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

Strictly speaking, that shouldn't be called a person.

It looks like a human – it has a head, a body, and limbs, and its skin has a strange hue between light gray and pale purple, with extremely fine scale patterns faintly visible on its surface.

Its hair—if that thing can be called hair—was fine, silvery strands that swayed gently in the night breeze.

Its fingers are much longer and thinner than human fingers, each with four joints and fingertips covered with translucent nail plates.

It was looking at the starry sky reflected on the water with its silvery-white eyes that had no pupils, completely ignoring the two humans and a cat that had climbed up.

Leng Ruolan's hand was already on the hilt of the knife.

Even Ou Yun gripped the Abyss Sword tightly.

Hongdou lowered her body and made a low whimpering sound in her throat.

The humanoid creature finally turned to look at them.

Its face was expressionless—not indifferent, but a gaze that was closer to calm, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

Its lips moved, making a series of sounds.

It was a string of syllables they couldn't understand—like the background music in those scary, pop-up videos on QQ Space that say "Do not click!"

Then, a voice simultaneously echoed in their minds.

"You've arrived earlier than I expected."

They've seen this trick many times before.

Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan exchanged a glance, confirming that the other had also heard the voice.

"Another one who enjoys spiritual communication."

Leng Ruolan lowered her voice, "This thing probably has a mental attack capability. Be careful."

Ou Yun nodded repeatedly, "Mhm!"

"I have no hostility towards you."

The voice rang in their minds again, this time with a hint of pleasure.

"If I were hostile, you would have fallen while climbing up."

"..."

Oh! You just fell down!

Then he was relieved!

Ou Yun tried to loosen his grip on the sword a little, then asked, "Who are you?"

"Didn't you all guess? I am the Desert Lord."

"Oh, so you're the desert lord..."

Ou Yun thought to himself, "You showed up pretty quickly. I thought I'd have to go through five checkpoints and defeat six generals or something..."

Leng Ruolan asked, "You live on top of the stone pillar? How long have you been living there?"

"From the day this desert was formed."

The desert lord suddenly stood up.

It was about a head taller than an average human, with an extremely slender body. When it stood on the edge of the stone pillar and looked down at the camp where fierce fighting was taking place below, its posture had an elegance that did not belong to humans.

"Before me, this desert was not a desert. After me, it became what you see now."

"You're saying the formation of this desert is related to you?"

"It has nothing to do with me."

The desert lord corrected, "It's related to what's inside my body."

It raised its right hand, palm up.

A fist-sized crystal slowly appeared in the palm of his hand.

The crystals are not the common dark purple, but an extremely pure silver-blue, with a nebula-like luster flowing across their surface.

"You have a sword within you. That sword has devoured energy similar to that within me."

The desert lord turned his gaze to Ou Yun, and for the first time, a certain emotion that could be interpreted as "curiosity" appeared in his pair of pupil-less, silver-white eyes.

"But it devours the energy of the abyss. What I have inside me is the energy of the core."

"Kernel?"

What the hell is a kernel?!

Ou Yun was internally screaming in anguish, clutching his head – what new terms have appeared for tonics?! He really couldn't remember them all!!

Seeing his disoriented expression, Leng Ruolan sighed almost imperceptibly.

Looking at the silvery-blue crystal, she continued, "What's the connection between these two?"

"Abyssal energy is darkness surging from the earth. Core energy is light descending from the stars."

The desert lord's voice echoed in their minds, carrying an ancient and heavy feeling.

"The two were originally one. Long, long ago, a huge meteorite crashed into the place you now call the 'Forbidden Land.' This meteorite broke into seven pieces—five pieces sank into the ground, were swallowed by darkness, and became the Lords of the Abyss. Two pieces remained on the surface, maintaining the last light in this area."

It looked down at the crystal in its palm.

"I am both a guardian of one of these pieces and its prisoner."

These words left both Ou Yun and Leng Ruolan speechless.

Leng Ruolan pondered for a moment, then turned to look at Ou Yun, "Big brother, isn't this actually a fictional world?"

She said that half-jokingly.

—What kind of ridiculous setting is that? You only see that in novels!

But the older brother's expression turned slightly unnatural.

"Uh... yeah, right! I didn't know! Ahahaha..."

"..."

Alexander smashed a sandworm away with his hammer on the ground, and the sandworm's hissing sound carried up and drifted away in the night wind.

The desert lord glanced down and then waved his hand gently.

Around the camp, all the sandworms that were attacking simultaneously stopped moving.

They seemed to have been paused by some invisible force, frozen in place, completely still.

The sight of fifteen sandworms frozen in place, maintaining their attack postures, was extremely bizarre—some had their mouthparts half-open, some had their tails swinging in the air, and some were emerging from under the sand.

Ou Yun looked at them with curiosity, "What did you do to them?"

"The abyssal energy within them has been temporarily suppressed."

The desert lord explained, "This suppression won't last long—only about fifteen minutes for you. After that, they will resume their offensive, and they will be even more enraged from being suppressed. So you'd better prepare for battle during this time."

"...Then why are you suppressing them?" It's not like we can't beat them!

"or--"

The desert lord pretended not to hear, turned to look at the two of them, and said, "You can listen to me finish what I have to say during this time."

"Oh, go ahead and tell me."

Ou Yun planted the Abyss Sword in the ground of the platform and sat down in front of the Desert Lord.

"Go ahead. We're listening."

Leng Ruolan did not sit down.

She stood behind Ou Yun, her hand still on the hilt of the knife.

Red Bean squatted at her feet, her ears pressed into an airplane shape, her golden-brown eyes fixed on the desert lord.

The desert lord sat down again by the water.

Its slender fingers gently glide across the water's surface, causing the reflection of the starry sky to ripple and then recombine into another image.

That was a map.

A map of the seven continents.

"The forbidden area is not the randomly assembled battlefield you imagine."

The voice of the desert lord slowly unfolded in their minds, "Thousands of years ago, a meteorite fell here. The enormous impact tore the earth apart, forming seven domains covered by different environments. The seven fragments of the meteorite fell into different domains, where they were absorbed, fused, and transformed by the local creatures—ultimately, evolving into the seven lords you are facing now."