The battle began without ceremony.

Tyler didn’t waste another second.

He sprinted forward across the drifting debris, boots barely touching the surface before he launched himself upward. Space rippled beneath him as he bent it slightly—short-distance acceleration compressing the gap.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared directly in front of Gailo.

His fist drew back.

"Just let me punch you once," Tyler muttered.

Before his knuckles could connect—

A thin, almost invisible shockwave burst outward from Gailo’s body.

It didn’t look powerful.

But it struck with precision.

Tyler’s body suddenly shrank mid-air—reduced to a fraction of his original size as the lingering effect of one of Gailo’s spatial suppression skills activated.

The shockwave slammed into him.

Tiny Tyler was blasted backward like a pebble.

He smashed into a floating slab of stone, embedding himself in it and creating a small human-shaped crater in the debris.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then—

"Yeah... that skill effect is still lingering," a tiny voice grumbled.

Miniature Tyler peeled himself out of the stone and hopped down onto another floating fragment. He brushed dust off his shoulder as if mildly inconvenienced.

Gailo watched with narrowed eyes.

"You’re persistent."

Tyler leapt again, using one slab as a stepping platform, then another—gaining speed, building momentum. His body expanded back to normal size mid-flight.

He shot forward like a missile.

Gailo’s figure blurred.

Before impact— 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

His body dissolved.

Not vanished.

Split.

Hundreds of black spiders erupted outward, scattering in every direction. Tyler’s punch tore through empty air.

The spiders landed on debris, on pillars, even on drifting fragments above. Each one glowed faintly with chaotic energy.

"I don’t know why," Gailo’s voice echoed from everywhere at once, "but whenever I see your confidence... I get a bad feeling."

Tiny threads of energy began forming around the spiders’ mouths.

"So I’ll just exhaust you," he continued calmly. "And then kill you."

Tyler’s mouth twitched.

This Demon King was absurdly cautious.

Suddenly Tyler become 7 feet height. And become easy target.

Web Bullets fired.

Each spider launched compressed strands of hardened webbing infused with mana energy. The projectiles pierced through floating debris like artillery rounds, shattering stone midair.

Tyler flipped backward, twisting his body between incoming shots. One web bullet grazed his sleeve and tore it apart.

"Why are you even trying to stop me?" Gailo’s voice asked lazily.

Tyler landed on a rotating slab and immediately kicked off again to avoid another volley.

"Why are you trying to refine me into fragments?" Tyler shot back.

More Web Bullets came. He sidestepped one; another obliterated the debris behind him.

Gailo’s laughter echoed.

"Because you’re useful."

Tyler clenched his jaw.

"Then how about this?" he said while weaving between attacks. "Make me king of this world. My task completes instantly. I leave. Everyone’s happy."

The spiders paused briefly —then resumed firing.

"No," Gailo replied flatly. "I don’t want any of you finishing your tasks and snitch me to those Floating dimensional squares."

"Aren’t they 4th dimensional Tesseract? Not squares?" Tyler muttered l.

Several spiders merged briefly to form a larger one before splitting again, constantly shifting positions.

"If you leave," Gailo continued, "The whole trial might end. I cannot allow that."

Tyler ducked under another barrage, landing hard as three Web Bullets exploded the debris beneath his feet.

"So you plan to trap every Orion holder here forever?" Tyler asked.

"Or break you down and reclaim what you carry," Gailo corrected.

Tyler exhaled slowly, steadying himself on a drifting pillar.

"See?" he muttered. "I have plenty of reasons to stop you."

The chamber vibrated faintly as chaos fragments resonated in response to the rising tension.

Across the endless void of floating ruins, hundreds of spider eyes locked onto Tyler simultaneously.

The real battle was only just beginning.

---

The plump young man groaned as he rolled across the shattered stone. "How did you find out?!"

Beside him, the plump young woman clutched her side and glared up at Kaeya, her previously harmless expression now twisted with irritation.

Kaeya didn’t relax her stance. Her sword remained raised, its golden edge humming faintly.

"You altered the Hero Party," she said coldly. "Turned them into living puppets. You disguised yourselves as humans. You even offered us transportation to get here faster."

Her eyes narrowed.

"You were guiding us straight into a trap."

The plump young woman blinked. "So you already knew we were demons?"

"No," Kaeya replied evenly. "But your tiger puppet’s eyes... and their eyes... are the same shade."

She tilted her chin toward Aoi and the others. The faint purple-blue tint in their irises matched perfectly with the artificial sheen she had noticed in the puppet tiger.

The plump young man clicked his tongue. "Looks like we need to take note of that detail next time."

Their bodies shimmered.

The illusion shattered like thin glass.

In their place stood two grotesque creatures—short, round, and blue-skinned, their bodies oddly textured like oversized pineapples. Their faces were stretched wide with jagged grins, and stubby horns curled from their foreheads.

"Well," the female demon said with a shrill laugh, "it doesn’t matter if you’ve figured it out."

The male demon cracked his knuckles. "We’re going to kill you anyway."

The corrupted Hero Party shifted into formation around Kaeya. Arnold stepped forward with shield raised. Hiro’s blade gleamed under the gray sky. Felch melted partially into shadow, while Aoi lifted her staff, faint blue healing light already forming at its tip.

"After you die," the female demon continued gleefully, "we’ll send these heroes back to your kingdom."

The male demon’s grin widened. "And when the war begins, they’ll destroy it from the inside."

The four heroes tightened the circle.

Kaeya didn’t respond.

Instead—

She drove her blade into the ground.

A burst of radiant force erupted outward. The rocky surface fractured, sand and dust exploding upward in a thick, blinding cloud.

Visibility vanished instantly.

"Cough! Cough! Clear the dirt!" the female demon screeched.

Hiro reacted immediately, swinging his sword in a wide arc. A cutting wave of wind blasted through the haze, dispersing the dust in seconds.

The battlefield became visible again.

But Kaeya was gone.

The demons’ expressions shifted.

"She’s running into the forest," the male demon snarled, pointing toward the treeline.

Indeed, faint movement could be seen among the distant shadows of trees.

"After her!" the female demon shrieked.

Without hesitation, the corrupted Hero Party charged forward, the twin demons following closely behind.

They entered the forest at full speed, blades and magic at the ready.

Branches snapped under their steps.

But what they didn’t notice—

Was that the "retreating figure" ahead flickered unnaturally.

An afterimage.

A decoy crafted from light.

High above, perched silently on a thick branch, Kaeya watched them pass beneath her.

Her expression was calm.

Controlled.

She had never intended to flee.

She only needed to separate them.

Now—

The hunt would begin.

---

"I don’t understand something," Tyler said, his voice echoing across the chaotic chamber as his body expanded to nearly seventy feet tall. His shadow stretched across drifting stone slabs like a moving mountain. "Why didn’t you refine Dia?"

Gailo hovered effortlessly in the distorted air, dozens of spiders merging and separating around him like orbiting satellites.

For the first time, his expression shifted—just slightly.

"Dia," he repeated. "She’s my best friend’s daughter in the real world."

Tyler froze mid-step.

Gailo continued calmly, "Every time she reincarnated into this trial system, I spared her. I erased parts of her memories. Adjusted her path slightly. But I never killed her."

The floating debris trembled as Tyler slowly shrank back to normal size.

"So you have lines you won’t cross?" Tyler asked quietly.

Gailo shrugged. "I’m ambitious. Not heartless."

"Debatable."

Tyler dashed forward again, leaping from one floating slab to another. He twisted mid-air, fist cocked back, expanding his size again at the last possible second to amplify the force—

—but his punch passed through nothing.

Gailo dissolved into spiders before contact.

They reassembled ten meters away.

"You won’t be able to touch me," Gailo said flatly. "This entire space is my artifact. Every fragment answers to me. The terrain, the distance, the angles—everything is under my control."

The debris shifted slightly, as if affirming his words.

"So stop struggling," Gailo added. "Accept your fate. Become part of my fragments."

Web Bullets fired again.

Tyler twisted sideways, shrinking to avoid a barrage before expanding again to use his weight to kick off a floating pillar. The pillar shattered under the force, spinning away into the endless void.

He landed on another slab, breathing steadily.

No matter how he accelerated, how he shifted size, how he changed trajectory—

Gailo always moved first.

Always dissolved.

Always reappeared outside of reach.

Tyler straightened slowly.

Instead of charging again, he began observing as he hid behind the floating debris.

"Hm..." Tyler murmured.

He crouched, pressing his palm against a drifting slab.

He rose to his feet and looked around at the endless chamber of suspended debris.

Then he smiled faintly.

"I have an idea."