Trapped Beast is a defensive Inner Way (Internal Art) in Where Winds Meet that automatically throws up a large shield when your health gets dangerously low. It sits on the Stonesplit - Might path and is designed for builds that want a second chance when a fight suddenly turns against them.
What Trapped Beast does in combat
Trapped Beast’s core effect is simple:
- When your HP is below 30% and you take damage, it triggers Cornered Beast.
- Cornered Beast creates a shield that absorbs damage equal to up to 30% of your Max HP.
- The shield lasts for 4 seconds.
- The effect can trigger only once every 300 seconds (5 minutes) before upgrades.
This makes Trapped Beast a one-off panic layer that can save you from a kill shot, especially in long boss encounters or hard open-world content where you may not always react in time with a dodge or heal.
Key properties:
- Type and tags: Defense, Buff, Recover.
- Path: Stonesplit - Might.
- Rarity: Epic Internal Art.
The shield is calculated from your maximum HP, not your current HP, so any other Max HP increases you have scale its value directly.
How to get Trapped Beast (March of the Dead)
Trapped Beast is obtained as part of the March of the Dead Lost Chapter, which is tied to Kaifeng’s Ghostlight Market and the Nine Mortal Ways Internal Arts.
Unlock March of the Dead in Ghostlight Market
Step 1: Travel to Ghostlight Market in Kaifeng. This is where the March of the Dead storyline begins and where traces of the Nine Mortal Ways Internal Arts remain.
Step 2: Find the NPC Mr. Ghost in the market. Use the “Sit and Listen” interaction with him to start the March of the Dead quest chain.
Alternative way to reach Ghostlight Market
Step 1: Complete the Bounty Trouble quest under Worldly Affairs. During this quest, you are taken to Ghostlight Market.
Step 2: Once you arrive, you can then speak to Mr. Ghost to continue into March of the Dead without hunting for the market on your own first.
Get the Trapped Beast tome inside March of the Dead
Within March of the Dead, Trapped Beast is tied to the legacy of Nine Mortal Ways and the Khitan siege sixteen years before the game’s present. The quest structure is framed as a series of “clues” you follow.
| # | Clue summary |
|---|---|
| 1 | Zhu Yousheng adapted Ghost Valley Martial Arts into the Nine Mortal Ways Internal Art during the Khitan siege. Their traces remain in Ghostlight Market. |
| 2 | Listen to Mr. Ghost in Ghostlight Market to kick off March of the Dead. |
| 3 | Gather the Armor of the Dead set, then follow spectral soldiers and speak to Liu Changsheng beyond a sealed gate to obtain the Trapped Beast tome. |
The actual unlock sequence plays out like this:
Step 1: Progress March of the Dead until you receive the objective to find relics tied to the fallen warriors. Your goal is to obtain all three pieces of the Armor of the Dead.
Step 2: Once you have the full set, equip the Armor of the Dead. The quest expects you to wear it, not just collect it in your inventory.
Step 3: While wearing the armor, follow the spectral soldiers that appear. They lead you through the ghostly battlefield layout; watch their path closely as they can weave through areas that are easy to miss on your own.
Step 4: Help the soldiers open a sealed gate that blocks further progress. After the gate is open and you proceed, you will meet Liu Changsheng.
Step 5: Speak to Liu Changsheng. As part of the story payoff for completing these objectives, he gives you the Trapped Beast Internal Art tome.
Once you have the tome, Trapped Beast becomes available in your Inner Ways menu and can be slotted like any other Internal Art.
Trapped Beast tier upgrades and what they add
Trapped Beast has six Breakthrough tiers. Each tier either strengthens the shield, cuts its cooldown, or adds more defense around it.
| Tier | Bonus | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Base | Shield absorbs up to 30% of Max HP; 300s cooldown | Baseline emergency shield when HP < 30%. |
| 1 | Shield capacity increased to 40% of Max HP | Substantially bigger buffer against burst damage. |
| 2 | Max HP increased based on Solo Mode Level | Higher Solo Roaming levels translate into more HP and a larger shield. |
| 3 | While shield is active, healing and medicine effects are amplified | Every heal and potion during Cornered Beast becomes more effective. |
| 4 | Cooldown reduced by 40% (to 180 seconds) | Can trigger nearly twice as often in long encounters. |
| 5 | Physical Resistance increased by 5.1 | Flat physical mitigation that is always on, not only during Cornered Beast. |
| 6 | If the shield is broken before it expires, cooldown reduced by 120 seconds | Taking heavy damage that fully shatters the shield shortens the wait for the next trigger. |
The tier bonuses shift Trapped Beast from a long-cooldown “once per dungeon” panic button into something that can realistically trigger more than once in an extended boss fight, especially when the shield is fully broken, and tier 6 comes into play.
How to upgrade Trapped Beast
Upgrading any Inner Way, including Trapped Beast, is tied to the Breakthrough system and specific upgrade items.
Step 1: Raise your Solo Mode Roaming Level to 4. Tier upgrades only unlock after reaching this threshold in your solo progression.
Step 2: Collect Trapped Beast: Notes and compatible Inner Way advance items. These are the upgrade consumables specifically associated with Trapped Beast.
Step 3: Use the Inner Way upgrade interface to spend Trapped Beast: Notes and advance items, increasing its tier one step at a time from 1 through 6.
Step 4: Trade Bookplates through the Tips Exchange to obtain more Inner Way upgrade materials. The Tips Exchange provides items of varying rarities and Paths, so you may need to exchange multiple times to target what you want.
There is also an Inner Way Conversion feature that lets you move all existing upgrades from one Inner Way to another, but it is limited to a small number of uses per season. This can be valuable if you invested heavily in a different Internal Art and want to transfer that investment into Trapped Beast once you commit to tank-focused builds.
Best uses and synergies for Trapped Beast
Trapped Beast sits on the Stonesplit - Might path and naturally leans into front-line roles that expect to soak hits.
- Tank-style Stonesplit builds: The shield scales with Max HP and benefits from physical resistance, so it fits characters who stack HP and defensive stats.
- Boss fights with predictable burst windows: Long cooldown or not, a 40% Max HP shield (at tier 1+) can stabilize you across major boss patterns if it lines up with big mechanics.
- Synergy with other shield-focused Inner Ways: Art of Resistance, also on Stonesplit - Might, extends the duration and bonus effects of your HP shields, which pairs directly with Cornered Beast.
- Pairing with Vendetta or other Stonesplit tools: Many Stonesplit builds already adopt Vendetta for sustained play; adding Trapped Beast creates a safety net without giving up offensive passives in other paths.
Because the effect only checks your HP threshold and damage taken, it does not depend on any specific weapon. It appears as “Universal” for weapon pairing, which means any Stonesplit - Might build that dives into melee and risks burst damage can benefit from it.
Once March of the Dead is cleared far enough to hand you the Trapped Beast tome and you start investing Notes into its tiers, the Inner Way becomes one of the strongest pure “last line” defensive tools in the Stonesplit - Might toolkit. For players who like standing in front of bosses and trading blows instead of dancing at max range, it is an obvious pickup.
