The bombardment continued for a full minute before finally winding down. The smoke created was quickly filtered out by the castle's ventilation system, clearing the area. Once visibility was restored, the impact of the attack—or in this case, the lack thereof—became clear. The walls and floor remained the same as before completely unharmed, the only difference being that the decorations adorning the halls had been obliterated by the explosions.
And Sol was nowhere to be seen.
An eerie silence enveloped the room, with the large fortress on wheels completely still, showing no signs of activity.
In this silence, a small shadow inconspicuously slid out from the shadow cast by the Chosen Slayer. It was Sol, moving slowly within the shadows to avoid attracting the attention of the massive machine. The moment the bombardment began, he had immediately dived into the shadows, taking cover beneath the massive contraption.
While slipping away, he thought to himself, 'If I can emerge and use the Tynamo Cannon, I should be able to destroy it. The only problem is if it spots—'
"UMBRA DEPRENDE! ADAPTIVUM NEUTNI: UMBRA!"
His worst fear came true as the Chosen Slayer detected the small shadow moving across the floor. With its robotic announcement and a loud alarm, the sides of the Chosen Slayer opened, and four pylons emerged, emitting rays of light that illuminated the entire vicinity. These weren't ordinary lights, they flooded the area with light magic, making it impossible for shadows, magical or otherwise, to exist within their glow.
Sol grunted as he was forced to jump out of the shadows before his body was burned by the powerful light energy. Now exposed, the cannons aimed at him once more and began firing.
This time, he had no way of easily escaping, as the light made it impossible to use [Umbral Domain], and [Burrow] was equally useless since the special alloy that the building was made of prevented him from diving into the ground.
Two magic hands immediately appeared before him, the green and indigo chroma combining to form a dark green barrier, much stronger than the normal green barrier. It was the strongest shield he could muster, as the full spectrum was still on its hour long cooldown.
Even with the strong barrier, it could only endure two elemental explosions before cracking, and the third shattered it completely. But by the time the shield was broken, Sol was already charging forward, multicasting one of his strongest spells.
"[Mystic Confluence]!"
Massive bodies of water formed from six different directions, crashing down on the Chosen Slayer with incredible force.
"AQUA MAGI DEPRENDE! ADAPTIVUM NEUTNI: AQUA!"
Just as before, the Chosen Slayer rapidly adapted. The light emitting pylons were retracted, and eight pillars extended from the bottom of the machine, anchoring it to the ground. By the time the water collided with the Chosen Slayer, it had already bunkered down, bracing for the impact.
It weathered the violent waves like a ship enduring the wrath of the sea, with only the upper half of the Chosen Slayer staying above water. When the water from the spell finally receded, the machine was revealed to be perfectly unharmed.
'This thing has countermeasures for everything!' Sol was shocked by how quickly it adapted to protect itself. 'I can still try using the Tynamo Cannon, but what if it gets countered…'
Undeterred, Sol pressed on. With light magic no longer suppressing darkness, he quickly and repeatedly chanted one of the three advanced spells he knew.
"[Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]!"
In moments, over a hundred black flames appeared and launched themselves at the Chosen Slayer.
"TENEB MAGI DEPRENDE! ADAPTIVUM NEUTNI: TENEB!"
As before, the four pylons reappeared, flooding the area with light magic that destroyed most of the black flames and weakened the rest.
The remaining weakened black flames landed on its metal body leaving nearly imperceptible burn marks. The cannons then aimed at Sol, firing a colorful array of elemental projectiles.
Sol continued dodging the brunt of the attacks, using a combination of the green chroma and [Terra Manipulation] to block those he couldn't avoid. Using one of the explosions as cover, he vanished, employing [Invisibility] together with [Phase Step] to appear on the opposite side of the Chosen Slayer.
The moment he arrived at his destination, the cannons immediately swiveled, tracking him despite his invisibility.
Though surprised to be instantly detected, Sol took advantage of the brief gap as the cannons turned. He wielded the Tynamo Cannon and aimed it at the center of the Chosen Slayer. At 25% potency, he fired, shooting a black beam straight into its core.
"NILUS DEPRENDE! ADAPTIVUM—"
As always, the Chosen Slayer tried to adapt, and a translucent barrier began forming around it. But it was too slow, before the shield could solidify, the beam had already pierced through, creating a 5 inch hole in the center of its massive body.
The barrier then fully solidified, which Sol guessed would counter further void element attacks based on the machine's pattern. He could fire again to find out but he wasn't about to waste more of its limited energy. There was also the option to use the Tynamo Cannons other function to absorb the elemental projectiles from the cannons, but he was worried the Chosen Slayer would come up with another counter on the spot so it was best to save it when he truly needed it.
'I aimed for its large mana core at the center, but it's still functioning…'
Sol had targeted the largest concentration of mana he could see with [True Sight (Variant)], located at the heart of the Chosen Slayer, hoping to disable it in one shot. He knew the beam wasn't large enough to do significant damage unless it hit a vital part. Unfortunately, he was either wrong in his assessment or something inside the large machine blocked it.
Seeing that the Tynamo Cannon would have little effect even if he used half its energy at once, Sol decided to try a different approach. The Chosen Slayer was heavily armored, but there had to be a weak point somewhere. He began circling the machine, dodging or blocking the constant bombardment from its elemental cannons as he searched for a vulnerability.
It wasn't until he had completed a full circuit around the Chosen Slayer that he realized his mistake.
'Of course!'
For his plan to work, he first needed the barrier down. Given that the machine adapted to everything he threw at it, he realized there were two methods in defeating it. The first relied on creating an attack that it simply couldn't adapt to in time, either too fast like the void beam he shot or too strong that its adaptive defense couldn't defend against it. This option was realistically impossible for Sol, his strongest attack Full Spectrum was on cooldown and his other new powerful ability, Symphony of the Night, from [Umbral Domain] unfortunately only worked when above ground. The second method was much more realistic for him and it was what he would be going for.
Ten magic hands appeared around him, surrounding the Chosen Slayer. Each hand wielded a different power: seven contained a different chroma, one grew a sharp ghostly claw, one wrapped itself in rocks and conjured earth spears, and the final one was clad in shadows. Sol himself pulled the Pollen Bow from his spatial ring and prepared for a full assault.