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

"What about the other contestants?"

Hassan asked, "One batch arrived tonight, and there will definitely be a second and third batch tomorrow night."

Once the area interaction function is enabled, they become the biggest target in the entire forest.

At least that's how it appears on the surface.

Ou Yun chuckled and lay back down in the hammock. He put his hands behind his head, looked up at the starry sky, and the moonlight shone on his lazy expression.

"Then we'll take as many as come. Those who are willing to cooperate will be given a meal, and those who aren't will be buried in the ground."

Anyway, that man-eating flower has been having a good appetite lately.

*

In the early hours of the morning, the camp entered a semi-resting state.

Leng Ruolan leaned against the watchtower pillar, closing her eyes to rest, while Chen Hao observed the purple particles collected from Mike's body in the stone house.

Alexander and Maxim repaired the fortifications damaged in the battle by the low wall, while Hassan, along with Farhan and Haishen, counted the weapons and equipment captured that night.

Ouyun lay in the hammock, playing with a cat toy with Lvdou in a haphazard way. Lvdou lay beside him, its two front paws flailing in the air and its tail swishing like a windmill.

The sun rose from the eastern ridgeline, and the morning light shone into the valley, bathing the entire campsite in a warm gold.

Everything looked so calm and peaceful, as if the battle last night had never happened.

Then a very crisp notification sound rang out over the camp:

[The third phase of the Forbidden Zone—Regional Domination—has officially begun.]

[All surviving players have unlocked enhanced perception, allowing them to track nearby hostile creatures and player movements in real time.]

All surviving players have unlocked the attribute enhancement mechanism. Defeating mutated beasts will grant attribute boosts, the amount of which varies depending on the target's strength.

During the regional competition, players who kill each other will receive double resource rewards and have a chance to trigger special drops.

Players who have not participated in any battles for seven consecutive days will be subject to a forced weakening effect, with all attributes decreasing by 50%, lasting until the next battle.

[If multiple teams cooperate to fight the same target within the same area, the kill reward will be distributed among all participating teams according to their contribution.]

Upon hearing this, Ou Yun immediately sat up from the hammock.

The mung bean rolled off his stomach and let out a dissatisfied meow.

"Contribution percentage?" he muttered to himself.

Goodness, they even made a damage statistics plugin?

Leng Ruolan jumped down from the watchtower and stretched her shoulders.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, like a leopard smelling its prey—

"That last rule is very important."

Leng's voice sounded very clear.

"Distributing rewards according to contribution ratios indicates that the Forbidden Zone encourages cooperation. It doesn't encourage friendly cooperation, but rather encourages numbers to fight against fewer people. If a single team can't take us down, they can team up and take us down together, and then share the rewards according to their damage contribution."

Chen Hao immediately sensed something was wrong. "That means we're not facing a small team of three or five people anymore, but possibly an alliance of dozens?"

"The league needs talented people too."

Leng Ruolan began to warm up, "I guess there aren't many people left alive in the forest area to begin with, and we already ate a few last night... It's unlikely that we can organize all the remaining people."

Unless a sufficiently strong key figure steps forward.

But after this period of confrontation, she has a general understanding of the strength of the other contestants in the forbidden area.

It's good enough for Pakistan and China to practice and gain experience!

But the words had barely left his mouth.

"Whoosh!"

A sharp whistle rang out from outside the camp—

It was the monkeys whistling. Chen Hao picked out a dozen or so of the most clever monkeys from a group of monkeys, and then gave them whistles to blow whenever something happened.

At first, the monkeys thought what they were given was just a normal reward, and they bragged about it as soon as they received it—later, Leng Dui found it troublesome and simply sent Nanbei over instead.

Anyway, that's how the monkeys eventually learned how to whistle—or rather, how to judge when it's appropriate to whistle.

Anyway, no one still understands how Nanbei taught those monkeys...

That's how the monkeys learned it anyway.

Before her eyes, a monkey darted out of the woods, leaped onto the watchtower in a few quick leaps, and began squeaking and gesturing wildly at Leng Ruolan.

Leng Ruolan listened for a while but didn't understand.

Soon, Hongdou darted out from the grass.

Upon seeing the red beans, the monkey immediately repeated its incoherent squawking.

Chen Hao dragged over a small wooden board and looked at Hongdou.

After the monkey finished conveying the message to Hongdou, Chen Hao asked Hongdou.

"East or west?"

Red Bean meowed twice.

Ou Yun said "Oh," and asked, "East?"

Leng Ruolan squatted down. "How many people?"

Red Bean meowed twice more.

Chen Hao laughed immediately, "Just the two of you? That confident?"

Ou Yun stroked his chin and asked, "Did you bring weapons?"

Red Bean shook its head.

Leng Ruolan accepted the order, "Alright, just kill them however you like."

Red Bean shook its head again.

"Is there anything else?"

Chen Hao looked at it, then at the monkey.

The monkey immediately stood at attention, head held high, chest puffed out, and raised its hands above its head.

"?"

The three of them paused for a moment.

"Didn't the French surrender and withdraw from the forbidden zone of national destiny long ago?"

"A comeback? He can actually make a comeback? Is he doing sit-ups?"

"Alright, alright, stop fooling around now."

Leng Ruolan waved her hand and continued looking at Hongdou and the monkey, "Are they here to surrender?"

The monkey gave a thumbs up.

"Okay, it's alright now, go play."

The monkey let out a cry, grabbed the whistle, and ran off.

Red Bean also burrowed back into the grass.

"Whose tactic is this now? Pretending to surrender and then sneaking in?"

Chen Hao almost instantly thought of that beautiful Chinese man.

Leng Ruolan thought for a moment, "Let's just take a helicopter over and take a look. That would save us a lot of trouble."

"..."

Ou Yun thought to himself, "It's not just easier, it's even easier by just killing them off!"

*

Five minutes later, Nanbei carried Leng Ruolan and Ou Yun into the bushes.

Following the scent, Nanbei headed straight for the spot, and soon spotted the scene of the monkey gesturing—

There were two contestants, one tall and one short. The taller one was helping the shorter one, who had a leg injury and was walking with a limp.

They seemed to have come all the way from the foot of the mountain on the east side—they even stopped halfway to look at the traps that Brother Chen had set up for a long time before going around them.

Leng Ruolan raised an eyebrow at this. "You managed to circumvent that? You're quite clever, aren't you?"

The tall guy seemed very experienced, leading his teammates along safe routes the entire time, even spotting the automatically triggered adhesive trap beforehand.

This seems to indicate that they know their camp very well...

Ou Yun couldn't hold back any longer and exclaimed, "Damn it! All these later players must have read strategy guides!"

Leng Ruolan sighed, "What? You only just realized?"

She thought her older brother was fearless... after all, anyone who actually attacked the Dragon Kingdom's camp had already passed with 100% positive feedback.

So, it turns out my brother only realized this today!