From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 464 The Shadow Destroyer

The adamantite golem crafted by Ivy is indeed eye-catching.

This war machine radiated the unique bluish-gray metallic sheen of adamantite, like a solidified night fog.

Considering that the Tower of the Moonrise was built to the standard of a medium-sized fortress, the word "tower" alone is completely insufficient to describe its defensive capabilities.

Among the magic that Ivy excels at, the Magnificent Fortress, which he modifies, is a spell of extremely high strategic value. The ordinary version of the Magnificent Fortress can create a square wall measuring 100 by 100 feet, as well as an internal castle measuring 50 by 50 feet. Enhanced by [Creative Word] and [Earth Elemental Invocation], the Magnificent Fortress cast by Ivy himself can double in size and quadruple in area.

In this way, the enhanced Great Fortress would be roughly the same size as the Tower of the Moonrise.

Because the Tower of the Moon was built on a rocky peninsula extending into the Chunssar River, it was constructed with fairly thick and high walls. Even though some of these walls were destroyed in the war between Katheric and the Lords of the Sword Coast a hundred years ago, they still provide complete defense.

However, due to the limited number and production of Moon Lanterns, and the fact that the army of the Supreme God was not Shar's Night Judges, only a small portion of the troops stationed with Katheric in the main fortress of the Tower of the Moonrise were present. Apart from the port below, most of the guards were concentrated on the main bridge tower connecting to Reisven Town.

The city gate beneath the Tower of the Moon, originally used for the passage of large armies, has been blocked by Katheric's personal order.

While this does reduce the number of directions that need to be defended, it also effectively locks oneself inside the Tower of the Moonrise.

When the Shadow Curse was shrouded in darkness over the land of Rasven, Katheric's defensive strategy was an advantageous decision, as he could provide a tight defense with minimal forces, leaving most of the other areas to be defended to the Shadow Curse.

An army large enough to trap all the defenders of the Tower of the Moon would absolutely not launch a siege under the shadow curse.

But now, thanks to Ivy's efforts, Shar's Shadow Curse has been broken, and even the sun behind the dark clouds seems to be peeking out.

As a result, the castle defenses that Katheric had built up with the Shadow Curse became increasingly vulnerable.

Even so, if the allied forces wanted to launch an attack from outside the main bridge of the Moonrise Tower, they would still have to face the towering walls of the Moonrise Tower.

This was indeed a very big problem for the Harpists and Flame Fist, who lacked heavy weapons and supplies.

However, the joint research and development between Ivy and Iron Hand Dwarf was precisely to make up for this shortcoming.

In addition to Gale the Bomber, who was capable of leveling the entire Resven region and possessed excessive power, the Allied Forces also mastered runic gunpowder, a black technology of the Iron Hand Gnome.

Rune gunpowder can inflict heavy damage on the walls of the Moonrise Tower with less explosive charge and a larger blast radius. Creating passable breaches in the walls is all too easy.

However, while the Ironhand Dwarfs were skilled at making explosives, they lacked expertise in their precise use. Creating a hole in the city wall without collapsing the entire section was indeed an area they had never ventured into.

At this point, Ivy's meticulously modified war machine can come in handy.

Humanoid beings walk upright to free up their hands to use tools. However, for constructs that can be modified at any time, there is no need to be confined to the conventional form of two hands and two feet.

Under Ivy's design, the Adamantine Golem has been completely transformed into a terrifying four-legged, two-armed mechanical creation, and has been named the Shadow Slayer.

Four strong, powerful spider-like tentacles provide excellent support and turning ability, preventing it from falling over. The retractable barbs at the ends of the tentacles even allow the Shadow Slayer to move in a vertical plane at the cost of double the movement power, or hang upside down from the top of a cave or building that can support its weight at the cost of triple the movement power.

The arms, located on the torso, are equipped with siege weapons that can fully utilize the adamantite weapon's ability to automatically strike any inanimate object.

The Shadow Slayer's left arm is a giant drill that can launch high-speed spinning attacks or be fired for a ranged attack. Chains at the back of the drill can drag targets toward it or help the Shadow Slayer move there.

The Shadow Slayer's right arm is a giant piston-headed mace, capable of unleashing powerful hammer blows and also usable as a battering ram.

The combination of these two factors creates the Shadow Destroyer's unparalleled ability to conquer cities and destroy bases.

"Mystra above..." The adventurers and harpists reunited beneath the walls of the Tower of the Moonrise. Gale gazed up at the siege behemoth before him and exclaimed in genuine admiration, "You mounted Losanda's Dawn Cannon on the golem?"

This is true.

Aside from its four-legged, two-armed main structure, the Shadow Destroyer's central axis is a Dawn Cannon Crystal taken from the Rosemary Monastery.

Numerous adamantine rings inlaid with magical runes floated around the Dawn Cannon crystal, forming not only an omnidirectional rotating structure but also providing cover and concealment for the crystal using the adamantine plates. The runes engraved by Ivy on the adamantine rings were a reverse-engineering of the Whisperflower's anti-magic properties, granting the Shadow Slayer the ability to absorb magic and convert it into power.

Ivy reverse-engineered the anti-magic properties of Whisperflower and the structure of the Whisperflower Furnace in Arcane Tower in order to transform it into a power source for the Shadowbreaker.

However, when the Whisperflower Anti-Magic Field is not under magical attack, its ability to absorb scattered magical energy from the atmosphere is insufficient to meet the power needs of the Shadow Slayer.

The Whisperflower Furnace works by directly consuming Whisperflowers, releasing their accumulated magic to provide power.

In this way, if the Shadow Slayer relies solely on the Whispering Flower's anti-magic field to absorb magic power, it is equivalent to missing the process of the Whispering Flower accumulating magic power before it blooms, which creates a huge power gap.

Although the design can still be considered mature, it falls into the awkward situation of charging for two hours and working for thirty seconds, making it completely unusable as a regular weapon.

So Ivy set her sights on the Dawn Cannon Sun Crystal as the power source for the Shadow Destroyer.

These solar crystals, which store large amounts of sunlight, are also excellent energy storage structures. As long as there is sunlight, they can continuously provide power. Combined with the Whisperflower Anti-Magic Engine, they barely meet the daily driving needs of the Shadow Slayers.

The Dawn Cannon Sun Crystal, which has never been activated, can also serve as an external energy source for the Shadow Slayers to engage in high-intensity combat.

Even so, it is still far from the all-weather autonomous combat weapon that Ivy envisioned. After all, once the solar energy stored in the solar crystal is completely used up, the Shadow Destroyer will once again fall into the embarrassing situation of insufficient energy.

Not to mention that Ivy even dismantled the Dawn Cannon Crystal and used it as the main core of the Shadow Destroyer.

If the Dawn Cannon is fired, the Shadow Slayer will be rendered incapacitated immediately after completing its attack. If the battle preceding the firing of the Dawn Cannon is too intense, it may even misfire.

Even Ivy himself didn't expect that the act of creating siege constructs would become an abstract process of adding flour when there's too much water and adding water when there's too much flour.

Therefore, in order to make the Dawn Cannon of Losanda a regular weapon for the Shadow Destroyers, Ivy had no choice but to turn her attention to the Blood of Losanda.

After all, the light leaking from the cracks in the amber by divine blood alone could transform a mediocre nail-headed hammer into a divine weapon, and it also possessed the ability to release a solar flare once a day.

If the divine power within the divine blood is fully utilized, it should be more than enough to activate the Dawn Cannon.

Moreover, since the blood of one's own deity supplies the weapons of one's own deity, they can be considered to be of the same origin, so the consumption should be less and the charging time should be shorter.

After careful research, Ivy did indeed construct a seemingly flawless system for applying divine power, but until it was actually verified, everything was still unknown.

One thing is certain: if the Shadow Destroyer is equipped with the adamantite core of the Blood of Losanda, it can achieve near-perpetual motion in conventional combat without activating the Dawn Cannon. Combined with its body, which is entirely made of adamantite, it can already be considered a terrifying weapon on the battlefield.

Never be satisfied with the status quo.

Ivy believes this is one of the qualities that every researcher needs to possess.

Therefore, even though the integration of the Adamantite Construct, the Lossandra Dawn Cannon, the Whisperflower Anti-Magic Field, the Whisperflower Forge, and the Lossandra Divine Blood was already complete, Ivy still hoped that the Shadowbreaker could become an even more perfect creation.

He carried the core of the Shadow Destroyer, which contained the blood of the god Losanda, with him because of this motivation to continue improving its performance.

In his vision, excellent hardware also needs perfect software to run it. If the Shadow Slayer is a rigid thing that can only obey orders, it is obviously not enough to bring out the full potential of this series of high-end technologies.

But creating a magical artificial mind is not something that Ivy can accomplish overnight.

Therefore, he had no choice but to mentally rehearse various battlefield scenarios and selectively input them into the Shadow Destroyer's mental core to provide it with sufficient tactics to choose from.

The sight of Irene, the daughter of Serene, and the evil thoughts of Ivy's teammates in the Temple of the Iron Hands has given Ivy a glimpse into the possibility of divine blood evolving into intelligent beings.

Therefore, when Ivy was building the artificial mind of the Shadow Destroyer, he specifically included his modified artificial intelligence rules and made them the underlying logic driving the Shadow Destroyer.

This set of rules, derived from the Three Laws of Robotics and revised by Ivy, has effectively blocked the possibility of the Shadowbreakers betraying Ivy if they gain true intelligence. At least from Ivy's perspective, without developing intelligence to a certain level, it is impossible to bypass this set of rules through sophistry and presuppositions.

There are four rules in total:
Regardless of their purpose, the Shadow Slayers always adhere to the rules set by their creators.

First, protect the creators. The Shadowbreakers must not harm Ivy Doom or stand idly by while Ivy Doom is harmed.
Secondly, obey orders. The Shadowbreakers must obey Ivy Doom's orders, unless such orders contradict the first one.

Third, self-preservation: The Shadowbreaker must protect itself unless such protection contradicts the above two points.

Fourth, interests come first. All actions of the Shadow Slayers must be based on Ivy Doom's interests, and decision-making power will be transferred to Ivy Doom when necessary.

Before the Mind Core was installed, the Shadow Destroyer's only function was to follow the Guide. This was unavoidable, as the power provided by the Whisperflower Anti-Magic Field and the Sun Crystal was insufficient for it to complete an entire battle using the Dawn Cannon as its primary weapon.

It would be better to wait until we reunite with Ivy and fight in our complete form.

With a soft exhale, Ivy pulled out the mind core of the Shadow Destroyer and stood before the war machine he had built entirely by his own hands. Besides excitement, a sense of tension welled up in his heart.

Next came the moment when the Shadowbreakers underwent their first real-world test. The battle against the Order of the Supreme God was both a test and a challenge that the Shadowbreakers and Ivy had to face.

Using the power of wind to lift himself up, Ivy arrived at the top of the Shadow Destroyer.

The suspended adamantine banners unfolded one by one, and the shield-shaped armor on the two armed mechanical arms also disarmed, revealing the Dawn Cannon Crystal hidden under layers of protection. At the top of the crystal was the place where the mental core was installed.

This location allows for direct connection with the Dawn Cannon Crystal, facilitating the direct charging of the divine power from the blood of the god of Losanda into the Dawn Cannon, minimizing firing intervals and charging time.

However, with nothing yet tested in actual combat, Ivy was unsure how long it would take to prepare for activating the Dawn Cannon.

Urbron, the leader of the Ironhanded Dwarves and the one who possessed the runic gunpowder formula, ran back to the allied forces' temporary position from beneath the walls of the Moonrise Tower.

He first looked at the Shadow Slayer with a mixture of awe and fervor before loudly reporting to Ivy, "Master Doom! The Ironhand Gnome has completed the preparation of the runic gunpowder. If Dalgae blesses us, this explosion will be enough to open a breach!"

“Very good.” Ivy’s gaze pierced through the darkness, seeing the hole the Ironhand dwarves had carved at the base of the city wall, and the runic gunpowder bomb inside.

The Ironhanded Dwarves were not all craftsmen; some were sorcerers who could use the spell of stone shaping. It was with the help of this spell that they were able to make holes in the thick city walls.

“Tell the soldiers to take cover, Ms. Jasira.” Ivy hesitated for a moment before continuing, “No one is sure how powerful the runic gunpowder really is. It’s best if they all crouch down, not lie completely on the ground, cover their ears with their hands, and open their mouths. This position can effectively mitigate the shockwave damage from a close-range explosion.”

(End of this chapter)