Old Hou turned his palm over and thrust the fire lotus in his hand forward.
It flew at tremendous speed, reaching Xiao Die in the blink of an eye. Only then had she barely managed to wrench her body free of the metal wall.
The Karmic Fire Lotus exploded with a thunderous blast, scorching flames surging in every direction. The metal room melted like candle wax, nearly half of it burning away.
Despite the advance warning, half of Xiao Die's body still melted in the searing heat. Fortunately, she pulled away in time, and the flames stopped at the surface rather than penetrating deeper, sparing her from immediate destruction.
Even so, most of the left side of her body was practically ruined. The scorched gold-iron jammed her moving joints, and mercury slurry dripped steadily from her arm and waist.
The sensing mechanisms inside her body sounded frantic alarms, driving Xiao Die into repeated retreats. In moments, she slipped behind the metal door and entered another room.
The instant the door opened, Old Hou noticed a whole other world beyond it and hurried after her. But the Magic Cube Maze's defensive mechanisms activated in time, swiftly rearranging its cells. After smashing through the metal door, he fell into another battlefield prepared in advance.
Xiao Ying followed behind, catching up through a passage on the other side to continue keeping him occupied.
This time, the intelligent program adopted far more conservative tactics. Every sensing mechanism device installed in the maze's cells was activated, closely monitoring his movements from top to bottom.
Heavenly Pivot divided more than ten duplicates of the Puppet Sisters-two-star puppets in the form of Sword Guard maidens, likewise empowered by the Chess Sword Art and Three Talents Sword Art-into three teams and deployed them to attack from different directions.