I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Bilewater is one of the most unpleasant stretches of Pharloom I’ve dragged myself through, and the first time I stepped into The Mist, I immediately regretted my curiosity. But after enough deaths, enough Wraith screeches, and enough Needolin notes echoing through fog, I started to understand the method behind the madness. If you’re trying to reach the Exhaust Organ, rescue a very distressed Flea, and unlock Cross Stitch so you can parry for the rest of your run, here’s exactly how I did it.

Entering The Mist

You won’t find a fixed route here, and that’s by design. The layout of The Mist is randomized every time you enter. The one mercy is that your Cocoon always spawns near the entrance, so if you fall, you won’t lose too much progress. From there, I learned to stop hugging walls and start looking for small, glowing butterflies. When you play your Needolin near them, they float upward. Once you stop playing, they fly toward the correct exit.

The problem? The Wraiths won’t give you a quiet moment to perform. This is why I always come into The Mist with Straight Knives or Cogflies in my loadout. Ranged options let me swat away the screeching ghastly women without closing distance and risking a fall. My usual loop looked like this:

• Clear Wraiths with a ranged tool.

• Find a glowing butterfly.

• Play the Needolin long enough to make it rise.

• Stop playing and follow it.

• Repeat until the fog opens up.

After a couple of correct exits, you’ll notice a straightaway. That’s the game’s way of telling you that you’re on the right path. A few more correct butterfly choices after that, and you’ll step into the Exhaust Organ.

Pushing Through the Exhaust Organ

The Exhaust Organ wastes no time reminding you where you are. The first room is full of those maggot-infested waters that Bilewater seems to love, and there’s no way around them. I took a deep breath, dove in, and headed left. Once inside the central building, I jumped up the platforms, moved left, climbed the wall, and slashed the bench free from its webbing. That bench is important if you want a checkpoint in this stretch.

After that came the steam gauntlet. The pipes on the right follow a fairly linear route, but the timing is everything. I went up to the right, then up and left, then slid down left before moving forward again. When I reached the middle pipe, I broke it open and played my Needolin for the unsettling tube just to hear the bonus lore. From there, I climbed the middle tube, slid down right, wall-jumped up the next section, and made the final climb. There was silk waiting to the right, and Phantom waiting to the left.

Beating Phantom

Phantom is a showstopping longnail fighter. She takes big stabs at your position and frequently raises her guard to parry you. My first instinct was to wait out her guard, but I actually had better results doing the opposite.

I started hitting her guard on purpose. Whenever she parries, you can almost always jump, move toward her current position, and dodge the parry entirely. That leaves her open for a couple of cheap shots before she recovers. It sounds reckless, but it made the first phase much faster.

The second phase starts with Phantom firing massive laser blasts that cover half the arena. As intimidating as it looks, I found this to be her easiest attack. I just dashed away, avoided the big glowing pillars, and waited for the hitbox to disappear before punishing her. The needle toss is also a great opening if you dodge it and hit her in the center of the arena. At the end, make sure you hit the QTE prompt. It’s about as forgiving as they come, and completing the fight unlocks your Parry.

Don’t Miss the Flea

Before you leave the Exhaust Organ, there’s one easily missed detour. From the boss arena, I went right, fell down, went left, then climbed up and to the left before jumping the gap. In the room with silk-strewn tubes, I ran right past the thread-wrapped cylinders and into a hidden area. From there, I dropped down, exited through the left door, and crossed the floating platforms carefully.

All the way to the left, there’s more of that lovely infested liquid to hop across. If you make it, you’ll find a Flea making very concerned noises. Save it. It’s a short detour that I nearly skipped on my first run, and it absolutely matters.

How to Parry with Cross Stitch

Parrying in this game is not what you might expect from other action titles. You can’t simply press a button whenever you want. Cross Stitch is a Silk Skill, and it costs four bars of Silk to use. When I activate it, Hornet enters a parry stance for a little over half a second. If she’s hit during that stance, she responds with an animation of constantly slashing at the spot where she took damage.

That distinction matters. If you parry a projectile, you won’t take damage, but you may completely miss the enemy if the projectile was far away from them. On the bright side, Cross Stitch has a very generous hitbox, so if you’re within a few feet of the enemy, it will probably land. After the parry finishes, you also get a few frames of complete invulnerability.

Because the attack tends to place you directly on top of the enemy, I make a habit of dashing away after every successful parry. That way I don’t eat a random hit during the recovery window. It’s one of those skills that feels awkward at first, but once you get used to the rhythm, it turns Phantom’s own aggression against her and becomes essential for later fights in the Underworks.

That’s how I finally pushed through The Mist, cleared the Exhaust Organ, and unlocked Cross Stitch. If you’re still getting lost in the fog, lean on the butterflies, keep a ranged option equipped, and don’t be afraid to provoke Phantom’s guard. The parry is worth the struggle.

Fighting through the Exhaust Organ and earning Cross Stitch is just one milestone in a game packed with challenges like it. There are more bosses waiting deeper in the Underworks, each with their own rhythms to learn, and mastering the parry now will pay off again and again as you push forward.

If you haven't started your run yet, it might be worth waiting for a discount before diving into Pharloom. Silksong frequently appears in promotions, and a reliable steam sale tracker can help you spot the best price without refreshing the store page every day. DealNest makes it easy to monitor price drops across Steam and other platforms, so you can grab the game at the right moment and spend your saved coins on more important things — like practicing that parry window.