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

At this moment, Leng Ruolan moved.

She was faster than that guardian; both short swords were drawn simultaneously, and she leaped and darted through the pile of rotten flesh, instantly appearing on the guardian's side—

"Big brother, you keep chopping! Leave this to me and Nanbei!"

The short swords slashed out in a cross pattern, and the black mist on the blades exploded on the bone armor on the side of the guardian's abdomen.

boom!

It blasted out a crack more than ten centimeters long.

Purple pus immediately gushed out—but it did not damage the core inside.

The armor is way too thick...

Leng Ruolan frowned and took a step back to dodge the guardian's sweeping bone tail.

Its tail slammed into the ground, smashing large areas of biological tissue to pieces, and purple liquid splattered everywhere.

"North and South! Bite its leg joint!"

Nanbei let out a low howl and pounced from the other side.

Although it was not as large as the guardian, it had amazing explosive power—it bit down on the joint of the guardian's foreleg, its canine teeth embedding themselves hard into the gap between the bone plates.

That hurts a lot.

The guardian let out a piercing shriek and frantically thrashed its bitten forelegs in an attempt to shake off Nanbei.

But the north and south have an astonishing grip, and no matter how the guardians try to shake them off, they won't let go.

Taking advantage of the gap in the Guardians' attention being tied down by the North and South, Leng Ruolan made another move.

This time, her target was no longer her side, but the small core in the very center of the Guardian's chest.

The black mist on the short sword was several times denser than before, and the sound of the blade cutting through the air was not the sound of wind, but a sharp cracking sound similar to metal rubbing against glass.

The guardian seemed to sense a threat, and the bone armor in its chest cavity suddenly contracted, attempting to completely envelop the core.

But Leng Ruolan's speed was certainly faster than its defense.

The dagger pierced through the last gap in the bone armor and precisely stabbed into the small core.

puff!

The core exploded, and purple energy liquid gushed out.

The guardian's body instantly lost control, slamming heavily onto the ground, convulsing a few times, before beginning to disintegrate.

The disintegration was extremely rapid, just like the previous Abyss Winged Bat—its body collapsed from the inside, its bones shattered, its muscles atrophied, and finally it turned into a pile of black powder and a few small crystalline fragments.

"Done."

Leng Ruolan flicked the shavings off her knife and turned to look at Ou Yun. "Big brother, are you done?"

Article 8!

Ou Yun severed the tendon with a single strike, then glanced back at the disintegrating guardian.

"Wow, you guys are pretty efficient."

Leng Ruolan said it was an compliment, "After all, this is my profession."

She sheathed the dagger back into her waistband and urged, "Hurry up, the core's heart rate is already three times faster. If we delay any longer, the second batch of guardians will emerge."

Europe then sped up its operations.

The ninth tendon was severed in the flash of the blade, and the tenth tendon was cleaved at the root in a flash of light like a traffic light.

The remaining three tendons secure the core's last energy supply—

Each one was thicker and tougher than the previous ones, with a sheath as thick as armor on its surface.

The sound of the machete striking it was no longer a crisp snapping sound, but a dull metallic clang.

Chen Hao's voice message was also playing simultaneously: "The last three bars! The energy reading has dropped to eight percent! The core is about to be cut off from external supplies—but it's making a final struggle! Be careful!"

However, before he could finish speaking, the core suddenly emitted an extremely sharp buzzing sound.

"Buzzing pump!"

The sound was many times louder than the screech of the previous winged bat.

It felt like a thousand steel needles were simultaneously piercing their eardrums and violently stirring them—Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan were so shocked that they covered their ears with masks in pain, while Nanbei simply lay on the ground, clutching his head and rolling around.

Then, the crack on the core surface widened again.

This time, what emerged was not mist, but thick tentacles—each as thick as a person's waist, with barbed bone spurs at the end.

Tentacles surged wildly from the crack, lashing out towards Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan.

"Damn it, it's tentacles again!"

Ou Yun instinctively raised his knife to block.

A tentacle slammed into the blade, the immense impact sending him flying backward, crashing heavily into the chamber wall more than ten meters away.

The muscle tissue on the wall was dented from the impact, and he was almost embedded in the fleshy wall.

"Big brother!" Leng Ruolan shouted.

"It's okay, it's okay—"

After wriggling inside the fleshy wall for a while, Ou Yun smoothly pulled himself out.

"Those tentacles are pretty exciting—"

"Now is not the time to evaluate tentacles!"

While dodging the tentacles' attacks, Leng Ruolan shouted, "Can't you be serious for once?!"

"I'm being very serious—I'm thinking about how to cut off these tentacles."

"and then?"

"And then there's the problem—we can't beat them."

Ou Yun dodged another tentacle's lash, his tone unusually serious.

"These tentacles can regenerate. Look at the one I just cut off."

Leng Ruolan immediately looked in the direction he pointed.

Sure enough, there was a severed tentacle fragment on the ground, and new tissue had begun to grow from the break—in just a few seconds, a complete tentacle had grown out.

"Those aren't tentacles, those are the nerve endings of the core."

Chen Hao's voice came through the communicator, filled with barely suppressed tension.

"It concentrates its energy on the last three tendons, using the direct connection between the tendons and the core to supply energy to the nerve endings—you must sever all three tendons at the same time! Cutting one individually won't work; cutting one will allow it to repair itself using the energy from the other two!"

"Cut them down at the same time?"

Leng Ruolan frowned. "There are only two of us."

"Three people."

Ivan's voice suddenly came from the direction of the chamber entrance—

He was covered in sweat, his chest heaving violently, clearly having run all the way from the landing point.

He was also holding a pair of pincers and a heavy hammer, the hammerhead of which was covered in purple slime that he had somehow gotten on it.

"I...I'll help."

He strode quickly toward one of the last three tendons.

"I overheard Chen Hao's instructions outside—three people need to act simultaneously, right?"

"Ivan, you stay outside and keep watch!"

"With the defenses in the north and south, there's no problem for now!"

Ivan, gripping the heavy hammer, stood beside a tendon. "Besides, I think if we don't come to help at a crucial moment like this, we'll be too embarrassed to eat at the same table with you guys when we get back."

"you……"

"Alright, Captain Leng,"

Ou Yun had just pulled himself out of the wall of flesh and was stretching his sore muscles. "Three men, three tendons, if you're brothers, fight them all together!"

"Then who will attract the attention of those tentacles?"

"Awoo!"

The ever-responsive Nanbei stood up from the ground.

As it stood up, its body shape began to change—

Its fur stood on end, and the muscles beneath its skin began to swell.

It opened its mouth, revealing four canine teeth that were longer than usual, and a low growl echoed from its throat.

It stared at the wildly thrashing tentacles, its pupils narrowing, its arrogance palpable.

"North and South..."

Leng Ruolan paused for a moment, "When did you learn this?"