"How many shots can that cannon fire?" Tyler asked, keeping his eyes on the massive weapon as its glow slowly faded.
Kaeya did not hesitate. "Two," she said plainly. "I only have two cores."
Tyler nodded, already piecing things together. "Then we use both," he said. "We destroy half the town with the cannon. For the remaining half, we let the adventurers with wide-area skills handle it. That narrows the possible hiding area down to a quarter of the city."
He turned to face her, his tone steady and deliberate. "Once that’s done, the search party sweeps every remaining street. You don’t need to chase it. Just wait. The mont the demon surfaces, we need a swift person to strike and kill it or just capture it or just cripple it. Whatever works."
Kaeya frowned. "I don’t want to hand this cannon over to just anyone."
Tyler t her gaze. "You can give it to ," he said calmly. "According to you, I was part of the Hero Party, right? Then you can trust , I guess. Even If I don’t have mories."
Kaeya inhaled slowly, weighing the risk against the lack of alternatives. The situation left her no room for comfort. After a brief silence, she nodded.
"Alright... But after this over. You should fulfill my request...." Kaeya said.
Tyler didn’t argue and agreed.
---
Not long after, the plan was set into motion.
The cannon roared twice more, its annihilating blasts ripping massive sections out of the city. Streets vanished. Entire blocks collapsed into nothingness. The oppressive red glow flickered violently as mouths embedded in the remaining walls writhed and disconnected in panic.
At the sa ti, the selected adventurers unleashed their wide-area skills, leveling another quarter of the town through coordinated strikes. Firestorms, shockwaves, and controlled magical implosions tore through stone and structure alike.
By the ti the dust settled, only a fractured section of the city remained intact.
"Now," Kaeya said, her voice sharp and clear, "search."
The search party moved imdiately. Adventurers and guards spread out, advancing thodically through the remaining streets. Walls were struck, mouths were destroyed, buildings were broken open one by one. There was no hesitation now—only urgency.
Kaeya positioned herself atop a tall, half-ruined building, sword in hand. From there, she could see most of what remained. Her senses stayed stretched to their limit, ready to react the instant the demon revealed itself.
She waited.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The demon did not appear.
Instead, sothing far worse happened.
Cracks began to seal. Rubble trembled. Stone pulled itself back together. Destroyed walls reford, mouths reappearing as if nothing had happened.
Kaeya let out a slow, frustrated breath. "No... not again."
Below, Tyler stood amid the shifting ruins, his expression growing increasingly distant. He watched the city repair itself, patterns repeating with unsettling precision.
"If the demon isn’t here..." he murmured.
A thought surfaced, cold and unwelco.
Tyler’s eyes narrowed.
"...then it never was."
The realization settled heavily in his chest, and for the first ti since the plan began, he felt certain they had been fighting on the wrong battlefield all along.
---
Back at the town square, Tyler and Kaeya stood on a raised platform overlooking the crowd. Adventurers and guards had ford a loose ring around the civilians, weapons lowered but ready, eyes sharp with tension. The red glow that once pulsed through the walls was weaker now, flickering like a dying fla.
Tyler took a slow breath before speaking. "Alright," he said, projecting his voice so it carried. "This might sound insane. But we believe the demon isn’t hiding in the walls anymore."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
"It’s hiding as one of the people here."
The effect was imdiate. Whispers turned into shouts. Parents instinctively pulled children closer. So stepped back, others looked around suspiciously, fear rising fast.
"Enough!" Kaeya shouted, her voice cutting through the panic like a blade. "Do not lose control. Even if the demon is among you, it does not an it is all-powerful. It’s already expending most of its strength just to keep this town restored."
She pointed toward the surrounding buildings, where cracks had stopped sealing as quickly as before. "That alone proves it’s strained."
Tyler stepped forward again. "All we need to do is identify it. Please, listen carefully, and do exactly as we say."
Kaeya gestured to the street beside the square. An adventurer stepped forward and activated his skill. Stone rose from the ground, forming a narrow, straight pathway like a bridge laid across the street. Unlike the rest of the town, this path was smooth and untouched, free of mouths or carvings. The skill-made stone disrupted whatever structure the demon controlled.
"One by one," Kaeya ordered, "you will walk along this path and exit through the side wall."
The crowd hesitated, confused, frightened, but the guards gently urged them forward.
The first few people stepped onto the stone path. Nothing happened. They walked through, erging on the other side of the wall. Each of them looked shaken, pale, as if they had just escaped a nightmare. So clutched their chests. Others wiped sweat from their brows. But none were hard.
Gradually, more people followed.
A mother tried to step forward holding her son’s hand.
"No," a guard said gently but firmly. "One at a ti."
Tears welled in her eyes, but she nodded and went through alone. A few monts later, the boy followed. When he erged, relief flooded his face, and he ran toward his mother.
People began to whisper, questioning those who had already passed through. But every answer was the sa. They don’t know.
Then a guard stepped onto the path.
The mont he did, his body went rigid.
A hand settled on his shoulder.
The guard felt it instantly, a terrifying concentration of mana aid directly at his vitals. His instincts scread. He tried to dodge, to twist away, but the grip was ironclad. His breath caught in his throat as fear surged.
At that exact mont, the entire city shuddered.
Across every street, every wall, every building, the mouths closed at once. Their red glow dimd sharply, like embers smothered by ash.
"The Mouths recognised the threat, it disconnected from the demon itself." Kaeya muttered and said loudly, "We finally found you. You bastard."
At the sa ti, Tyler didn’t stop. His hand plunged forward, straight into the chest of the one standing before him.
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