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

That's enough.

Ou Yun drew his sword, and the cracks on the stone slab had spread to the entire surface, extinguishing all the light from the runes.

After a series of violent convulsions, the guard's body stopped moving completely. Its carapace quickly turned gray and brittle, eventually crumbling into a pile of fragments.

"Clean and efficient."

The desert lord offered a brief comment.

"It's faster than I expected. It took that team a full hour to take down this guard three hundred years ago."

"That's because we have the Cold Team."

Ou Yun patted the dust off his sword.

"Her method of fighting the BOSS is to create openings in the BOSS so that her teammates can finish it off. We've practiced this strategy countless times."

"The fact that you've developed such teamwork shows that your team has formed a mature tactical system. That's more important than any weapon."

The desert lord walked to the remains of the guard and picked up a palm-sized fragment of runes from the pile of rubble.

"We can keep this. The runes on it were personally carved by the Desert Lord, recording its energy fluctuation frequency. If we can analyze this frequency, we can trace the precise location of the Lord's true form."

It handed the rune fragment to Marcus.

Marcus took the fragment, pulled out a magnifying glass and notebook from his backpack, and immediately began to trace the rune patterns on it.

"The structure of this rune is similar to the abyssal patterns we see in the forest region, but the way it is drawn is completely different."

Ou Yun stood to the side, frowning as he analyzed the situation.

"The patterns in the forest area are radial, spreading outwards like tree roots. This rune is spiral-shaped..."

Leng Ruolan nodded. "Could these two styles correspond to different energy output methods for the two lords? If the Forest Lord is a release type, then the Desert Lord is... an absorption type?"

"Absolutely correct."

The desert lord nodded approvingly.

"The Forest Lord spreads abyssal energy outwards to infect and control all creatures in the forest region."

"The Desert Lord, on the contrary, gathers abyssal energy into its own body to continuously strengthen its own form."

"This is why desert lords are harder to deal with than forest lords—when you fight them, they don't release energy to fight you, but rather absorb your energy to strengthen themselves."

"Isn't that the same as my brother's sword?" Alexander said.

Everyone looked at Ou Yun at the same time.

Ou Yun couldn't help but look at the Abyss Sword in his hand, the red light on the blade still slowly flowing after absorbing the energy of the guardian.

"Absorbent type against absorbent type".

Leng Ruolan's expression became subtle. "Interesting."

"That's really interesting."

The desert lord also looked at the sword.

"I previously said that this sword is the third pole, somewhere between the abyss and the core. Now it seems that it may become the most crucial card in the fight against the Desert Lord."

"Because when two absorptive opponents clash—the outcome depends on who absorbs faster and more."

"What if my sword can absorb it faster?"

"Then it will become your power bank."

Ou Yun looked down at his sword and said, "Okay."

"Then let it see what fast charging really is."

*

The passageway to the nest was longer than expected.

It took them nearly two hours to walk from the entrance to the "safe room" that the desert lord had mentioned.

The small sandworms encountered along the way were warned in advance by the coffee worms. The expedition team avoided them if possible, and dealt with them quickly if they couldn't avoid them.

With the desert lord's energy suppression and support, small-scale skirmishes were almost always one-sided crushing victories.

"How exactly does your suppression ability work?"

Even Leng Ruolan was a little curious.

"Last time on the stone pillar, you snapped your fingers and wiped out fifteen sandworms, but now you hardly bother with the smaller sandworms anymore."

"Because the essence of suppression ability is resonance interference."

The desert lord explained patiently.

"I release my core energy, which resonates with the abyssal energy within the target's body, causing the abyssal energy to temporarily lose its stability. The higher the density of the abyssal energy within the target's body, the stronger the resonance effect and the longer the suppression time."

"On the contrary, the abyssal energy density inside small sandworms is low. Suppressing them consumes about the same amount of core energy as a direct attack. It would be more cost-effective for you to deal with them using weapons."

"Large targets resonate strongly, while small targets are less effective against physical attacks."

Ou Yun said "Oh," and added, "This operating mechanism is very similar to the principle of resonance in acoustics. A large bell is easy to ring, while a small bell requires more force."

"Wow, you know quite a lot, bro."

"Haha, that's what Brother Chen explained to me when he was making the doorbell."

"..."

Brother Chen may not have come, but he's everywhere.

Leng Ruolan thought to herself, "If only I hadn't let him guard the house!" But who else could guard the house besides Brother Chen?

"Therefore, my role is to control and support large targets, rather than to be the main damage dealer. The main damage dealer still depends on your weapons."

The desert lord pointed to the Abyss Sword at Ou Yun's waist.

"I just noticed that the sword's charge level is now 95%. It only increased by 12% when absorbing the guard's energy before."

"Because the Guardian is a construct, not a true living being. The abyssal energy within it was injected by the Lord, and while it is highly pure, it is unstable."

Ou Yun glanced at the panel.

"Last time, when I absorbed the energy from that giant sandworm, my energy level went from 91% to 100% in no time. Living organisms have a higher efficiency in absorbing energy."

"This is also something you need to be careful about. The energy density of the Desert Lord's main body far exceeds that of any sandworm, and your sword may overload when absorbing its energy."

The desert lord's gaze was fixed on the sword.

"This sword wasn't specifically designed to absorb lord-level energy; it has its own limit. If that limit is exceeded, the blade might—"

"Blow it up?"

"It might evolve. Didn't this sword never have a charge bar before? The charge bar unlocks automatically after absorbing enough energy. If you feed it all the energy of a lord, it might unlock more functions."

Ou Yun's heart skipped a beat. "So, does that mean whether it explodes or evolves, it all depends on luck?"

"It's not all luck."

The desert lord thought for a moment.

"This sword is yours. Its evolutionary trajectory is influenced by you more than by external energy. Your fighting style, your personality, your willpower—all will determine its fate at crucial moments."

At this point, some people might ask: "What is the eldest brother's fighting style?"

Leng Ruolan calmly answered, "Nonsense."

Ou Yun disagreed: "That's because it's flexible and adaptable."

"You call freefalling from a helicopter 'flexible and versatile'?"

"That was a special case—"

"You always have more special cases than normal cases."

"If there are more special cases than normal cases, then the special cases become the normal cases!"

"Brother, that's enough."