Chapter 957: Wait for Me

White frost began spreading outward from the exact center of the phone, and in the blink of an eye it covered the entire device; the face of Fu Xuan on the screen managed to keep the wide‑eyed expression for the last half‑second, then the image froze, shattered, and turned into pitch black.

The frost spread along the phone's surface to Xing's finger, and she reflexively tossed the phone away.

The phone flipped twice in the air, bounced off the stone‑slab floor, then lay quietly in the center of a small shard of ice, its whole body frozen into a rectangular block.

Xing lowered her head to look at her empty hand, then at the phone on the ground that had become an ice brick.

"Whoa, my phone."

Then she glanced at the two figures in the middle of the street dueling at astonishing speed: Jing Liu's Ice Sword cut a half‑meter‑wide scar of ice into the ground, while the gray‑white‑haired Bubbles, as if alive, continuously split and reshaped in the air, swallowing each of Jing Liu's incoming ice blades into a transparent membrane.

The two silhouettes crossed rapidly under the moonlight, moving so fast that the naked eye could only see a white and a gray Light Arc colliding back and forth on the street.

Xing lowered her head again to look at the completely ruined ice‑brick phone.

"My camera equipment."

She added a sentence, this time her tone finally carrying a hint of belated regret.

In the Shen Ce Fu, Fu Xuan stood before a desk, holding a jade talisman, the screen a sheet of black.

The last frame before the connection broke was still etched before her eyes: white light surged forward, Xing's face flashed across the screen, then the image froze completely black.

The great hall was very quiet.

Fu Xuan stood for a moment.

Then she slowly placed the jade talisman on the desk.

Her fingertips trembled slightly.

In that half‑second frame, she saw Jing Liu's face, his scarlet eyes, pupils burning with the dark red flame that only appears in the late stage of a demonic yin body, his facial expression having completely left the realm of "Calm".

It was Jing Liu fully releasing his suppression, completely entering combat mode.

And opposite Jing Liu stood Qingque.

No matter what she had become, no matter what those gray‑green vines on her meant, that person was Qingque.

And Qingque was dueling a completely berserk Sword Leader.

Fu Xuan's index finger pressed firmly on the jade talisman, then she slowly withdrew her hand.

The Divination Eye on her forehead dimmed gradually as she exhaled, changing from a dazzling golden light to a warm, dark‑gold speck.

Then she slowly clenched her fist, her pink‑purple long hair slipping from her shoulders to cover half of her face.

"Wait for me!"

Perspective shift.

The sounds beyond the corner grew louder.

The crackling sounds bounced back and forth in the maze's narrow passage, sharp and grating.

Crackle—

Zzz—zzzz.

Crackle crackle.

A burnt smell drifted through the air.

Heimu raised an eyebrow slightly, then lifted his hand, his fingertip lightly tapping the air.

The Magic Staff's violet glow lit up in her palm, its deep‑purple shaft wrapped with dark‑gold spirals, the tip set with a slowly rotating amethyst crystal.

A Purple Aura fell over her cold, white face.

It made her dark‑purple eyes appear even deeper in the light, her gray‑white long curls falling from the edge of the Mo Nu Mao.

She took a step forward, her high‑heeled boots striking the maze floor with a muffled thud.

Pa Duo followed closely behind, her cat ears standing straight, her heterochromatic round eyes wide open.

"Madam, there's something moving up ahead!"

Pa Duo said rapidly, "The movement ahead sounds unfriendly; can we take a detour? This maze is huge, there must be another path—"

Her words got stuck in her throat halfway.

Because Heimu had already passed the corner, the Magic Staff's light illuminated the entire open area ahead.

It was a circular arena hidden deep within the maze, far more spacious than the narrow passages they'd traversed before, able to hold dozens of people standing together.

The stone slabs on the ground, like elsewhere in the maze, were gray‑white stone riddled with fine cracks, from which a faint emerald glow seeped.

The arena's edge was still bordered by towering black walls, green light strips on them pulsing slowly like veins, reminding them they were still inside the maze.

But what truly caught Heimu's eye was the scene at the arena's center.

Mechanical constructs.

So many mechanical constructs.

There were about six or seven of them, each as tall as an adult; their shells were assembled from some dark‑silver metal plates, and every movement produced a harsh metallic scraping sound.

Their forms were irregular: some bore four arms, some had a massive metal wheel for a lower body, and one's head was a semi‑transparent glass dome in which golden electric sparks crackled.

The golden lightning burst outward from the joints of each construct.

The electric light darted across their metal shells, emitting a grating zz‑zz sound; each burst of an electric flower added another burnt odor to the air.

And all these constructs formed an irregular encirclement.

In the middle of the circle stood a very small figure.

Heimu's gaze fell on that figure, his pupils narrowing slightly.

It was a girl, roughly up to Heimu's waist—perhaps barely reaching 1.4 meters.

She wore a black‑and‑white nun's habit, the white veil draped over her light‑golden‑brown long hair; the veil's edge was embroidered with Golden Thread, flickering intermittently under the golden electric light of the constructs.

Below the veil was a tender little face, skin pale and smooth, a tiny tear‑mole beneath her left eye, ice‑blue pupils calmly gazing at the wildly twisting constructs, her expression unsettlingly serene.

The habit was clearly a miniature version, its cinched waist outlining her still‑flat slender waist, a butterfly sapphire brooch pinned to her chest.

The side slit of the high‑waisted black skirt revealed a short segment of calf wrapped in black thigh‑high socks, her feet clad in high‑heeled short boots.

The most eye‑catching thing was the pair of butterfly‑like cicada‑wing veils behind her, displaying a soft gradient from pale blue to deep violet, drifting gently in the air, with embroidered thorn‑cross patterns that flickered in and out with the veil's undulations.

Overall, she was holy yet seductive, gentle yet aloof.

But the problem is—

Heimu stared at the little girl for a full three seconds, his mind conducting an extremely rapid line of thought.

A Bo Ni Ya!

But the problem is, in Heimu's Memory, that nun was at least 1.7 meters tall, with a full, voluptuous figure.

But the little girl before him.......