Sure enough, in the end, it still had to be solved with art

"...We can't worry about that now. Just blast it first! Aim at N'Zoth's giant mouth, divine the spot where its tentacles are sparsest, and fire a shot straight into its mouth!"

Stuart gritted his teeth and gave the order.

Although N'Zoth had gathered all the rifts together to form a giant mouth that swallowed the heavens, latching onto the Williams's hull and ruining his plan to kite it, that mouth had also provided them with a new opening. If they could fire a shot into N'Zoth's body, they might be able to severely wound it—or even eliminate it outright.

N'Zoth was not an intelligent lifeform, but that did not mean it was foolish enough to expose its weakness without realizing it. As a cosmic creature that had lived for who knew how long, it had encountered plenty of dangers. Its survival until now was proof of its strength.

When the Williams's main gun once again shot out a dazzling beam of Magic Power, the terrifying suction coming from N'Zoth's abyss-like maw suddenly vanished. Then, ripples that could be clearly seen even in the pitch-black void of space spread out from that abyssal mouth.

The tentacles lashed out, the ripples blocked the attack, and in the end, the cannon blast exploded completely before it could touch N'Zoth's main body.

Using that Main Gun Firing, the Williams successfully opened up a considerable distance from N'Zoth. Yet no one aboard the battleship looked relieved.

Because not long after the explosion, the suction once again enveloped the hull. Judging from the relative positions of the nearby asteroids, the Williams's speed had dropped by nearly half.

A deathly silence swept across the bridge. As they watched N'Zoth rapidly charge toward them in the distance, no one knew how to express what they were feeling.

Before