Luckily, a tactical withdrawal from the Tallest' Guardian was easily accomplished. While the thing was studendously powerful and about as durable as the average mountain, it was also about as fast as a glacier. That is, one without the benefit of an avalanche or some other instability, just the, well, glacially slow drift of one as they expanded down the mountain. Similarly, its ranged capabilities weren't all that wide-reaching, making it the ideal guardian. Able to take incredible amounts of damage without issue while being strong enough to defend its chosen location from now till the end of days, the only thing it was lacking was the ability to move around its territory. However, it might have had such an ability. Its initial emergence from the glacier had been quite sudden and fast, meaning it had either a fair level of stealth within its chosen environment or it had something similar to my shadow steps, just with different limitations. Depending on our plans and tactics going forward, we'd likely find out.

"What now?" Luna asked quietly, after running for a bit and catching our breath afterwards, still walking quickly to increase the distance between us and the guardian, just in case it was following us.

"We'll find some place to take shelter, and I'll start exploring the area with my constructs," I shrugged, "That thing is a little too strong to take on casually, we need more information and a good plan. Otherwise, that thing will mess us up something fierce."

"Not fighting during the day would be the first step," Lia quietly snarked, though I had to agree. She was almost useless under the sun's light, and I wasn't faring that much better. Some of my traits and abilities helped mitigate the weakening effect the sun had on me, but it still left me with a lot less power than I'd like.

"Sure, in addition to figuring out how big the thing's territory is, if there are any locations that give us a distinct advantage, looking for potential weaknesses and putting together a better tactic than 'hitting it really hard'. So far, the majority of our enemies weren't overwhelmingly more powerful than we are, but this thing?" I paused for a second, looking at the others, "That thing is a bona fide tank, and I'm afraid we are all out of tank-busters. Usually, I'd try to use Ice Magic, maybe the expansive force of freezing water, something like that. But against that thing?" The others could already see where this was going, so I simply shrugged, before shaking my head and admitting, "No chance, I'd need twice my current power."

"That's..:" Luna looked at me, her expression one of discomfort. Maybe she was just now realising that there were numerous enemies I couldn't overcome, foes that were simply too powerful, even for me.

"That's not good, and our current abilities don't make it any easier," Lia finished her sister's statement, though her expression was a lot more composed. "I might have a few ideas, a couple of things I can try, projects I originally started with Alex and shelved later. You've always been our best purveyor of mass destruction," she explained with a somewhat wan smile.

Next to us, Silva gave a soft whine of her own, trying to comfort Sasha. Our friendly neighbourhood Sasquatch looked as disturbed as her face could express; the size and sheer power of the guardian had likely been a serious shock to her system. To her, I had been the most powerful entity she had encountered thus far, a touchstone of her reality, if I understood things correctly. Now, the guardian had easily eclipsed that expression and it looked like she'd need a bit of time to adjust to this new reality.

"I might be able to put something together on my own, but I'd need a bit of help from you, Mom," Luna perked up a little as she spoke, her mind obviously awhirl with ideas and potential schemes, things that might work against the guardian and let us advance.

If that was even needed, I would have to check and find out if I could simply circumvent the guardian. Maybe I could get to the Nexus by flying through the air before taking it over, and using its might to overwhelm the guardian.

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Or at least weaken it by stealing part of its power source, if the thing was connected to the Nexus. Which, to be fair, was quite likely, given its elemental nature, close proximity and incredible power. Those couldn't just come from thin air. My current hypothesis was that the spirit used to be an Earth Spirit that had stumbled upon the Nexus, absorbing power from it to reach its current, incredibly potent form.

A few hours later, after we had found a nice spot between the numerous rocks and cliffs in the area and set up a cosy little lair there, night was falling. Which, in turn, was the perfect time for me to let a few ravens take to the sky, giving me a lot more information to work with, even if I was fully aware that they hadn't helped me in detecting the guardian before it came bursting out of the glacier like some sort of giant Kool-Aid monster.

Maybe I could figure out a way to track the thing, depending on its mode of travel and concealment, or maybe I was out of luck. It might just merge the spirit-form into the glacier, travelling through the air that way until it reached the point it wanted to and create the body right there, ready to rumble.

That particular idea made me intensely uncomfortable with its implications. If this were the case, the spirit might be able to discard its current massive body right before we could defeat it and retreat into the glacier. That way, it could just make a new body and try again, at least once it had regenerated its Astral Power, something the Nexus might allow it to do in minutes. Meaning, we might have to fight the guardian over and over, constantly destroying the bodies it made as we advanced towards the Nexus.

If the thing wasn't as stupidly strong as it was, I might have welcomed the chance to gain a massive amount of EXP, at least if destroying the body was enough to give us EXP. Unlikely, but not impossible, one could dream, right?

Well, probably not, knowing how the system worked, it would only award EXP once the spirit itself was either bound or destroyed, not a moment before. Otherwise, destroying one of my spirit-infused scrying constructs would grant EXP upon destruction, allowing me to readily provide EXP for allies. Not the type of thing the system allowed.

Pausing for a moment, I made a note to look into the creation of Undead and similar magically created creatures, just to test if those gave EXP. If they did, I might do something similar to what the Grandmother had done and create a dungeon of my own. Maybe not a complete equivalent to the Barrow Den, but a place where I could let trusted friends and subordinates enter and gain EXP? That sounded like an excellent idea, even if I would probably skip the whole prison-thing the Grandmother had set up with the Barrow Den.

Binding the spirits, souls or whatever they were of defeated foes to the dungeon so that they could be killed over and over again? It was an interesting way to punish somebody, but it might just be a step too far, something I'd want to reserve for only my worst enemies.

However, it might also be a horrible idea, at least if those foes had divine backing. No deity worth worshipping would look kindly upon me if I managed to bind their followers' souls in what amounted to a permanent torture chamber.

Shaking off these slightly morbid and premature thoughts, I focused on my scrying constructs, letting them spread out to the best of my ability. I couldn't let them fly as high as I'd normally like; there were far too many raptors flying around these mountains who would readily try to turn my scrying constructs into a mid-air snack, but other than that little problem, I could use this part of my abilities to the fullest extent possible.

If only my scrying constructs had magical senses, but so far, those just weren't in the cards. Maybe something to explore at a later date, maybe something that was outright impossible.

No matter, I had a mountain to explore and, hopefully, find some sort of suitable place to fight the guardian, something I couldn't help but think would be difficult. The thing was a walking mountain; the best I could come up with to use geography to our advantage would be to set off a landslide beneath it, trying to use its own bulk against it.

But with the thing's connection to the earth?

Hopefully, having my scrying constructs look at the entire region would give me some inspiration; otherwise, this would be one hel of a challenge.

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