Kaeya didn’t hesitate.

"Let’s go and help them," she said, already breaking into a run.

Her voice cut through the chaos like a blade, sharp and urgent. She pushed herself forward along the mountain path, boots striking stone as she accelerated. The electric glow ahead pulsed brighter, the skittering sounds of countless legs echoing through the ravine.

Tyler moved to follow —then stopped.

His eyes flicked back.

Olsen and the healer girl were gone.

At that exact moment, the ground exploded.

A violent shockwave erupted from the mountainside, ripping through the air with a thunderous crack. The ground beneath Tyler’s feet shattered outward as if struck by a colossal hammer. Stone burst apart, fragments flying in every direction, and a hidden passage collapsed violently from within.

Something enormous forced its way out.

A giant spider emerged with a shriek so sharp it felt like it carved into the skull. Its body was massive—far larger than any of the spiders they had fought earlier—its legs thick as tree trunks, each impact shattering rock and sending tremors through the mountain. Blue lightning crawled across its carapace, veins of crackling energy pulsing along its abdomen like a living storm.

Tyler reacted on instinct.

He twisted his body, planting his foot to brace himself, but the shockwave caught him mid-motion. The force slammed into him like a charging beast.

He was thrown backward.

Straight toward the monster.

"What the hell?!" Tyler shouted as the world spun.

Darkness swallowed him.

The spider’s mouth opened wide, layers of jagged mandibles parting as sticky webs shot out and wrapped around his body. The binding tightened instantly, constricting his limbs and dragging him inward with terrifying speed.

Outside, Kaeya spun around.

Her sword flared with blinding light as she saw Tyler vanish into the creature’s maw.

"Tyler!" she shouted.

For the first time since entering the mountains, panic pierced her composure. She lunged forward, slashing through webs and spiders alike, her blade tearing arcs of light through the darkness. But the giant spider reared back, retreating into the broken passage with Tyler trapped inside its grasp.

And somewhere ahead, far from the chaos, Olsen finally stopped kissing.

The healer girl frowned, confusion flickering across her face. "Why did you stop?"

Olsen didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, a faint, satisfied smile curved his lips.

The trap had been sprung.

---

Tyler opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was the silence.

No wind Nor trees Nor any pulse of the forest.

His Eye of the Jungle didn’t activate.

That alone told him everything.

"I’m not in the forest range." he muttered.

Darkness surrounded him, thick and oppressive. The air felt heavy, stale, carrying a faint metallic tang that prickled against his senses. He shifted slightly, realizing the webs that had bound him were gone. Either they had dissolved or been removed.

"Did that spider... eat me?" he asked aloud.

Blue lights flickered to life.

One by one, spiders emerged from the darkness—dozens of them. Their abdomens glowed with the same eerie blue as before, faint sparks snapping along their bodies. They moved with unsettling precision, surrounding him but not attacking.

Tyler stood slowly, rolling his shoulders.

"Alright," he said calmly. "Where the hell am I?"

A spider crawled forward, holding something between its legs.

An orb.

It was smooth and glass-like, resembling a pearl. Light shimmered faintly within it.

Tyler narrowed his eyes. "An Imagery Pearl?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

He took it without resistance. The moment his fingers touched the surface, the orb activated, projecting a hollow image into the air.

A shadowed figure appeared.

"Oh," the figure said lazily, voice distorted but smug. "The missing Hero Party member. Finally caught you."

Tyler watched silently, expression unreadable.

"Maybe the Demon King will like this gift," the figure continued. "But honestly, I expected more from you. If you escape, find me. We have things to discuss."

The figure leaned closer, shadows writhing around its form.

"Otherwise, stay right there and be wrapped up nicely like A perfect little present."

The projection vanished.

The spiders around Tyler began to crackle with electricity, blue sparks intensifying as if responding to a silent command.

Tyler sighed.

"If you’re not even going to show your face," he muttered, "why waste an Imagery Pearl just use a sound pearl?"

A spider lunged.

Tyler caught it mid-air with one hand.

His grip tightened.

The glowing abdomen burst with a sharp boom, releasing a small shockwave that rippled through the chamber. The spider’s body collapsed into smoking fragments.

"Woah," Tyler said, blinking once. "That’s unexpected."

The spiders attacked in unison.

Minutes passed.

When the last crackle of electricity faded, Tyler stood alone. Broken spider bodies littered the ground, their blue glow extinguished. His clothes were scorched and torn in places, faint burn marks trailing along the fabric—but his skin was untouched.

He held one final spider but didn’t crush it.

It twitched weakly.

Tyler crushed it.

"Well," he said, dusting off his hands, "let’s get out of here."

He stepped forward and punched the rock wall.

Nothing happened.

The stone didn’t crack. It didn’t even tremble.

Tyler frowned.

He punched again— harder.

Still nothing.

"What?" he muttered.

His brow furrowed as he opened his status window.

---

Strength: 5000

---

Tyler stared at the number.

Then at the wall.

Then back at the number.

"That doesn’t make sense," he said slowly.

He placed his palm against the stone. It wasn’t ordinary rock. It felt dense, layered, reinforced with something unnatural— like compressed mana woven into matter itself.

"A containment space?" he murmured. Maybe one cannot escape from here just by using strength.

This was a prison designed specifically to hold something like him.

Tyler smiled faintly.

"Well," he said to the empty darkness, "now I’m curious."

---

Tyler studied the chamber in silence, his gaze sweeping across the curved walls that enclosed him. At first glance they looked solid, seamless, but the longer he stared, the more imperfections revealed themselves. Thin cracks snaked along the surface like veins beneath stone skin. They were subtle, easy to miss —but they were there.

He stepped closer and pressed his fingers against one of the fissures.

A faint jolt ran up his arm.

Tyler withdrew his hand slightly, eyes narrowing. Pale blue sparks flickered along the crack, vanishing almost as soon as they appeared.

"So brute force won’t break it," he murmured, flexing his fingers, "but electricity still reacts."

That alone told him this place wasn’t designed to withstand everything. It was selective. Smart. Whoever built this prison —or shaped it— had planned for raw strength, but not for every possible interaction.

Tyler reached into his storage and pulled out a thin, paper-like card etched with runes. A disposable trinket charm, meant to disrupt and scatter electrical attacks when torn. He flicked it between his fingers once, then ripped it cleanly in half and tossed it at the wall.

The charm dissolved midair.

The wall didn’t even flinch.

"No reaction at all," Tyler sighed. "Figures."

He glanced down at the spider still clutched in his hand, its body limp, faint sparks occasionally crawling across its abdomen.

Then his eyes lit up.

"...So it only responds to their electricity."

The thought settled, clicking neatly into place.

Tyler reached for the copper pot tied at his waist.

He lifted the spider and dropped it inside.

A moment later, he reached in and pulled the spider back out.

Except the original remained inside.

What he held now was a copy.

Its body was identical in every physical way, right down to the faint blue electricity crawling along its back. As always There was no soul inside it, the copper pot cannot copy souls. but the energy remained, unstable and active.

He smiled faintly.

"Good enough."

Tyler repeated the process.

Again and again.

Each time, he withdrew another copy while the original stayed within. One became two. Two became ten. Ten became dozens. Soon, the floor beside the cracked section of the wall was crawling with blue-glowing spider bodies, stacked and tangled together in an uneven pile.

Their abdomens sparked and hissed softly, arcs of electricity jumping between them like living wires.

Tyler stepped back, surveying his work.

"Let’s see how much you can handle."

He reached into the pot once more and pulled out another copy.

This one he didn’t place gently.

Tyler crushed it in his grip.

The spider’s abdomen burst with a sharp crack, electricity exploding outward in a violent pulse. He hurled the shattered body straight into the mass of spiders piled against the wall.

The reaction was immediate.

Electricity surged through the cluster like a chain reaction, blue light flaring as all the spiders convulsed at once. Sparks leapt from body to body, crawling over the cracks in the wall and sinking into them.

The chamber trembled.

The cracks widened.

Stone groaned, a deep, grinding sound echoing through the space as the wall struggled to contain the sudden overload. Blue light bled through the fissures, lines of energy tearing through the structure that had resisted Tyler’s strength so easily before.

"Now we’re talking," Tyler muttered.

Chunks of stone began to crumble away, falling in heavy pieces to the floor. The electricity intensified, the wall buckling inward as if its internal balance had been disrupted.

Tyler didn’t wait.

He sprinted toward the opposite edge of the chamber, boots pounding against the ground. As he ran, the wall behind him finally gave in.

With a thunderous roar, it collapsed.