As those Servants fled, bringing their Masters to safety and preparing to launch their attacks, only one of the gathered Servants was able to launch an attack. The arrow of Odysseus sliced through the air and met the shields that sat over its center.
The shield bent inwards, impacted by the blow of that arrow that had reached the A rank, and yet it did not immediately break. If it wasn't for the fact that there was empty space between where the shields stood and where the stone body of the castle beneath sat, then some damage to the body beneath the shield would certainly have happened, but alas that was not the case. It seemed that even an A rank attack, while enough to damage those shields, wasn't enough to shatter them outright.
"...sunder."[Clairvoyance: C+]
[God of the Bow(?): EX]
A streak of light appeared, an arrow that soon followed the one shot by Odysseus. Out of those present, only Rostam and Lorelei would recognize that attack; how could they not, when it had nearly resulted in Rostam's death the day prior. The arrow loosed by the Archer of Matou shot forwards, aimed with a pinpoint accuracy only possible for an Archer at the site that Odysseus's own arrow had impacted a moment earlier. The shield that Odysseus had struck was damaged, after all, just a bit shy of breaking, and so when that arrow which had exited the realm of the standard scale struck it...
-It punched through, charging forwards into the golem's body.
Barely weakened thanks to the low integrity of the shield it passed through, nearly all of the attack's force was received by the castle. While its size meant that this was little more than the prick of a needle to it, even something that small could be damaging were the force behind it sufficient. The central body of the castle seemed to rock for a second, a wordless scream leaving its stone body.
Damn, damn. I knew it, the maneuverability's too low, I can't use everything quickly enough to compensate. And what the hell was that arrow? Forget attacks, that was something on the level of a Noble Phantasm, and the one before it wasn't a pushover either.
I should-...no, no, I don't want that. If I do that, then that would....but if I don't, then it'll just stay like this. My movements are too telegraphed like this. Even if it's at a similar speed to them, they can dodge any of my attacks, but I can't do the same. If it's a battle of attrition then I can win, but not in a situation where I'm the only one taking damage.
...damn. I really, I didn't want him to...fine. I suppose this is the only option, huh?As those Servants approached it, it did not take the chance to launch another attack. Rather, it used the moment during which there was still distance between them to do something entirely different.
Why was a castle given a mind, given a heart? Why was a castle able to feel, even if that would cause it to make suboptimal decisions? Why could a castle's blows have the vestiges of technique in spite of the unwieldy nature of its limbs? Why would a castle be designed for anything short of being a castle?
A castle. A king. A hero. A monster. It was designed to be each of these things.
Soundlessly, the golem's body began to fold in on itself. First those shields retracting back from their expanded state, then its entire body began to compress. From three hundred meters to one hundred, from one hundred to thirty, and it even continued from there. Its shield glimmered as its body came together, those towers of its design shifting in shape. From towers to tendrils, shields melding into its body as they slotted together seamlessly, its form changing into something that it had deemed more suitable to fight a Servant with.
Fire and stone. Life. Stone and fire. Death.
By the time the Servants were in a position to realize what was occurring, they would have perhaps a Single Action to capitalize on it, if that. All the while, the castle writhed as it became something that was not a castle.
