It didn't take long until all of the groups properly met up inside of the town. It took some a bit longer to figure out the right tactics of taking down the ego-houses, but it seemed like they all had their own methods to an extent.
And that was a good thing, really. Since each group was capable of taking down an ego-house on their own, they were all able to proceed forward at a much quicker pace while not focusing on hiding themselves too much. Not long after, they even reached the first ego-mansion, which was standing there at roughly twice the height of Eisen. And that was really only considering their torso and everything upward from their belt-area. The old man was rather glad that they didn't have legs, or else this would be much, much harder to deal with.
But either way, in the end, all that they had to do was hold the mansions off further. And for this, Eisen finally called Askr over as well. Since all the groups got rid of a large amount of the ego-items on the path toward town, the wood-giant was able to get through without encountering too many enemies that could bother him too much. And even inside of town, Askr was able to get through the relatively straight path that the groups went through while taking down the ego-houses without having to fight any of them.
And now that Askr was here as well, they had two more arms that were capable of holding the ego-mansions back. Two arms that were needed quite a bit, because the ego-mansions each had four of them. Askr managed to take care of two of the arms for now, while Eisen could try and destroy the other two, while the other groups made their way inside of the mansions.
It would be rather troublesome in there, and they already confirmed that there were regular ego-items inside of the mansions, but since the groups were large and capable, it wasn't an issue. And to Eisen's luck, Jyuuk and Xenia also had another trump-card to make use of.
For one, there was the giant white-haired minotaur that the beastperson had tamed after Merc and Cial had fused it with the Light Spirit that was now under Xenia's possession, as well as that spirit itself. These two were already rather large as well, both standing at 10 meters in height. That meant that they were also quite a lot of help to Eisen and Askr.
But it seemed like, after seeing what Merc and Cial had done, Jyuuk and Xenia did some research into Spirit-Fusion as well, and found a way to do so in a way that wasn't dangerous to either of them. It was like a perfectly symbiotic relationship. And so, soon, Eisen had a Minotaur with bright white and gold armor standing in front of him, which had grown to roughly 15 meters in height.
Just like that, together with Eisen's Elemental Spirit, they now had a Unit of four giants that would be useful to them like this. Sure, the Elemental Spirit wouldn't be capable of fighting usual enemies, but since they were fighting against Ego-Items, that was a whole other story again. He still didn't do much damage, but he knew where to hit, so that was a good advantage.
Soon, the other groups infiltrated the first mansion while the giant-unit took care of everything outside, trying to hold the ego-mansion down as much as possible so that it couldn't bother the others that were currently inside, because they couldn't afford things like having the rooms suddenly flip upside down.
The worst thing was that because the soul core was still intact, the mansion was constantly repairing itself, so what Eisen, the spirit, and the Light Minotaur were trying to do the whole time was destroy its arms over and over again while Askr was holding it down with pure physical strength after infusing his whole wooden body with the earth element.
This method worked out pretty well, but it still took quite a while for everyone to finish inside. It took roughly an hour until they managed to even find the soul-core, and then they had to clear everything up until they had a good escape path. In the end, Eisen just tried punching a hole into the ego-mansion's chest with his hammer to give them a shortcut.
Luckily, they had Morrom, Denmir, Folmirra and Jekyll inside of there. Morrom was capable of setting up his own items to immediately cause destruction to the soul-core, which was now roughly five meters in diameter, with support of the skilled hands of three other Grandmasters. And sure, they didn't necessarily know too much about Alchemy or Enchanting, which were obviously the basis for Morrom's items and systems, but their knowledge was transferable to an extent, at least, so they were capable of helping out well enough using their own expertise.
Soon, Eisen saw the message screen in front of him of Jyuuk telling him that they were able to get everything done, and Eisen then quickly punched a large hole into the ego-mansion's chest, as close to the soul-core as possible, and then helped everyone get out of there as quickly as possible, bringing them over to the dungeon-gate placed into Askr's chest for now as it was safer than setting them down onto the ground.
Once everyone was outside, Morrom activated his items inside, and a few moments later, Eisen could see the flow of mana through the ego-mansion's body stopping. He made sure to strengthen the structure in certain places, although at this size, it was unavoidable for some parts of the structure to crash down. But luckily there was more than enough space around the mansions that it didn't matter too much that so many parts were dropping down onto the ground. They couldn't destroy more of the town now, after all. Just a few overgrown rose bushes were crushed, that was all.
After they destroyed the first mansion this well, Eisen was more than just satisfied. They themselves took minor damage, but they were still able to take down the whole mansion and gain a fair amount of experience while they were at it.
With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked into the Dungeon gate that was roughly at the height of his own head as he was standing in front of Askr, and then just pushed his hand, or rather just his fingers, into the gate before starting to shrink down rapidly. Like this, he was able to quickly pull himself up to the gate and was soon standing inside of the dungeon.
"Alright, so, how did everything work out in there?" The old man asked with a broad smile on his face, and the others looked at him slightly exhausted, "Pretty well, I'd say." Jyuuk pointed out, "There were just a lot of enemies. And sure, there were a couple of regular ego-items in there, but they weren't too much of a bother with out numbers. We were able to take them down immediately. The bigger problem was the mass amount of decoration and furniture that was turned into these mock ego-items." The beastperson added, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms.
"Do you think it's too much to ask to continue right away? We can probably just wait out here for a night until everyone recovered." Eisen pointed out, but Brody slowly shook his head as he looked around, "I doubt we need that. Sure, it was a bit tough, but nobody was really injured. We can probably get a few more done. But we should rest for a night before taking on that castle. Not to mention, that's probably not even the boss, right?"
"Probably not, but I assume that the boss room is inside of the ego-castle. Meaning that I would like to get in there myself, somehow." Eisen pointed out, "We're just going to need a proper way to tie the castle down somehow so that it can't move too much. We have Askr, but even he is smaller than the castle in the end."
"True... And as far as we've seen, it has what, six arms? We definitely don't have enough manpower for this." Jyuuk sighed annoyedly.
"I mean..." Morrom interrupted, "Are you sure about that?" He asked, and the beastperson looked at him with a brow raised.
"Either you're confident we can take the castle on, or you figured out a way to increase our numbers easily." Jyuuk said, and Morrom scratched the back of his neck, "I wouldn't call it 'easily'. We'll definitely need Eisen, Xenia and Jyuuk for it though. I can't take care of it on my own, but I think we could take over the ego-structures somehow."
Eisen looked at Morrom with a curious expression, "Really? How do you think we can do that?" The old man asked, and Morrom crossed his arms, trying to find a good way to put his thoughts into words.
"So... Ego-items are structure-type beings, similar to golems. That's just shown in the fact that they die if we destroy the place the soul core is resting in. But on the other hand, they're not just like golems, as they have their own soul, like monsters, animals, or people. Now, I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think that the souls used for the ego-houses are those of people, meaning that they are souls that can be... well..." Morrom started, and Jyuuk soon understood what he was getting at.
"That they can be tamed?" Jyuuk asked, and Morrom immediately nodded his head, "Yes, that's what I think. But it's still different. Ego-items can be controlled in a similar fashion to tamed monsters, but it actually works different. They simply remember their master, and reject anyone else that tries to use them, except in special situations where the item itself judged that it's necessary. I believe that, with direct access to the soul, we can try and take it over to an extent using the principles of taming combined with the principles of golemancy."
After listening to Morrom's suggestion, Eisen slightly widened his eyes and nodded his head, "Got it. You want to turn the whole rock-like structure that surrounds, or is combined with, the soul core into a golem core that's enhanced using the Taming skill."
"Exactly." Morrom replied, glad that Eisen understood, and the old man just started to grin, "That sounds like it may work. Let's try it out with the next one. We'll proceed like normal for the next mansion, but I want you to let me know once you reach the soul core. I'll come inside and while the rest are protecting us, we'll work on the changing the soul core's structure and try to take it over. Just in case, before activating it, anyone that isn't an Artificial or Original should leave, though. The mansion might just come crashing down on us, it would be too dangerous for you guys."