked, and there's no sign of any life in the vicinity.

"Holy crap... that cliff must be at least sixty meters high!"

Karim was terrified. "Even with professional climbing equipment, you might not be able to get up there!"

"We don't need to climb all the way up. We just need to climb halfway up—see that platform?"

Natalie pointed to a concealed rock platform halfway up the cliff. "That location is right in the blind spot of their watchtower. If we can climb up there, we can use long-range fire to directly cover the core area of ​​their camp!"

Abdullah's eyes lit up: "You mean we won't engage in melee combat, and will fight from a ranged perspective?"

If we take a sneak attack on Lao Liu instead of directly confronting the Chinese—that doesn't seem like a bad idea!

"Yes. We need to leverage our strengths in long-range firepower—my sniper rifle, Karim's precision rifle, and your grenades. Once we secure a high enough vantage point, we can inflict maximum damage before they can even react!"

Natalie got quite excited as she talked.

"and then?"

"Then we'll retreat amidst the chaos. Regardless of whether the Dragon Kingdom wins or loses, we've already reaped enough benefits—supplies looted in the confusion, and kill rewards from the forbidden area!"

Natalie's eyes turned fierce. "Remember, our goal is not to destroy the Dragon Kingdom, but to take a piece of flesh from them."

"Oh oh oh—!"

The three of them turned their gazes back to the brightly lit camp in the distance.

There, they found everything they had ever dreamed of.

And they were only three kilometers away from all of this.

*

Five kilometers to the northeast.

Another two-person team is having a completely different conversation.

"I'm not going."

The speaker was a young man who looked to be in his early twenties.

Brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a worn but still relatively intact combat uniform, with a small maple leaf emblem pinned to his chest—

"Are you crazy? That's a Dragon Kingdom camp! Didn't you see their live stream? They have black eagles that can generate electricity! Giant birds that can breathe ice! And a ten-meter-long turtle! This is fucking suicide!"

"Calm down, Allen."

An older man next to him pressed down on his shoulder, his voice steady and powerful.

"We're not going there to fight. We're going there to find allies."

"Find allies?"

Allen chuckled. "Douglas, wake up. We're from Maple Leaf Country, and they're from Dragon Country. In the forbidden area, there are only two relationships between contestants—prey and hunter, the dead and the living."

"That applies to other teams, but it's different for Dragon Country. I've been observing them for a long time."

These are all things I learned from watching live streams in real life.

Douglas's expression remained calm. "Their attitude towards allies is completely different from others. Look at the people from the Bear Country and Pakistan. They've been following the Dragon Country for so long, has one been killed? Has one been used as cannon fodder? Not only have they not been, but their equipment has become better and better, and their camps have become safer and safer."

Allen opened his mouth—that was indeed the case…

What, is it so easy to be an ally of the Dragon Kingdom?

Maybe it was very simple before.

However, the spots are now visibly full—because since the Dragon Kingdom became allies with the Bear Kingdom and the Pakistan Kingdom, it has not sought any human allies!

"The rules of the third stage of the forbidden zone encourage players to kill each other, which is correct."

Douglas continued with a serious expression, "But that's precisely why finding true allies is so important. You know our situation—we're running out of ammunition, our food supply will only last three days, and our camp is being targeted by mutated beasts and could be wiped out at any moment. How long do you think the two of us can survive in Phase Three?"

"..."

But that's... also the truth.

Allen fell silent.

The two of them had been barely surviving in this forest for nearly half a month, relying on hiding and ambushes to stay alive.

However, the mutated beasts in the third stage are much stronger than those before.

Yesterday, they encountered a four-armed ape. It wasn't particularly aggressive, but when it was eating, it suddenly saw them and got startled, slapping each of them hard across the face—almost killing them both.

As you can imagine, this third stage of the forbidden area is absolutely hellish in difficulty!