As Kaeya and the guard moved forward, they slowed to a stop almost at the same time. Ahead of them, a familiar figure came into view, standing calmly beneath the dim red glow of the walls.

Tyler.

Kaeya frowned, her grip tightening on her sword. She and the guard exchanged a brief look before walking toward him.

"This doesn’t make sense," she said as she approached. Then she stopped again, her gaze shifting past Tyler to the wall behind him.

Where there had once been a stone face, there was now a jagged hole. Cracks spread outward like veins, and faint wisps of red light leaked from within.

"I’m pretty sure you two went that way," Tyler said, gesturing the opposite direction from the path they emerged with his chin.

"We did," Kaeya replied. "We didn’t turn around. We didn’t circle back either. We walked straight ahead, and somehow we ended up coming back to the same place —from the opposite side."

Tyler’s expression sharpened.

"Then that means..." he began.

Both of them turned toward the direction Kaeya had originally gone. As expected, two figures emerged from the red-lit corridor.

The two adventurers.

They slowed when they saw the others, their faces reflecting the same confusion.

"What’s going on?" one of them asked. "We kept running straight, but the path just... folded back on itself."

Tyler exhaled slowly. "It looks like these walls don’t actually have an end. The paths loop into each other, even though they look straight. It’s a closed structure pretending to be a maze."

Kaeya glanced back at the broken wall behind Tyler. "Then how did you manage to do that?"

"I didn’t break the wall directly," Tyler replied. "I fed one of the mouths blood using my skill. It seems the mouths share sensation with each other, like a network. When it was drinking, all of them reacted."

He paused, choosing his words carefully.

"But when I threatened that one mouth with a blade, it stopped sharing what it felt with the others. The connection was cut. The blood I was feeding kept flowing, and with nowhere to redirect it, the mouth overloaded and collapsed."

The guard swallowed. "So you made it eat a lot and make it explode."

Tyler nodded. "In short, yes. Something like that."

Kaeya let out a slow breath. "That means these walls aren’t invincible. They rely on shared control and if we threaten a mouth, the other mouths disconnect their network."

"And that means," Tyler added, "The hidden demon is also connected to these mouths."

Together, they stepped over the remains of the shattered mouth and moved down the newly opened path. The oppressive red glow softened as they walked, and the air felt marginally lighter.

When they stepped back into the town square, it took a moment for the people to realize what they were seeing.

Then someone let out a sharp breath.

Another voice followed, louder, trembling with disbelief.

The stillness shattered all at once.

People surged forward instinctively, Some broke down crying where they stood, others laughed shakily, unable to stop themselves. A few simply sank to the ground in relief.

Guards who had been standing rigid finally lowered their weapons, shoulders slumping as the tension drained from their bodies. Even the seasoned adventurers loosened their grips, exchanging glances that said the same thing— they made it back.

"They’re alive..."

"They came back..."

"The demon was lying..."

The words and relief spread through the square.

---

A few hours later, the town square had settled into an uneasy calm. People spoke in low voices, careful not to draw the attention of the walls, and small groups clustered around fires made by people skills.

Tyler sat near one of the stone benches made by other people skills, tearing pieces of bread with his hands and chewing slowly, his eyes occasionally lifting to watch the faint glow along the buildings.

Kaeya dropped down beside him, stretching her legs out in front of her. She watched him for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief. "I still can’t believe you were carrying that much food with you," she said. "Most adventurers barely plan for a day."

Tyler shrugged lightly. "It’s my first time coming to this town. I decided to sell these foods to villagers in the forest to make them work for me. So I bought as much as I can. At least now no one will starve for a few hours. That alone should keep things from getting worse. Well I don’t care sharing food, this is just a measure to prevent them from turning against each other."

Kaeya smiled faintly. To her, it sounded less like he was doing to prevent situation getting worse and more like someone who just shared the food during a time like this because he was just too kind. She chose not to say that out loud.

After a brief pause, Tyler asked, "Is there any method that could help us locate this demon?"

Kaeya leaned back, resting her weight on her hands as she thought. "I have a theory," she said slowly. "But I’m not completely sure. The demon feels tied to the mouths in the walls. Not just controlling them— more like being part of them. Maybe it’s inhabiting one of those mouths, or spreading itself across all of them."

She glanced toward the nearest building, where a stone face twitched faintly.

"If that’s the case," she continued, "then destroying one mouth won’t kill it. When I cut one earlier, it healed after a few minutes. Unless we overload it like you did, the structure just recovers."

Tyler nodded, his gaze following hers. "That makes sense. But searching every wall and every mouth would take far too long. Even if we tore the town apart, there’s no guarantee the demon would show itself. It might just retreat deeper, or hide in a place we can’t reach."

"Which means it’s playing the waiting game," Kaeya muttered. "And so are we."

Tyler broke off another piece of bread and chewed thoughtfully. "Then we wait too," he said. "This isn’t about strength right now. It’s about patience. One of us will lose it first."

Kaeya sighed, rubbing her temples. "I hate waiting."

"I know," Tyler replied with a small smile. "But waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing."

He reached into his storage ring and pulled out several smaller rings, placing them in Kaeya’s hand one by one. "These are the last of the food I brought. There’s enough here for everyone to eat at least once more. Not comfortably, but enough to keep them on their feet for a day."

Kaeya looked down at the rings, then back up at him. "And after that?"

"After that, we improvise," Tyler said calmly. "For now, tell people to use the lakeside when they need to relieve themselves. See if anyone has a cleaning or purification skill— there’s always someone in a town like this. Use whatever abilities the people have. We just need to last one day."

Kaeya closed her fingers around the rings, her expression turning serious. "Just One day," she repeated. "If the demon is watching, it won’t stay quiet forever."

Tyler met her gaze. "Exactly. And when it finally moves, we’ll be ready to counter attack it."

Kaeya nodded once, then stood, already shifting back into command mode. As she walked away to give orders, Tyler leaned back against the stone, eyes fixed on the walls.

Suddenly, Tyler felt a shift in the air, subtle but unmistakable. His eyes sharpened, a spark of recognition flashing through them.

"So you got trapped too," he muttered under his breath.

Without drawing attention to himself, Tyler told the others that he was going to scout ahead. He slipped away from the town square, moving carefully until the sounds of voices faded behind him.

The alley he entered was narrow and suffocating. Every wall was carved with grotesque mouths, their stone lips parted as if frozen mid-scream. Thick, glowing red liquid dripped from their edges, pooling on the ground and casting an eerie light that painted the alley in shades of blood and shadow.

Tyler continued forward, his steps measured. He made sure no one followed him, listening for even the faintest disturbance. Only when he was certain he was alone did he slow down.

The air behind him shifted.

A hand burst out of the darkness, fingers clawing toward his neck.

Tyler reacted instantly. He twisted around, caught the wrist mid-motion, and yanked hard.

Something screamed as it was dragged out of the hidden space, the distortion around it collapsing. A figure tumbled forward and hit the ground at Tyler’s feet, gasping and scrambling to recover.

Tyler looked down at the fallen form, his grip unyielding.

"Found you," he said quietly.

Whatever had been hiding in the shadows, it had just made a very big mistake.

It was the same demon that had tried to attack Tyler twice before, each time retreating when the receptionist and Kaeya intervened.

Only then did another thought surface— he hadn’t seen the receptionist or her stepbrother anywhere since the town was swallowed by this nightmare. The realization sent a brief chill through him, but he pushed it aside for now.

At this moment, there was only one thing that mattered.

Tyler’s gaze locked onto the demon before him.