Orichalcum itself was a magical metal of tremendous hardness, and thus Talos was practically impervious to blades and spears. Its durability was astonishing, so much so that even the gods could not easily destroy it…
At the same time, its power came from a formidable magical engine. Fueled by the blood of gods to supply mana, it could automatically sense hostile entities and annihilate them.
Once activated, its limbs would glow red-hot from intense energy and strike out; ordinary creatures would likely be vaporized instantly.
In terms of combat strength, it could even rival the Colchian dragon. Its powerful propulsion system even allowed it to fly.
Talos was a superweapon forged by Hephaestus, one of the Twelve Olympian Gods, and was originally gifted by Zeus to the princess Europa, whom Zeus favored at the time. Zeus himself had bestowed upon it the absolute purpose of protecting Europa, making it a mechanical guardian.
As an automated weapon born of mechanical civilization technology, Talos was not truly alive, but its high computational core granted it a degree of intelligence.
Perhaps because ancient commands had never been rescinded, even after the one it was meant to protect had long passed away, Talos still meticulously followed its original directives despite having no controller.
These directives compelled the powerful mechanical creation to patrol tirelessly around Crete, treating any being that entered the area as an enemy and attacking indiscriminately.
Only the gods representing mechanical civilization and Europa herself, whom Zeus had granted protection, were exempt from its attacks.
This terrifying bronze giant launched an immediate assault on the Argo as soon as it approached Crete.
All of this was within Zeus's plans.
By manipulating the weather and sea conditions, Crete had become an unavoidable route for the Argo's return to Greece.
To pass Crete, they had to deal with Talos, the mechanical giant blocking their way.
Zeus intended to use Talos's power to eliminate them.
Talos's existence was indeed a massive problem for the Argonauts.
The mighty Talos was something their weapons simply could not damage, while its terrifying attacks were lethally effective against them.
After several attempts, the heroes realized that they had no way of dealing with Talos at all.
Such a mechanical creation was truly a natural enemy to warriors and fighters like them.
"What should we do?"
After being driven back to the ship by Talos for the third time, Jason stood dejectedly at the stern, watching the bronze giant continue its thunderous patrol on the island as always.
"Our food and fresh water are already running low. Although the mages can provide us with some supplies, this can't go on."
No hero could answer that question. They looked at their weapons, nearly ruined by Talos's solid shell, and all felt helpless.
Just like when they had faced the Colchian dragon, against such an opponent, all their skills were useless.
"So, do you have any good news?" Seeing that the heroes were completely at a loss, Jason turned his hopeful gaze toward Alaric and the other two.
By now, the Argonauts fully understood the power of mages.
Along the journey, although they had overcome many difficulties through their own abilities, many of the truly major crises had been resolved through magic.
Though they still took pride in the strength of warriors, no one dared to underestimate mages anymore.
Alaric, Circe, and Medea exchanged glances, and in the end, Medea stepped forward.
"Of course. Although your battles with Talos these past few days have yielded no results, they weren't useless, at the very least, we've figured out this monster's mechanical structure, power source, and operating principles."
"Really?" Jason clearly didn't understand what she was saying, but looked impressed nonetheless. "Then how do we deal with an enemy like that?"
"Of course, by targeting its weakness," Medea said matter-of-factly.
"We've discovered that there's a weak point somewhere in this mechanical monster's power source.
As long as we strike that weak point, it will lose all power and eventually cease functioning, so next, leave it to me."
Although Medea said she would deal with Talos, she did not go ashore at all.
Instead, she had the ship brought as close to the island as possible while remaining outside Talos's attack range.
Seeing the Argo, once again recklessly approaching Crete and deemed a 'threat', Talos returned to the shore, preparing to hurl rocks at them…
At that moment, Medea stood at the bow of the ship and launched her attack at Talos from afar.
"True Dominion!"
This spell allowed the caster to control the actions of any humanoid being.
The caster would establish a mental link with the target, enabling them to forcibly compel the target to perform any action the caster desired, within the limits of the target's capabilities.
However, the conditions for casting this spell were extremely demanding, it required sufficiently powerful mental strength to invade the enemy's mind.
This time, the target of the spell was not a normal intelligent lifeform, but a mechanical construct.
Although a mechanical construct's consciousness differed from that of a human, it posed little difficulty for Medea.
The reason was simple, she had studied Talos's intelligence.
Or rather, she had studied the intelligent systems of Greek mechanical civilization.
Within the Greek divine domain, Mystra Academy, as an institution devoted to the pursuit of truth, naturally did not overlook the technologies of mechanical civilization.
Currently, the person leading research into this technology was Alaric's student, the genius scholar Daedalus.
The scope of their research included the intelligent systems of mechanical constructs.
Because they were mana-driven, the intelligent systems of Greek mechanical civilization naturally differed from human binary electronic computers.
Nevertheless, they were still fundamentally based on mathematical logic, and before becoming true intelligent life, they inevitably possessed logical loopholes.
And Medea had just happened to study related material.
Although both Alaric and Circe knew how to deal with Talos, with such an opportunity to let her put her learning into practice, she naturally volunteered.
Alaric and Circe, of course, yielded the opportunity to the girl.
Although she had studied magic for a long time, this was Medea's first time using magic in actual combat.
Like a newbie who had just learned a skill and stepped out of the tutorial village, the girl enthusiastically unleashed the spell she had prepared for so long against her first opponent.
Very quickly, following her understanding of intelligent systems, Medea's mental magic found a familiar loophole from memory.
Infiltration complete.