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

Leng Ruolan frowned. "And they're not small."

She pointed to the marks on the ground.

Several shallow drag marks extended from behind one stone pillar and disappeared behind another.

"The width and depth of the drag marks correspond to a large quadrupedal creature. Judging from these footprints... it's probably twice the size of the creature from the north and south."

"Twice the north-south distance?"

Ou Yun clicked his tongue. "That's pretty big."

The voice just fell.

A sharp hiss came from deep within the stone pillars.

"hiss!"

The voice was both familiar and strange, unlike any of the mutated beasts they had heard in the forest area before, yet somehow it seemed like they had heard it somewhere before.

The sound was sharper and thinner, like metal rubbing against glass, or perhaps mixed with the buzzing of some insect's wings.

Immediately afterwards, Hongdou, who had been scouting ahead, darted out from behind a stone pillar.

He had a dark, bitten-off object dangling from his mouth—

Ou Yun and the others took a closer look, and their expressions changed slightly.

A segment of some black carapace-like arthropod that was still twitching.

They were all very familiar with this thing!

Leng Ruolan's pupils contracted.

"Scorpion."

Red Bean spat out the segmented limb from its mouth, turned around, and bared its teeth and growled in the direction from which the hissing sound came.

Nanbei also emerged from behind the stone pillar on the other side, its posture low, its tail stiffly held upright, and a low growling sound coming from its throat—this is the lynx's instinctive reaction when encountering a powerful enemy.

"It seems there's more than one."

With a whoosh, Leng Ruolan drew her twin blades. "The sound came from three directions. They've surrounded us."

"Wait a moment."

Ou Yun suddenly raised his hand, "I have a question."

"explain."

"Why are there scorpions everywhere in the forbidden area? Abyss Scorpions, now the Desert Giant Scorpions—are scorpions the mascots of the forbidden area?"

"..."

Soon, the first giant scorpion crawled out from behind the stone pillar.

Its size was indeed twice as large as that of the North and South – including its tail, its total length was close to six meters.

The carapace is dark brown, with fine lines covering the surface, within which a dark purple light faintly flows.

Its two pincers are as large as two door panels, and the inside of the jaws is covered with serrated protrusions.

Its tail was held high, and the venomous barb at the end gleamed with an eerie metallic sheen in the sunlight.

"Looks like they're a distant relative of the Abyss Scorpion."

Ou Yun drew the Abyss Sword, and the red light on the sword suddenly shone after sensing the energy of the abyss.

"Not quite the same."

Leng Ruolan carefully observed the patterns on the giant scorpion's carapace.

"The Abyssal Scorpion's markings are pure purple, but this one's markings are dark brown with a purplish tinge. It's more like... a native creature partially infected by abyssal energy."

"Does that mean it's weaker than the Abyss Scorpion?"

"Theoretically, yes."

The first giant scorpion launched an attack.

Its speed is completely disproportionate to its size—its enormous size does not affect its speed at all.

Almost instantly, the pincers snapped towards Leng Ruolan's waist!

The serrated jaws popped out like a row of daggers.

Leng Ruolan didn't dodge. Instead, she took a step forward, her body twisting and slicing in at the last moment before the pincers closed, her right hand's short knife slicing along the inside of the pincers!

The black mist on the blade exploded on the carapace.

Sizzle—!

The carapace was cut open with a deep gash that exposed the flesh, and dark purple fluid gushed out from the wound, splashing onto the ground and rising in wisps of white smoke.

"Aww!"

The giant scorpion let out a piercing hiss and lashed its tail at Leng Ruolan.

Leng Ruolan jumped back to dodge, but the poisonous stinger pierced the ground, leaving a small pit on the hard rock that was bubbling with corrosive venom.

"It does indeed contain corrosive components."

She gave a brief report, "Don't get pricked; the armor might not be enough to stop it."

"Received, received."

Ou Yun immediately raised the Abyss Sword and charged towards the second giant scorpion.

The giant scorpion had just emerged from behind the stone pillar and hadn't even fully assumed its attack stance when it suddenly saw a two-legged creature charging towards it, wielding a sword that emitted an eerie red glow—

“!!!!!!”

This is really a bit scary.

It quickly raised its two pincers to block—

when!

A deafeningly loud bang.

It then realized that its pincers were being held by a large cleaver with an extremely bizarre red and green color scheme.

"Hehe, you fell for it!"

Ou Yun held a red and green Demon Slayer Blade in his left hand to block the pincers, while holding an Abyss Sword in his right hand.

puff!

Ou Yun's technique was extremely skillful.

The sword of the abyss pierced from below into the gap in the carapace between the giant scorpion's chest and abdomen.

Instantly, the red light on the sword surged wildly toward the wound like a shark smelling blood.

The abyssal energy in the giant scorpion's chest cavity was greedily absorbed by the sword, while the dark purple patterns on its carapace faded at a visible speed.

Just as Ou Yun was about to gloat, an information panel slowly appeared before his eyes:

[The Sword of the Abyss is absorbing energy... Current charge: 3%]

Europe is in a hurry.

Goodness, this thing even has a charging bar!

Before he could even think it through, the giant scorpion, drained of its abyss energy, had already lost its ability to move.

Its carapace turned grayish-white and brittle, its pincers drooped limply to the ground, and the stinger on its tail no longer secreted venom—like a machine that had been unplugged.

They were probably dead beyond dead.

"He's dead already?"

Ou Yun drew his sword, looked at the giant scorpion's corpse lying sprawled on the ground, and said with some surprise, "It's much weaker than the Abyss Scorpion."

"It's not that it's weak, it's that your sword has become stronger." Leng Ruolan's voice came from the other side.

She was standing on the corpse of the third giant scorpion—its pincers had been precisely severed at the joints, its head carapace had been pierced by a dagger, and dark purple fluid had flowed onto the ground.

Beside him, Alexander used his hammer to smash the fourth giant scorpion into the ground.

The scorpion's carapace was dented, its six legs twitched weakly in the air a few times, and then it stopped moving completely.

Nanbei and Hongdou joined forces to deal with the last one—Nanbei bit the scorpion's tail, and Hongdou bit the scorpion's pincers. The two lynxes exerted force in opposite directions at the same time, tearing the giant scorpion in half.

The battle ended within three minutes.

Although I was a little nervous, I managed to resolve it.

As Leng Ruolan wiped her knife, she said, "Casualty report."

"Completely unharmed." Alexander checked himself over. "There's just some scorpion juice on the hammer."

"Red Bean's right front paw was pinched by the pincers, but it's not serious." Douglas squatted down next to Red Bean, cleaning its wound. "The skin isn't broken, it's just a little swollen."

"What about the north and south?"

Turning around, I saw Nanbei squatting next to the corpse of a giant scorpion, using his claws to pry open the scorpion's venom sac, looking as if he was studying whether it was edible.

"Looks like everything's alright."

There were no casualties this time, which shows that everyone's ability to respond has indeed improved.

Leng Ruolan nodded. "Marcus, can these scorpion shells be used as building materials?"