Kaelen spent the next several hours in a state of continuous Deep Meditation, his mind diving into the arcane structure of the Codex of Echoes. Elara maintained a vigilant silence, the sheer magnitude of the threat forcing her to remain absolutely still.
Finally, Kaelen surfaced, his breathing ragged, but a look of intense, cold calculation replacing the exhaustion.
"I found it," Kaelen announced, his voice low with discovery. "The solution is not elemental; it is temporal."
"Temporal? How does that stop a machine?" Elara questioned.
"It is an ancient Varr counter-measure against mechanical invaders: the Phase Shunt Rune," Kaelen explained. "It's a master-level Blue Rank Transfiguration technique. It doesn't destroy the Executor. Instead, it alters the fundamental physical reality of the target, phasing it out of our current timeline."
"Phasing it?"
"The Executor is governed by strict Newtonian physics—it moves through space and time predictably. The Phase Shunt Rune will temporarily displace the Executor by a fraction of a second—just enough to make it physically unable to interact with our reality. It will walk straight through the cave walls, or fall through the floor."
Elara realized the genius of the plan. It bypassed the need for elemental destruction entirely, using Kaelen's specialized Transfiguration magic to weaponize the laws of physics.
"But a temporal Transfiguration spell of that magnitude... it requires immense, sustained Aether, Kaelen," Elara observed, anxiety returning. "You barely recovered from the Echo Guard ritual."
"The strain is irrelevant. The timing, however, is everything," Kaelen stated. "The Executor is programmed with only one objective: the elimination of the magical threat. It will approach, identify me, and initiate its core attack sequence—a full physical charge—which takes precisely 1.7 seconds from initiation to impact."
"We must cast the Phase Shunt at the 1.6-second mark," Elara concluded, matching his intensity. "Any earlier, and the Executor's anti-magic shell will resist the Aether buildup. Any later, and it connects."
The plan was a single, perfect execution of timing and power, leaving absolutely no margin for error.
Kaelen knew what he had to do next. "I need to retrieve the Codex and take it with us. The Executor will level this entire Crag. The Scroll is too valuable to lose."
He rose, pushing aside the bone-deep fatigue. "We are moving back to the Sunstone Caves. We hide the Codex there, use its energy to fully charge my core, and then we wait for the Executor to arrive. We must use the last hours of safety for preparation."