As they traveled, it seemed they had finally entered the heart of the Country of Mist. After breaking through the outer layer of the blizzard, there was actually little fog inside. However, the sky was perpetually grey, both day and night, obscuring the sun and making the stars indistinguishable.

"Is it called the Country of Mist just because of this?" Huai Shi asked curiously. "Why not call it Yarn Country instead? That seems more fitting, eh?"

"I have a feeling that if it were called Yarn Country, Wind Shadow would die yet again."

"…Can we not play with puns?"

Huai Shi sighed and looked around. Ruins were everywhere.

I thought I might get to play the little monster and scare some unsuspecting residents, he mused. But as they walked, while they saw no shortage of cities and villages, they didn't encounter a single living person.

It was as if wars or some other catastrophe had occurred; ruins and desolation were all that remained. Dead bodies, however, were plentiful.

Whether it was rotting remains or corpses hung on collapsed city walls, now foul-smelling cured meat… none possessed the faces or forms of human beings.

Instead, they resembled some sort of humanoid hybrid of lizards and snakes, and most had undergone extreme mutations and distortions.

As for the other bizarre beasts and creatures, they had seen so many they were almost unfazed by them now. There were just too many; every few steps, they encountered another one.

If it weren't for the lingering deterrent effect of Huai Shi's current form, coupled with Fu Yi's wide-area Illusion Technique, their journey would have been fraught with countless troubles.

Currently, their routine mostly consisted of Huai Shi trekking while Fu Yi slept. When trouble arose, Huai Shi would wake Fu Yi. They would then charge through with her Illusion Technique activated. Afterward, Fu Yi would go back to sleep to recover her mana…

She's noticeably getting plumper, Huai Shi observed, but he didn't dare say a word.

"How long have we been inside?" Fu Yi asked listlessly from the basket slung under Huai Shi's neck. "It should be two or three weeks by now, right?"

"If we're counting by days, it's already been over half a month," Huai Shi answered. "But subjectively, it feels like only a week… and the actual time passed probably hasn't exceeded eight hours…"

The Night of the Witches could only be maintained for about eight hours.

Although it was unclear what law or principle was at play, there was no doubt that time here was indeed accelerated. It sounded unbelievable, but in reality, it was just how things were, much like a special setting in a novel. One simply got used to it.

After so many years, within the frameworks established by successive Creators in the Current Circumstances, time had become an easily manipulated concept.

This became even easier after several upgrades embedded plugins, including the [Theory of Relativity] and related mass studies. Given enough Source Substance to operate, the flow rate of time within an enclosed space could be accelerated or decelerated to astonishing degrees.

The only regrettable aspect was that although the 'fast-forward' function key had been implemented long ago, the 'rewind' function remained a distant prospect. Even 'pause' was so operationally complex that Creators specializing in physics risked bursting a blood vessel attempting it.

Research in similar Domains had been completely sealed by the Astronomical Society at its source in the Sea of Silver due to its extreme danger.

Ultimately, on some level, the passage of entropy is not irreversible… it all depends on the price one is willing to pay. Even small-scale time reversal involved a horrifying consumption of resources, enough to deepen the very fabric of the entire Current Circumstances.

Of course, rumors claimed this technology had been abused by 'Yesterday Express.' Others said that one of the three great interdictions of the Current Circumstances, the 'Rainbow Bridge,' could transport more than just through space—it could even send people a month into the past. Such sensational, baseless talk was definitely not to be believed.

Just hearing it was enough to make one laugh.

"HAHAHA!" Huai Shi burst into laughter.

Fu Yi looked up. "What are you laughing at?"

"...Er," Huai Shi pondered for a moment, then answered dryly, "I just remembered something happy."

"What happy thing?"

Huai Shi certainly couldn't blab about the secrets Raven had shared with him privately. He struggled for a moment before saying, "Someone else's wife is having a baby."

"...What a coincidence, my mother is also having a baby," Fu Yi asked curiously. "Do you think we're talking about the same person?"

"My apologies, my apologies."

Huai Shi could only bow his head and admit his mistake.

"It's okay, I was just joking."

Fu Yi glanced at him and responded casually, without anger, simply shrinking back into the basket. "Be careful, it's going to rain."

As if to prove her prediction, sudden thunder rumbled overhead.

At Dusk, with no sunset glow visible, the Sky Dome was quickly obscured by dark clouds. Soon after, a torrential downpour laden with a foul stench began to fall.

It landed on the ground, sizzling upon contact.

"A concentration this horrifying… if this were in the Current Circumstances, all the acid rain there would weep in shame, wouldn't it?"

Huai Shi looked up at the oppressively dark Sky Dome in the distance. The acid rain fell on his carapace and scales like water on stone, leaving faint traces before being easily shaken off, having no effect whatsoever.

Since entering this place, Huai Shi's body had grown another size larger. He now surpassed an ambulance and was nearing the dimensions of a small truck.

If I keep growing, will I really end up as big as a heavy-duty truck one day? Huai Shi sometimes pondered this while eating. He would seriously consider dieting for a few seconds, only to quickly toss the thought aside. To hell with it! If I grow, I grow; food is what matters!

He opened his mouth, caught a mouthful of the acid-like rainwater, hastily rinsed his mouth to clean the stains from his Teeth, then spat it out with practiced ease.

This is the advantage of a high Constitution score, he thought. Immunity to all poisons, unfazed by any elemental attack.

Although, aside from a thick health bar and high defense, his reach was short and he lacked control Skills, he now possessed an advantage other Explorers didn't: the ability to travel conveniently through such rain.

In the past couple of days, during his free time, he had replaced Fu Yi's bamboo basket with an iron one, hanging it around his neck with the Lock of Sorrow. Though basketball-sized, on his neck it resembled a small, open-topped Bell.

Yep, looking more and more like a dog, he mused.

Lost in his distracted thoughts, his steps suddenly halted. He had stopped before an Abyss.

A torrent of mud and acid rain roared past his feet, plunging into a vast chasm that had mysteriously appeared in the earth.

The fissure was several thousand meters long, its narrowest part still over a hundred meters wide.

It was as if a violent earthquake had drastically altered the earth's crust.

Vaguely, one could see half of an ancient city submerged in mud at the bottom of the trench. Dry bones undulated slowly in the acidic, muddy flow before sinking deep into the mire.

"How considerate, it even saves them the trouble of a mass grave."

Huai Shi clicked his tongue in wonder.

"...How do you manage to describe such a creepy scene as if you're talking about a vegetable market?" Fu Yi sighed.

"Natural talent, of course."

Huai Shi's wolfish lips puckered skillfully as he whistled proudly. "I'm super brave, what's there to be afraid of?"

"Really?"

The expressionless White Weasel in the copper Bell basket said, "Then take a look behind you."

Instead, Huai Shi took a step backward, then charged straight forward. Yu Step!

Look behind? Why would I do that? The moment Fu Yi told him to look back, Huai Shi had felt a sudden premonition of death—his Death Perception—explode from his core, making his very Soul tremble.

He charged forward with all his might, disregarding the risk of falling into the chasm.

A ROAR erupted. It was as if he had burst through a small bubble; a crisp sound was drowned out by the downpour's noise.

Then, the acid rain was flung aside as if a curtain had been suddenly parted, pushed to both sides by the repulsive force of Psychokinesis.

Psychokinetic energy swirled into a hurricane, enveloping Huai Shi and granting him an instant burst of speed.

The Giant Wolf, already dragging a section of an iron pillar, used Space Break to launch himself into the air, leaping across the chasm to the other side. Vaguely, he felt something brush his hind leg—an icy, bone-deep chill—followed by a piercing pain that suddenly erupted from deep within his marrow.

His body convulsed sharply, his balance faltering, nearly sending him tumbling into the Abyss.

"STEP!" Fu Yi's roar exploded in his ears. Without a hint of doubt, Huai Shi slammed his forepaws down into the void. It felt as if he'd struck solid rock; Psychokinesis pushed him upward, restoring his momentum, and he finally landed, stumbling, on the other side of the fissure.

To his astonishment, once he was clear of that side of the chasm, the torrential rain surprisingly vanished. Here, one could even see the last vestiges of the sunset. The air was dry, the earth solid.

Only then did Huai Shi feel the phantom pain in his hind leg gradually dissipate.

He gasped violently, drool embarrassingly dripping from his mouth, and asked blankly, "What happened?"

"I should be asking you what happened!"

The White Weasel, clinging to the horn on his forehead, looked down at him, their eyes meeting. She struggled to contain her irritation. "Why didn't you respond no matter how many times I shouted? If it weren't for that last jump, we would have died!"

"I... I heard you tell me to look back..."

Huai Shi panted, still shaken by the close call, feeling the bone-deep chill that had clung to his spine finally dissipate. If my Death Perception hadn't saved me, coupled with my rich experience in courting disaster, I might have truly died inexplicably back there.

Compared to the power of the Hand of Confinement, this Death Perception must be the real gift Raven went to such lengths to give me, right? Without this Skill, I would have probably died countless times by now.

Fu Yi stared at him intently for a long moment, as if finally certain it was truly him inside this monstrous form. At last, she let out a long sigh of relief.

"You can look back now."

Only then did Huai Shi gather the courage to turn around. Across the grey storm and the chasm that was like a celestial moat, Huai Shi glimpsed the scene on the side they had just fled.

Countless blurred figures floated in the air, stood on the ground, and even extended mangled limbs and twisted faces from the earth. As they converged, their dim, murky colors spread like a tide, threatening to swallow everything along with the storm.

From across the vast distance, they stared intently at the two living beings who had escaped their grasp.

Even though their features were indistinguishable, an intense, pure hunger and jealousy emanated from them.

In the deepest part of the chasm, within the city ruins now sunk into mud and darkness, a shadowy, slender hand slowly retracted, unfurling like seaweed.

Huai Shi looked down at his hind leg. A pale palm print, still vivid, marked the spot. Where the acid rain had washed over it, his carapace had softened and flowed away like mud, leaving a palm-shaped gap that exposed the grey-black skin beneath.

The lingering acid caused stabs of raw, dull pain.

"What exactly was that?" Fu Yi asked, still shaken.

"I doubt those ghostly things even know what they are themselves."

After a long pause, Huai Shi withdrew his gaze from the shadowy figures still bound within the storm on the other side. He sighed softly. "To put it broadly… let's just consider those things a part of Hell."

The so-called Hell was indeed just such a bizarre and terrifying place.