Kuang Feifan and Feng Tian, terrified the mist behind them would catch up, scrambled forward with all their might. Initially, Kuang Feifan thought the glowing orb drifting in the air was moving too fast, but now he couldn't help but feel it was agonizingly slow. In no time, the two men were right underneath it.

"Your little spell isn't as fast as we are," Kuang Feifan shouted, raising his voice.

Feng Tian looked helpless; clearly, the speed of the small light searching for the cart was beyond his control.

"With all the treasures you have, is there nothing useful?" Kuang Feifan noticed Feng Tian was stumped and asked again.

"Do I have time to look? This cursed place offers no time and no space; the conditions aren't right for me to perform," Feng Tian said indignantly.

"Uh..."

Suddenly, as he ran, Feng Tian cautiously asked, "Do you think we're overthinking this? What if that mist only blocks light and won't actually hurt us?"

Kuang Feifan paused, then countered, "Even if it doesn't harm us, we can't go in. Without light, wouldn't we be even more doomed?"

Feng Tian let out a couple of dry chuckles, a flicker of doubt crossing his mind: had his intelligence dropped since they arrived here?

Guided by the flashlight beam, they weren't worried about other apparitions ahead; at least tangible things were easier to deal with than the formless mist chasing them. By this point, they gave up following the object-finding orb. Feng Tian reasoned they could always create another one; surviving the mist was the priority.

In truth, they just bolted forward, lacking the time or the nerve to look back. The glowing orb hovering in the air had long been left behind, and they couldn't tell if the mist had swallowed it whole.

Their only remaining fear was that the mist wasn't just coming from behind. If it emerged from all directions, they truly had no idea how they could escape this "hellhole."

But human stamina is finite. Kuang Feifan was doing slightly better, but Feng Tian’s exercise regimen was merely fitness, a far cry from the rigorous training Kuang Feifan had endured.

After running for a while, Feng Tian felt his body approaching its limit. His lungs felt ready to burst, his limbs were weak, and his legs were giving out. The silhouette of Kuang Feifan, still sprinting ahead, began to blur in his vision.

With immense effort, he managed to tap Kuang Feifan's arm before collapsing onto his knees, barely able to pant, let alone speak.

It was evident that Feng Tian was ready to give up; even if the mist engulfed him, he wasn't going to run anymore.

Kuang Feifan felt the tap and turned back to see Feng Tian kneeling, clutching his thigh, looking on the verge of collapse.

He wasn't feeling great himself. He turned to pull Feng Tian up but found his own strength severely depleted after a few attempts. The possibility of dragging Feng Tian along seemed nonexistent.

Only out of sheer necessity did Kuang Feifan raise his flashlight and shine it backward. The mist was still there, but it had maintained some distance. The light barely reached the edge where the mist seemed to dissipate, but judging by how quickly the light faded, the mist would reach them soon.

Kuang Feifan glanced at Feng Tian's condition, then at the distance, his jaw tightening. Perhaps facing imminent danger had burned away his earlier frustration, replacing it with a strange surge of anger. Since entering this space, they had been both lucky and utterly cursed, constantly living in fear, every move fraught with tension. Now, rather than waiting passively for death, he preferred a desperate gamble.

However, his emotions didn't lead to reckless action, like rushing forward bare-handed to fight the mist, or plunging into it to test if the prayer beads would work again.

He instinctively looked left and right for a weapon, his eyes catching Feng Tian’s shoulder satchel. He reached out and yanked the bag off him.

Feng Tian, at that moment, couldn't care less what Kuang Feifan intended to do; he just wanted to lie flat on the ground and catch his breath.

Kuang Feifan knelt on one knee, placed the flashlight on the ground, and started rummaging through Feng Tian’s bag. But based on what he knew, he didn't recognize any of the bottles and jars inside. Looking at Feng Tian, whose breathing was still ragged, he hesitated.

Mist, Feng Tian, the satchel—Kuang Feifan looked between the three before simply reaching in and pulling out a random bottle. He glanced inside; it contained powder. Holding the bottle, he walked a few paces toward the mist, gauged the distance, and hurled the container.

He had already unscrewed the cap. The open bottle tumbled several times in the air before vanishing into the mist. In the faint glow of the flashlight, the edge of the mist could be seen swirling, but there was no discernible change after the bottle entered.

Kuang Feifan returned, casually grabbing a few more bottles, uncapping them, and tossing them into the mist regardless of their contents.

After throwing over a dozen bottles with no visible effect, Kuang Feifan grew impatient, tempted to throw the entire bag in to see if anything could halt the mist’s advance.

Just then, Feng Tian lunged over, grabbing Kuang Feifan’s arm with a desperate effort, squeezing out a sentence: "Please, stop throwing them! I spent ages mixing a lot of that stuff."

Kuang Feifan felt utterly deflated. Seeing he still held one bottle, he released his grip on the bag, shook free the hand gripping his wrist, stood up, took a few steps forward, and threw that final bottle in.

He vaguely heard a soft smack when the bottle landed. Kuang Feifan held no hope for a result, yet, to his astonishment, shortly after the bottle entered, the mist within his line of sight began to churn violently from the inside out.

Kuang Feifan froze. Could it have worked? He immediately turned and shouted at Feng Tian, "Quick! What was in that bottle?"

Feng Tian hadn't seen the mist's reaction, but Kuang Feifan’s urgent tone told him something significant had happened. However, he hadn't noticed what kind of bottle Kuang Feifan was holding in his other hand and cried out anxiously, "I don't know what you threw! What did it look like?"

"Uh, oval-shaped, contained some kind of liquid, thick at both ends, fits in one hand, seemed like plastic, a bit soft, but it looked like it shattered when it hit the ground..." Kuang Feifan struggled to recall the bottle’s appearance as he described it.

"Are... are you sure?" Feng Tian sounded surprised.

Kuang Feifan glanced back at him, nodding hesitantly.

Feng Tian gritted his teeth, fumbled through the bag, found a bottle matching the description, and held it out. "This is the last one. If it works, we'll have to hustle to make more."

Kuang Feifan didn't press for details. He took it, turned, stepped closer to the mist, estimated the distance, removed the cap, and splashed the liquid out.

Whether it was his imagination or not, as the liquid sprayed toward the mist, he saw the mist's edge rapidly recede from the approaching substance. When the liquid splashed into the mass of vapor, the mist couldn't contain itself and surged outward in agitation.

He wasn't sure if his vision was playing tricks, but he felt the dense mist seemed to thin slightly where the liquid made contact.

Regardless of the effect, Kuang Feifan decided to commit. He ran back to Feng Tian, pulled him up, and demanded, "What is that liquid? How do you mix it?"

Feng Tian blinked, licked his lips, and finally said, "No mixing required. It just depends on whether you have any."

"No time for nonsense, what is it?"

"Urine..."