At this moment, Lute was beyond furious; she certainly hadn't anticipated things would escalate to this point.

Although she had confidently flaunted her "precognitive abilities" and foresight to Twenty-Three, in reality, as Zero had stated... Lute's precognition was incomplete; she could only see fragmented glimpses.

However... Lute could use her powerful calculation abilities to deduce the entire causal relationship of an event from the parts she saw.

Zero's method was different; he could directly perceive the complete data chain. There was a fundamental difference between the two.

If Feng Bujue were present, he would have seen through this long ago. If Lute could truly be one step ahead of Zero, she wouldn't need to do any "screening" at all; she could simply predict Gui Xiao's location and then use all her forces to surround and capture him.

Clearly, she had only just finished piecing together the data chain after seeing Gui Xiao. Even so, there were still many parts she couldn't calculate, such as... the Golden Maggot One before her.

"Trying to run?" A furious shout came from the cocoon that Lute had transformed into, followed by a sudden movement.

The cocoon was about the size of a car, hovering in mid-air without touching the ground; and its movement speed... was surprisingly fast.

A robot like Golden Maggot One, which relied on levers for locomotion, couldn't possibly be very fast, and it couldn't fly either, so... before it could land, Lute had already caught up.

"Tch... she actually caught up so quickly..." Matcha Su wasn't so calm now; she quickly used her hands to react.

The robot's upper body spun one hundred and eighty degrees, its arms raised, and the [Great Wheel Flying Fists] burst out with a bang.

(Great Wheel Flying Fists, one of the Demon God Z's moves, is a derivative usage of "Rocket Flying Fists." When used, the power concentrates on the 360-degree rotating arms and stops them, using the centrifugal force generated by this to launch the flying fists, which have three times the destructive power of ordinary flying fists.)

Chi la—

With a strange sound, another layer of metal spider web peeled off the cocoon and shot through the air.

The Great Wheel Flying Fists crashed into the web, and immediately stalled. The metal web's toughness was astonishing; after the flying fists hit it, it was as if a finger had poked into a wad of chewing gum, and it couldn't penetrate it at all. The most troublesome thing was... because the flying fists were stuck to this web, they couldn't even be retracted.

"As expected..." Lute muttered to herself.

At this moment, on her tactical analysis interface, the danger level of the Golden Maggot One had dropped to "low." Clearly, the previous situation could only be described as a coincidence. Because Lute's fourth form was almost immobile and its attack methods were limited, it was perfectly countered by the Golden Maggot One. If Lute were in other forms, even the tenth form, she might not be afraid of this robot.

Bang—

The Golden Maggot One bent its legs and landed steadily. Its appearance seemed even more peculiar now; besides the different orientations of its upper and lower bodies, it also no longer had arms.

"Hmph... scrap metal is scrap metal..." Lute quickly approached again; in these short few seconds, she had already swallowed the robot's arms into her cocoon.

Chi la—

Another metal spider web came over, and this time, Xiao Tan didn't have time to do anything else.

[Warning, the machine body is facing serious physical damage, please initiate emergency ejection strategy.]

"Ah... I would have initiated it even if you didn't tell me..." As Matcha Su spoke, the operations on her hands were already complete.

The next second, a "bang" was heard, and a safety pod popped out from the robot's crotch. After flying for more than a hundred meters in the air, it crashed into the wall of a building. During this process, Xiao Tan's miserable screams continued to come from the pod.

"Very good... the annoying guy has left." Matcha Su's eyes narrowed, and her hands turned into afterimages as she rapidly fiddled with the control panel, "This old lady is going to fight you to the death!"

Undoubtedly, she was preparing to destroy herself along with the enemy. Just as she had said before, she would die in the robot, if she had to...

[Output power has reached its peak, positron cannon has been activated.]

[Warning, target is too close, please confirm whether to force activation.]

"Hmph... die, monster!" Matcha Su decisively completed the final step of the operation.

Unexpectedly, at that instant...

With a bang, another safety pod popped out from the back of the robot, and she was also ejected from the Golden Maggot One.

"What's going on? I didn't do that kind of operation?" Due to the acceleration force, Matcha Su was still a little dizzy in the pod, but her thinking was still relatively clear; she didn't remember pressing the combat pod's emergency ejection button.

[I don't shed tears_da_da_da

Because I am a robot, I am mechanical_da_da_da

But I understand, that burning friendship, and fighting evil with you.

I don't speak_da_da_da

Because I am a robot, I am mechanical_da_da_da

I am gold—gold! maggot_one!]

Intermittent singing rang out from the Golden Maggot One's loudspeaker once again. It was unknown whether it was a circuit failure or whether "it" was saying something.

The tall back figure, trapped in the metal web and gradually collapsing, ejected the safety pod before being destroyed, and launched the positron cannon at the nearby enemy according to its final instructions.

Di di di—

Lute seemed to have detected some terrible situation, and couldn't help but curse, "Damn it..."

Boom—

The light waves of the explosion soared into the sky, illuminating the night.

The intense light made it difficult for people to open their eyes, and turbulent air currents rolled out.

At the center of the explosion, the Golden Maggot One and Lute's third form had perished together.

"Oh... this should be resolved this time..." More than ten seconds later, Xiao Tan, who had come out of the safety pod, muttered as he looked at the distance at the cloud of dust permeated with electricity.

Matcha Su also came out of another pod at this time. Her location was not far from Xiao Tan, "Yeah... it seems like we were saved by a strange guy..."

"Hey!" Dafan Tian shouted from the other side of the street, "Can you two come over and help? There are still dozens of enemies to deal with here!"

At this time, the number of Derivates on the street had been reduced by more than half, leaving only about forty people. It seemed that the Golden Maggot One's indiscriminate bombing had been quite fruitful. Moreover, R2-Prism Wind had also joined the battle just now, reducing some of the pressure on the Four Heavenly Kings of the Gods.

"It's not over yet..." Twenty-Three's words poured cold water on the players, "It's... far from over..."

"That's right..." Lute's voice rose again from the center of the explosion, "This is just the beginning..."

The smoke and electric clouds gradually dissipated, and what appeared before everyone's eyes was a brand new Lute. She had regained her female appearance and had a pair of huge butterfly wings on her back. Her liquid metal body had turned dark gray, a clear difference from her initial silver appearance.

"Pa," Lute snapped her fingers as soon as she appeared.

A white beam of light suddenly appeared and exploded dozens of meters behind her.

There, no one was supposed to be there, but after the beam of light appeared, a figure staggered out from the edge of the beam, spitting blood and collapsing to the ground.

"You're smarter than you look... Chi Tie." Lute turned her head and said, "You wanted to sneak over and wake up Gui Xiao, didn't you?" She snorted coldly, "Do you think I'd let that happen?"

Chi Tie had blood on the corner of his mouth, and his left arm had completely evaporated. He smiled miserably as he covered his left shoulder, falling to the ground, and no longer made any pointless struggles. He simply said, "Heh... I thought I could do it... I'm sorry, everyone... I really can't get up this time."

Gui Xiao's current location was two hundred meters behind Lute, while the players, the Z organization, and the Derivates of Origin were all in front of Lute. Everyone could see that Lute had intentionally or unintentionally set up a defensive line. Since she merged with her clone, she had been guarding this line, even in the face of the Golden Maggot One's onslaught, she didn't budge an inch.

"The entertainment is over." Lute said, "As a farewell party to this dimension... there have been enough surprises."

Before her voice faded, the butterfly shadow moved.

In this flash of lightning, Twenty-Three had realized that the other party was approaching, and she immediately crossed her hands in front of her chest in a blocking stance.

However, Lute only extended one finger and gently tapped her arm... a violent energy explosion burst out in an instant, blowing off Twenty-Three's two forearms.

Twenty-Three spun around and quickly dodged, but Lute's butterfly shadow drew a colorful dark light, like a shadow following her.

Boom boom boom—

A series of explosions sounded, and Twenty-Three retreated steadily. She concentrated all her energy on self-healing and dodging, but she was still gradually entering a desperate situation.

"Lan Jiao... Bai Lei!" Prism Wind saw that his superior was in danger, and immediately stepped forward to help, but...

"The name of the move is quite cool." Lute laughed disdainfully, she shook her butterfly wings, and bounced Prism Wind's attack back with a gust of air.

Prism Wind's momentum hadn't ended, and he was unguarded, Bai Lei folded back like lightning, and instead injured himself.

However... his actions were not without meaning, at least Twenty-Three was temporarily freed from the continuous attacks.

"Prism Wind... just guard the players, I'll deal with this side..." Twenty-Three said, while casually tearing off the tattered protective suit on her body, abandoning this bloated attire.

"Oh? Have you finally made up your mind to die?" Lute said coldly.

"If I die here, I won't have to consider how to cross ***-004 anymore." Under Twenty-Three's protective suit was a black skintight catsuit, the same as her appearance when she appeared in "The Tower Ascent." It was just that at this moment, she was covered in scars and in a terrible state. Dried blood and scorch marks from the high temperature had already stained her entire body.

"Mm... you're right." Lute grinned, "Then I'll help you!"

Whoosh—

Just as Lute was preparing to kill again, suddenly, a golden light flashed past.