"Nooooo—!"

The scream was cut short, crushed as if someone had snapped a string mid-note. The mouth clamped shut with a wet, grinding sound, its jagged edges of metals scraping together as it chewed once. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Then again.

The noise echoed through the narrow alley, slow and deliberate, until even that faded. What remained was an oppressive silence, broken only by the faint sounds of chewing again, as if the wall itself were savoring the moment.

Tyler stared at the place where the demon had vanished. His face showed no triumph, no shock, only quiet calculation.

"So much for bargaining," he said softly. He felt this demon is useless.

Before anyone could respond, the air beside him warped.

A hand burst out of nothingness.

Tyler reacted instantly. He grabbed it mid-motion and yanked hard, expecting resistance, a body, something to follow.

Nothing did.

Only a severed wrist came free, slick with blood, fingers twitching weakly in his grip.

The alley went still.

Kaeya’s eyes widened. "That’s—"

"His hiding skill," Tyler said calmly, letting the wrist drop to the ground. "He tried to escape at the last moment. Looks like only this part made it out."

The hand hit the stone path with a dull slap.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the fingers curled.

Slowly, unnaturally, the wrist began to rotate on the ground, spinning in small, jerky circles as if searching for something it had lost. The movement made several of the adventurers step back in unease.

And then it stopped.

The fingers stiffened and extended, pointing down the alley.

Silence stretched.

Kaeya exchanged a look with the others. "It’s... pointing."

The hand twitched again, rotated once more, and pointed in the same direction, unwavering.

Tyler crouched, studying it closely. Carefully, he turned the wrist with his fingers, forcing it to face another way.

The moment he let go, the hand spun back on its own, rotating until it pointed exactly where it had before.

Like a compass needle snapping north.

Tyler straightened slowly. "That demon didn’t lie about everything," he said. "Looks like he died out of resentment. So his hand is guiding us with this?"

No one spoke.

They began moving in the direction the severed hand indicated. Whenever a wall blocked their path, they did not bother hesitating. Steel rang against stone, magic flared, and the warped masonry cracked apart under brute force. The mouths carved into those walls shrieked briefly before crumbling into fragments, their glowing red light snuffed out as rubble scattered across the ground.

Each time a wall fell, the oppressive atmosphere thinned just a little.

Tyler stopped and tossed the severed hand onto the ground again.

This time, the fingers twitched violently before spinning around and pointing in the opposite direction.

"The hell..." one of the adventurers muttered, unease creeping into his voice.

Kaeya frowned. "Did the demon move?" she asked, though even she did not sound fully convinced.

Tyler crouched beside the hand, watching it carefully. The fingers trembled as if resisting something unseen. "Hmm..." He straightened slowly. "Can someone get me a rope? Or something like that?"

The request earned him a few confused looks, but no one questioned him. A few minutes later, Tyler stood at the front of the group, holding one end of a rope. The severed hand was tied firmly to the other end, dangling like a grotesque pendulum.

As they walked, the hand began to rotate again, twisting until it pointed forward. Whenever they turned, it adjusted, guiding them with eerie precision, swaying slightly as if pulled by an invisible current.

"I don’t think this is going to work," one of the guards said quietly. "That demon is definitely moving around. We’ll just chase it forever."

Tyler did not look back. "It’s not useless," he replied calmly. "Not at all. We’re learning how this place works."

That answer only deepened the confusion on the others’ faces.

Kaeya, however, slowed her steps and thought carefully. After a moment, she spoke, her voice steady but thoughtful. "We’ve already figured out several things."

Everyone looked at her.

"First," she continued, "the hand always points toward a mouth. Not just a direction, but specifically toward one of those mouths in the walls."

The guards and adventurers nodded slowly.

"Second," she said, "the direction changes whenever we’re close to destroying a mouth. That means the demon is switching positions before we reach it."

Murmurs spread through the group.

"And third," Kaeya added, her tone sharpening, "despite how powerful this place feels, the demon hasn’t devoured us. Not you, not the townspeople. It devoured that vitality demon instantly, yet it hasn’t repeated that act on anyone else."

Realization dawned across several faces.

"That suggests it can’t do it repeatedly," Kaeya finished. "Either it costs too much power, or it’s already spent most of its strength trapping the entire town inside this domain."

Eyes widened.

Even Tyler looked at her with renewed interest.

Tyler inhaled deeply, then let out a slow breath. "Exactly. That’s the core of it." He glanced around at the warped walls and the flickering mouths embedded within them. "This demon is hiding inside one of these mouths. It can switch positions, but not infinitely. Every switch costs it something or it need some time for each switch."

He lifted the rope slightly, the hand at the end twitching. "That’s why it keeps running. And that’s why it’s careful."

"But this town is huge," one of the adventurers said. "There are mouths everywhere. Even if we know it’s hiding in one of them, how do we find the right one before it moves again? And even if we do... how can we kill it before it escapes?"

Silence followed.

The oppressive red glow pulsed faintly, as if the walls themselves were listening.

Tyler stood still for a moment, eyes half-lidded, thinking. Then he looked up, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I have a plan," he said.

Every gaze snapped to him.

"It’s simple," Tyler continued.

He tightened his grip on the rope. "If it can move between mouths, then we force it into a situation where moving becomes impossible."

Kaeya’s eyes narrowed with interest. "You’re thinking of overwhelming it."

"Not directly," Tyler replied. "We just need to cut off his connection with other mouths."

He looked at the walls again, at the countless mouths etched into stone. "If it hides by switching, then we destroy faster than it can move. One section at a time. But we don’t have time to destroy the whole town.."

A few adventurers swallowed hard.

"That means..." one of them began.

"Yes," Tyler said, finishing the thought. "We just need to threaten them with something, the other mouths will automatically gets disconnected."

"I understand the approach," Kaeya said, folding her arms as she spoke. "We can send people with wide-area skills—magic, bombardment, anything capable of affecting a large zone. They don’t actually need to level the town. The goal is pressure."

She paused, then continued more precisely. "We only need to make the mouths feel threatened. Once that happens, the connection in those areas weakens. We’ve already seen that when a mouth is overwhelmed or destabilized, it gets disconnected from the others. If we repeat that across multiple zones, the demon will have fewer places to hide."

Several adventurers nodded, but one of them frowned. "Even so, we can’t cover even a quarter of the town like that. We don’t have enough people or enough power."

"That’s true," another added. "If this turns into a slow sweep, the demon will just keep switching."

Tyler opened his mouth to respond. "Yeah, but at least we can narrow down the sear—"

"No," Kaeya cut in sharply.

The interruption was so sudden that everyone froze.

Kaeya straightened, her expression calm but resolute. "We don’t need to cover a quarter of the town," she said. "I have something that can threaten half of it."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then someone laughed nervously. Another blinked, certain they had misheard.

"Half... the town?" one of the adventurers repeated.

Kaeya met their gazes without hesitation. "Yes. Specifically, the south and west sides. You don’t need to worry about those areas."

Tyler turned toward her fully now. "You have something like that?" he asked, his tone more curious than doubtful.

Kaeya let out a quiet sigh, as if she had been hoping not to explain this yet. She reached into her coat and withdrew a small metal emblem, its surface engraved with intricate lines and a crest that radiated authority.

The reaction was immediate.

Eyes widened. Backs straightened. Several people inhaled sharply.

Before Kaeya could say anything else, the adventurers and guards dropped to one knee almost in unison, heads lowered in instinctive respect. Their reaction was not directed at her personally, but at what the emblem represented.

Only Tyler remained standing.

"Isn’t that..." one of the guards murmured, voice tight, "the Royal Army emblem?"

Kaeya nodded once. "I work under the commander of the Third Legion."

A hush fell over the group.

Someone swallowed. "The Third Legion’s commander is... Her Highness, the Princess."

"That’s correct," Kaeya said evenly.

The kneeling figures lowered their heads further, murmuring formal words of respect. The weight of that revelation settled heavily in the air. This was no ordinary adventurer. This was someone entrusted with royal authority and royal weapons.

Tyler, meanwhile, tilted his head slightly. His attention never left the emblem. "So," he said, unconcerned with protocol, "what exactly is this weapon that can threaten half a town?"

Kaeya glanced at him, a faint smile touching her lips. "Something that injured a demon General before," she replied.