Daniel and Drael flew the entire way under the blazing sunlight toward the mountain range ahead. Since both of their mana pools had fully recovered, they decided to continue at full speed.
Fortunately, no monsters attacked them along the way. On the contrary, it was too quiet, and that in itself made Daniel a little suspicious.
His journey since entering the third floor had been strangely smooth. Even the attacks from last night weren’t a big problem; they were resolved easily.
He was starting to feel that something was off. But since nothing had happened and there was no sign or clue to follow, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
At this point, all they could do was keep going and hope to reach the mountains, if those mountains even existed at all.
After all, it was just Drael’s guess. There was no proof that such a mountain range actually existed.
Time passed slowly. As their mana gradually began to drop, they were forced to reduce their speed.
The sound of the ocean waves grew louder and louder. There was no doubt, if one of those waves hit them, nothing would be left of them.
That’s when they noticed a huge mist ahead, as if it was covering something.
"What’s that? Hmm... a mountain?" Daniel spread out his spiritual senses and managed to see what was behind the mist.
It was a mountain! A whole range of them! A smile appeared on his face as he looked at Drael. The guy had actually guessed it right.
"Finally... we made it. Though it took longer than I thought," Drael sighed in relief. He had been afraid that he’d been wrong—and that his mistake might’ve cost them their lives.
They both sped up again, and before long, they reached the mist.
"This mist gives me a bad feeling," Daniel muttered. He didn’t know why, but his instincts told him that entering it could be dangerous.
"I don’t sense any danger from it, but I get the same feeling," Drael agreed with a nod.
"So what now? It’s not like we have another path, right?" His eyes landed again on the thick white mist ahead.
"We go through it. No matter what happens, it won’t be able to hurt me," Daniel said confidently. He truly wasn’t worried.
Even if there was danger, so what? With his current strength, he doubted anything here could threaten his life.
And even if it somehow could, he still had his extra lives, he could just use one of them.
With that, both of them entered the mist. The dense fog quickly surrounded them and began to weaken their senses.
Before they realized it, even their vision started to fade, they could barely see ahead of them.
Both of them tried to activate their spiritual senses to see more clearly, but to their surprise, a mysterious force prevented them from doing so.
"Drael? You there?" Daniel said with a frown. The worst part was that their senses were continuing to fade even more.
He felt as though ash and dust were filling his whole body. At the same time, a horrible stench filled his nose, messing with his sense of smell.
"I’m here! Where are you? I can’t see you!" Drael shouted—not because he wanted to yell, but because his hearing was growing faint, and he could barely hear anything at all.
So he thought maybe he and Daniel had gotten separated and that he needed to shout for his voice to reach him... unaware that his shouting only attracted unnecessary attention.
"Keep walking and don’t stop! As long as we keep going, we’ll eventually get out!" Daniel yelled back. He was in the same situation—his hearing had weakened too.
Both of them kept moving slowly forward. The further they went, the weaker their senses became. Eventually, Daniel had no choice but to use mana to protect them.
It was clear that whatever was erasing their senses came from the mist itself. As long as it didn’t touch him, his senses should’ve been fine.
So he formed a mana barrier around himself. But it didn’t work—the mist passed right through it and touched him again.
A useless effort that only wasted mana.
He had no choice but to walk faster, hoping to escape the mist as soon as possible. But it was unclear how big the mist really was—no matter how far he walked, he never seemed to reach the end.
"When I saw it from outside, it didn’t look this big... what’s going on?" he muttered, frowning. He clearly remembered that the mist wasn’t this vast.
So why couldn’t he reach the end no matter how much he walked? Based on his estimates, even in the worst case, he should’ve exited it ten minutes ago.
But he still hadn’t.
Could it be that the mist was expanding? If that was the case... would it ever even end?
His senses had grown so faint that he could barely see, hear, or smell anything. The only thing left visible to him was a faint light flickering in the darkness.
"Drael, you there?" he shouted.
A second passed... two seconds... a minute... two minutes... but there was no response. It was as if no one was there to answer.
"Drael?" he called again, but still, there was no reply.
His frown deepened. For some reason, a chill ran down his spine—he could feel danger approaching.
The problem was, he couldn’t see anymore. He couldn’t hear. The only thing faintly left was his weakened sense of smell.
Even worse, he couldn’t access his skills. He could only rely on his Laws at best.
If he encountered an enemy now, how was he supposed to fight? With nothing but instinct?
In the worst case, he could summon his Fallen. Even if they lost their senses too, at least their presence would make monsters hesitate to attack.
But what Daniel didn’t know... was that the danger was already there.
Monsters in the darkness were watching him, waiting patiently for their prey to completely lose his senses.
Their long, sharp fangs were ready to tear him apart. There were too many of them to count, they had surrounded him completely.
And there was one more thing Daniel didn’t realize: all this time, he had been walking in circles. He hadn’t taken even a single step closer to escaping the mist.