The first monsters Aaron encountered on the fourth floor were cave ants. The insects had one of their paths winding through the tunnel like cave the group was walking through. Aaron was concealed in darkness and he spotted the insects first, before they could spot him. The ants kept moving even in absolute darkness, following along their roads of scent. Aaron could not smell them unless he really, really concentrated on it and he could not read the information the scent was supposed to communicate. But as soon as the light revealed their forms when the group caught up with him, a ripple went through the ants and they turned almost in unison. A sharp scent filled the air and then the ants attacked. They were big for insects, but very small for monsters. Their numbers were the real problem. There were hundreds in the first wave of them.

Aaron stepped into their path and shifted his weight, he lowered his center of gravity and balled his fists. During his training with the illusory monsters created by the memory core he had gotten from Sylus he had encountered swarms of enemies before and now he was really glad he had a solution to the problem at hand and did not have to get there by trial and error. The first instinct was to use your feet to squash these insects, but that was a bad idea. Their swarm meant they would surround and then climb on top of you. Your best bet was to move and destroy the mass of monsters as you go. Aaron leapt forward and lashed out with precise punches into the horde that pulverized the carapaces of the ants before he shifted to the side and punched again. His hands never stopped moving as his feet carried him forward in a never ending sequence of small movements, making the ants loose their grip on his pants and evading their leaps onto him.

Some of the ants turned and reared back, before they sprayed small globs of acid at Aaron, who used a wind step empowered leap to jump over them. Aaron could see in the dim twilight fairly well and the ants accuracy depended on volume not precision. Despite his best efforts he was soon surrounded on all sides by the insects, who snapped audibly with their mandibles and then rushed at him. Aaron punched a group of ants, turned and defended himself with a palm strike. He slipped through the encirclement by killing dozens of the small creatures and moving through the gap created. Slowly but surely he needed more and more time to defend himself. Time seemed to freeze whenever he used the Unceasing Palm kata but even with that it was difficult to defend himself entirely. It was a perfect opportunity to train and yet Aaron made mistakes. Ants kept biting him all over, their sharp mandibles digging into his flesh. The pain and overreaction to remove the offending insect allowed even more of the ants to get through.

Aaron had to leap into the air, remove the ants and then rush back down when he was in the clear. This pattern lasted for around 10 minutes. He was making a dent into the numbers and slowly ground them down until he realized the ants were retreating.

The group had stopped and Mortimer lifted his dimmed glowstone to get a look at Aaron when he moved out of the darkness. He was spluttered from head to toe with insect remains. They had stained his shirt and his hair and Aaron removed the offending, stinking goo from his face with disgust.

"Huh, looks like you took a bath in ant guts." Robin remarked with a smirk.

"That is basically what happened. Not very strong, but a lot of the bastards."

"Indeed. Which is why its usually mine and Robin's duty to block the things. Armor is really the only defense against those things. So I know how it feels to bathe in ant guts. Its terrible for the armor as well, the ant blood is a bit corrosive, so I need to wipe down my armor after every engagement. Its a pain, so thank you." Mortimer said with a smirk.

"How do other groups deal with them, especially with more light?"

"Magic. Most mages have great area of effect spells that can kill hundreds of the buggers." Roger explained tersely. He really did not like mages.

"Got it, lets continue." Aaron said after he removed most of the offending ant remains until only the stains remained on his clothes. He would need to wash them after he had acclimated to this floor. Then he stepped back into the darkness as the group moved forward.

They stepped out of the tunnel they had been following in a larger chamber. Stalactites and stalagmites were everywhere and the sound of dripping water filled Aaron's ears. The terrain was treacherous here. It looked like solid rock, but it was wet enough to make the path slippery. It was gold, damp and you could not move in a straight line. Instead you had to weave your way through the stalagmites while taking care not to loose your footing in the dim light coming from behind him, turning the whole cave into a land of shadows and dusky twilight.

Aaron paused and listened into the darkness and then turned upwards to look at shapes hanging from the ceiling. The stalactites hid their forms, but Aaron could sense them. Giant Spiders. As the group caught up to Aaron he could see their forms better. The spiders torso's were around man-sized and their long legs were each the size of pikes. They had turned the ceiling of the cave into a nest of spiderwebs and tunnels the creatures looked out of with many eyes.

"Spiders above." Aaron called out to the group behind him and Roger took a steep closer to Aaron and peered up.

"They won't bother us at this light."

"Ah, the first benefit of a dusk run, huh?"

"Yeah, not many groups are comfortable fighting those spiders in an open cave with a lot of stalactites they can hide behind and ambush you."

"Where do they fight them?"

"Mostly narrow tunnels they can block with their melees and nuke with magic. We usually avoid spider nests or lure them out with bait."

"Bait?" Aaron asked as he studied the still forms above them.

"Rat packs. The spiders love them, especially the big ones. You drive a pack into one of their nests and when the rats scatter the spiders follow them in a feeding frenzy. You pick a couple off before they reach you and then surround and eliminate them. You always see how many spiders you face and it usually is only a smart part of a nest."

Aaron nodded and wondered if he would be fine with wind steps. There were enough stalagmites and stalactites to jump off and keep himself in the air. The spiders would probably stay on the ceiling as well, but it would still be an unnecessary risk to fight them here.

"We have quite a way to go right?" Aaron asked and Roger nodded, after checking his map he had tucked away under his cloak.

"We will need hours even in a dusk setting."

"Alright, so far it is pretty tame. Once we have left those spiders behind we could go for a bit more light."

"You do the fighting. It is your call." Roger said with a smirk and Aaron nodded. He walked past the spiders and down a narrow crack in the rock that Roger pointed him towards. It was a narrow and uncomfortable climb downwards until they reached another longer cave. The smell hit Aaron before anything else. It smelled like refuse and trash and wet fur. He could hear the squeaking and knew he was walking into a rats nest.

The group stopped at the exit of the crevasse they had climbed down and Aaron stepped into the open, the glowstones illuminating his back. Without saying anything Aaron walked into the open and soon found himself stared at by many red eyes in the dark. He balled his fists and leapt forward, hammering a nearby rat the size of a cat. The rat in question skittered back, but was not fast enough and got pulverized by Aaron's punch. There was no hesitation as Aaron shifted his weight into another Rejuvenating Fist stance and punched through another rat. The screeching of hundreds of rats echoed in the cave and then they came for him.

They were, as expected, a swarm kind of enemy similar to the ants he had encountered earlier, but he quickly found out that they were very different from the ants. The ants had come in one continuous wave, they had not cared for their own well being, only to kill the intruder, even at the cost of their own lives. That was not the case for the rats. They were bigger than the ants in general and they were not suicidal. When Aaron moved to attack a group of rats they skittered back, scrambling away from him, while the rest of the rats surrounded him and attacked him from behind. When Aaron turned to deal with the rats coming for him, they skittered back and the rats he had chased turned around to attack.

It was a very rudimentary system of coordination and against Aaron it did not work at all. Aaron was too fast and too strong. He punched a few rats into bloody spray, then turned around and demolished the rats taking advantage from his back. But where the ants had been mindless, the rats were smart. They adapted to his speed and then they came at him from all sides, only a few at a time, the majority moved away. But it meant rats were going through and their sharp teeth bit into Aaron's clothes and skin.

Aaron cursed and switched to a more defensive style of combat. He did not want to lose this set of clothes. It was already dirty and stained, he could not handle too many holes. It would already look like a patch job after his encounter with the ants. So Aaron stopped trying to decimate the rats and focused on training the Unceasing Palm kata. He moved in smooth fluid steps through the mass of rats and evaded most of the rats attacks, leaps and only occasionally he punched out a group of them. Mot of the time he swatted rats away with a palm strike, ending the rats life and sending it into groups of rats to hinder and block them.

This meant it would take more time to deal with the rats, but it also meant he would get more training in. Training the Unceasing palm kata in real combat was miles better than the illusory images of the core. He still got hit now and then, but most of the time he was able to react in time. It was a difficult way to fight, very dependent on his senses and his ability to react correctly to threats. At the start it was difficult until he figured out the rats patterns, then it increased in difficulty again when the rats shifted, tried different things to break through Aaron's defense. But nothing the rats did changed the outcome. Aaron danced more than that he walked through the cave, leaving behind dozens of rats with every step. He was never in danger. He could leap away from them in a heartbeat with Wind Steps, but he did not need it.

After 10 minutes that had felt like hours to Aaron the rats pulled back, darting off into the darkness and running away from him. It was a gradual thing, the first rats moved away to eat their fallen comrades and with their absence, other rats did not feel as brave until the whole mass scattered in all directions. Aaron frowned and considered hunting them, but what was the point of that? He returned to the light and the group, who had sat down and had quietly studied the battle.

"What took you so long?" Shia asked with a smirk, giving Aaron a once over.

"Damn, that is a lot of blood."

"None of it is mine, if that makes it better." Aaron said dryly.

"It does actually. How did you like the rats? Sneaky fuckers, eh?"

"Yeah, much more difficult than the ants, well, different. Cowards luckily."

"Be glad not every monster is suicidal on this floor, the ants and the moths are enough for me." Robin grumbled.

"Fair enough. I think that rat pack is not going to bother us for a while, where to Roger?"

"That way." Roger said and pointed into the darkness to Aarons left. Aaron nodded and turned towards the darkness and walked ahead, the group following him. Mortimer and Robin in front, Roger behind him with Shia and Stab at the back. Stab usually walked right next to Roger and dealt with anything unexpected. Like a few ants that Aaron had missed. The rats had steered clear of the crevasse the group had stood in after Mortimer had made some space with his greatsword.

"So we gonna go the long way around?" Shia asked Roger, who must have nodded, because Shia continued.

"If Aaron wants to fight spiders we could take the shortcut through one of their nests and their guardian." Shia said and Aaron could hear the smirk in her voice, even while looking into the dark with his enhanced senses.

"That...would shorten the journey a bit, yes, but its actually a bit of an excursion because we will take a dark drop down a few levels." Roger explained and Aaron turned around.

"Dark Drop?"

"A shortcut that only opens in the absolute darkness. I would not consider it without you."

"I do want to fight some spiders, but if its out of our way we can do that later. I want to check on our targets. If they move on or disappear into the vastness of this floor it would be a pain to find them again, right?"

"It would be impossible." Roger said seriously. "The groups from upstairs know these floors better than anyone else, we would never find or catch them."

"Still a bit surprising to hear you say that, did your group not hunt a lot on this floor?"

"Most groups do. The enemy density and their weak individual strength makes this the best leveling spot below the fifth floor. But the groups from upstairs have sent people down here for centuries, millennia in some cases and they, unlike us, share their information with another."

"You don't share information?"

"We try to, but its the nature of the tower down here. Those who get to Ambition usually do so on strength alone, not knowledge, its not that difficult to over level and pass even the fifth floor if you spend a few years as a vessel. The floors up to Ambition are not that difficult with the right preparation if you can pass the fifth floor on your own strength. Ambition is extremely cutthroat and all of the accumulated knowledge is hoarded by the great families. Normal climbers like us get told nothing."

"I would have expected the guilds to educate people." Aaron mused aloud as they ducked into a small tunnel made out of smooth rocks. A small brook wound itself downwards in between their feet.

"The benefit of knowing a lot about the floors is not big enough for them to care. Not down here."

"And yet you say its a huge advantage to the groups from upstairs."

"Its many things, they know the exact way to get specific classes and are designated to do so. They basically rush through the lower tower until they get to Climber's rest on the 20th floor where they wait for the expedition through the gap."

"The army knows a lot about the tower as well." Mortimer cut in. "But I think the reason the guilds and the army do not educate people better about the dangers and secrets of the lower floors is because it would make it too easy."

"You are saying they intentionally keep their soldiers in the dark to make it more of a challenge for them?" Aaron asked with a quick look back. Mortimer nodded grimly.

"That is exactly what I am saying. The army has a casualty rate of around 5% every 10 levels of the tower. And that is entirely acceptable to them for slightly increased strength of the soldiers. It might not seem like its a high casualty rate. But its constant. Emnu's Army is his army, his organisation. He must have told the brass exactly how to climb to the top of the tower without any casualties. I am sure Emnu has, but the army refused to heed his knowledge to make itself a stronger asset." Mortimer spat out angrily.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I don't know Mortimer, its more likely Emnu does not care." Robin said and Mortimer scoffed.

"Emnu is our god, we are his children, why should he not care? We are his creations! No, its men who deny his wisdom that are at fault." Mortimer insisted and Robin just shrugged and stopped talking about the topic. It sounded like an old argument to Aaron and he personally thought Robin was right. Emnu probably did not care and he was not a god. Just unfathomably strong.

"So, Roger, what exactly is the Expedition?" Aaron asked into the uncomfortable silence.

"You know what the gap is right?"

"A long stretch of the tower that is uninhabitable. From the 20th to the 50th floor, right?"

"Correct. There are a few Climber groups that challenge the gap on their own, usually in pretty big teams, of 20 to 50. But most of them die. The gap is no joke and once you started your Climb, nobody is close to help you. Going back down to Climber's Rest is supposed to be really difficult. So most Climber's fail and those who return usually wait for the Expedition. Its a joint raid of usually more than a thousand Climber's. Basically they form an army and then go up the tower in one rush."

"Many people still die, but they all level very quickly and get to reach the 50th floor almost guaranteed if they survive." Mortimer said. "The army drills people to participate in the Expedition and they and the groups from upstairs form the core of it."

"Huh. So the groups from upstairs share their knowledge to people in the expedition then?"

"Usually its led by someone from Upstairs who came down here. So yeah, seriously powerful people. They plan and lead the expedition, but everyone is welcome to join it."

The group fell silent for a while and Aaron pondered on what the group had told him. Aaron did not think that Cultivators were welcomed in the Expedition considering the general stance of the tower towards them. He also knew that the gap was the fault of a Cultivator escape attempt and of the establishment of a Cult or religion. The Monk had told him about that, had he not? But for now it did not really matter to him. He would solve that problem when he got there. The group moved on in silence until they reached another bigger cave. This one was inhabited by cave ants again, who turned towards them in unison and started their mindless attack.

The fight was quite a bit easier now that Aaron knew how they would react and that they would go after him even at the cost of their own lives. Aaron still had to leap up into the air a couple of times when he made a mistake. It was inevitable to make mistakes. But luckily Aaron had ways to get out of trouble. His Wind Steps and the fact that the fiend-god art gave him such strong regenerative powers meant he never was really injured enough to slow him down. His clothes did suffer though. After he had finished the group of ants off he found a couple of new holes in his pants and shirt. He probably needed some spare clothes the next time he went out for a Climb.

The group moved on and Aaron had to fight himself through a couple more caves and followed tunnels up and down rather randomly. He could see now why this was a labyrinth. Most Caves looked eerily similar to another and they usually had one group of monsters inhabit them.

The fluttering of wings and the sharp acidic smell of chemicals made Aaron pause before going into the next cave.

"I think there are these Crystal Moths in the next chamber. Do I need the antidote to be fine against them?" Aaron asked the group who had stopped behind him.

"Ah, no, you should be fine unless its a nest. And this cave should not be one. Moths are easy, if you start seeing things come back here. Usually their hallucinogenic effect does not last that long unless you inhaled a lot of their dust." Roger said and the group settled down to wait.

Aaron shrugged and stepped down into the cave. Already he could see shapes fly towards the dim light illuminating the darkness. The Crystal moths were around the size of big birds. From pigeon to bald eagle size. They had long fluffy looking antenna's and insectile faces with sharp very carnivorous looking mandibles. Dozens of Compound eyes stared at him as the moths flew closer in an irregular swerving flight pattern. Dust puffed out from their wings as they flew, leaving behind a small sand storm that smelled like acrid chemicals.

To Aaron's surprise the moths were all going for the light and not necessarily him. They swarmed around him and when Aaron punched one of them, it basically burst apart instantly. Their wings were very fragile and the light agitated them unduly. For the first 5 minutes Aaron snatched dozens out of the air. Touching them was enough, but Aaron killed them with one hit instead, taking down multiple other moths with the corpse tearing through the advancing group of moths like shrapnel fired from a cannon. Each punch sent shock waves through the advancing swarm, the kinetic force of his punches turning each and every dead moth into a lethal projectile. It looked like Aaron's fists exploded in the advancing group of moths, leaving behind puffs of crystal dust that turned the air dusty and dirty looking. Aaron held his breath, using mostly his ears and his eyes to locate his enemies. When the moths finally turned their attention to him as an obstacle to the light it made little difference to Aaron. He could fly, or at least jump very high and use the cave walls and stalagmites and stalactites to great affect. Which meant the moths lost their one advantage they banked on. To attack from range. But most of the crazy moths just flew right at him like kamikaze fighters. He tore through the group relentlessly and the fight was over in less than 5 minutes. The moths all died to him, every single last one. Their whole group was obliterated. They did not retreat or maneuver and it had been by far the easiest fight of the floor.

Aaron shook himself off and made sure he held his breath as he dusted himself off. The Crystal dust did not look like the product he had taken from the alchemist before, instead it looked way less crystalline and more dirty. Like ash gray dust. Satisfied with his impromptu cleaning he returned to the group. Roger held up a dimmed glowstone when Aaron stepped up to them into the tunnel.

"Well, that was easy." Aaron said. "But I really need a bath."

Shia chuckled at that. "Trust me, I am so happy not to have to do any fighting. No insect guts, no disgusting spider gore, just sitting around and earning experience. This is paradise."

"Glad you enjoy it so much." Aaron said sarcastically.

The group moved into the cave and Robin got out a small shovel and a hand brush from his pack and started to dust off the corpses and the area where Aaron had fought until he had accumulated a small mound of ash gray crystal dust. He then shoveled the dust into a small bag and stored it in his pack. Aaron raised his eyebrows and Robin shrugged.

"Done this hundreds of times before. Dusting after a fight with moths does not yield much crystal dust, but its enough to be worth the time spent."

"I bet. The alchemist guild is scrambling for more product."

"Yeah, every independent group will come to this floor to farm dust soon. Now that the manhunt is over their team leaders will probably want to refill their coffers."

"Its fine, the fourth floor is big enough for all of us." Roger said and then pointed to the end of the cave.

"If I am not mistaken there is a dark drop at the end of this cave. I have never used this one, or to be honest any dark drop. I do not want to fight a Darkstalker unless I absolutely have to. Those things are horrible."

"How high is the chance we encounter one going dark?"

"Honestly? Minuscule."

Roger lead the group down the length of the cavern. Which was a long rocky cave with multiple levels. He stopped after climbing up a giant slightly rounded boulder and they found themselves looking at a mud wall with roots sticking out of it instead of stone. Roger pulled out his map and checked it twice under the light of a glowstone until he nodded.

"It should be right here."

"So how does this work?"

"We will put all of our lights into a blackout sack, like this one." Roger showed Aaron the small black bag he carried. It was made out of smooth pelt like material. The dark hairs on the leather bag seemed to bend away from the light.

"This is actually made out of Darkstalker leather. Hideously expensive. But you know, the district is giving out loans and an expensive bag like this is an easy collateral." Roger added with a sly smirk.

"Once we are in the absolute darkness its all up to you Aaron. The wall might just open on its own if there is no light for long enough or you have to touch the wall. Not sure. You will have to guide us through this entrance, then we can get the glowstones back out."

"Alright, sounds like a plan." Aaron said and stepped in front of the wall. He touched it with one hand and did a standard inspection. His hand felt only slightly loamy earth and roots. His mana senses told him there was mana in this wall, but this whole floor was basically bathed in mana and it was not significant in any way. It felt exactly like the surroundings. He could sense no Qi at all in the vicinity, but his sense of smell told him that this actually might be the dark drop. The soil here smelled slightly different than the soil at the beginning of the cave. If Aaron had not looked for something he would have thought it was the chemicals from the moths changing it. But as he was looking for something he detected a faint hint of...dog? It smelled slightly like a wet dog, but so faintly it was barely there even to his heightened senses.

The group behind him had used the time Aaron took to contemplate the wall to get out a rope like they had for the underwater current and had tied themselves together with plenty of give in between each of them. They gathered around Roger and his satchel.

"Ready?" Roger asked and Aaron nodded.

They all dropped their glowstones into the bag and Roger closed it plunging the cave into deepest darkness.

Aaron blinked into the sudden darkness and it was for a long terrible moment like he had gone blind. There was no light at all. Nothing. It was absolute darkness and no matter how Aaron tried, he could not see anything. With a shrug he closed his eyes and focused on his other senses. For a whole minute or so nothing happened until Aaron touched the wall again. Aaron searched the wall for something different, as he followed his sense of touch, when he felt a root twitch. Aaron flinched back, took two steps back and got into fighting stance. Before him he could hear soil move, roots slither like wooden snakes and the wall give way to an opening. Aaron felt air waft up from below and from the echo of his own breath he guessed the wall had gone. Behind him he could hear the slightly agitated breaths of the group, tense in the darkness.

"The wall opened when I touched a root." Aaron said and the group flinched at his voice.

"I think there is a vertical shaft beyond the wall. I can feel the air coming up."

Aaron used all of his senses, his hearing, his sense of smell and his sense of touch to navigate the darkness and he paused when he stepped forward again. The smell of wet dog had intensified after opening the dark drop. Aaron listened intently and then he heard it. A shuffling in the dark. Claws digging into earth and the sniff of a dog scenting the air.

"We have company, stand back." Aaron said and as his words left his lips the creature down in the shaft started to move. Its paws echoed as it jumped up dozens of meters in a heartbeat, racing upwards. Aaron stepped forward and listened to his own voice echo in the shaft. It was fairly wide and not entirely vertical. The sound was too different, but that did not matter at the moment. Aaron concentrated and activated Wind Steps as he dove into the darkness. He could hear and smell the creature Roger called a Darkstalker. He could hear it open its maw and scent the air again. Could hear a tongue spluttering saliva and claws digging into the earth attached to long limbs that propelled it forward.

The Darkstalker was on Aaron in the blink of an eye. Its speed far greater than Aaron had expected. In one moment it was still down in the shaft, then it was on top of him, swinging a claw through the darkness. Aaron dove aside and then parried another claw coming from the other direction. Damn this thing must have really long arms. Aaron leaned back as its maw snapped shut with the sound of a bear trap closing. Then Aaron punched the closed maw with all of his strength. He hit the creature and could feel the impact with his whole body. The Darkstalker howled a strange keening howl like a wolf, just a few octaves deeper and more malicious. Instead of pulverizing its head, like Aaron had expected to, he had just injured it and in the next moment it came for him again. Leaping over him to the ceiling and lashing at Aaron from all sides with its sharp claws that scratched rock. Aaron reacted to the sound, blocking occasionally and evading most of the strikes. Each time the creature hit him during a parry he felt its strength, how it leveraged its long body with terrible force.

But the Unceasing Palm kata was made to defend against Cultivators, beings far stronger and far faster than this thing and even with Aaron's lacking mastery of the technique, he was more than proficient enough in the technique enough to defend himself. But that was all he did for a while. Defend himself. Evade, move away from the creature as it taught him its range, its patterns, while Aaron stayed defensive. When Aaron felt its head snap forward again, he punched it in a classic cross counter. But this time his fist was reinforced with Qi and the punch made a loud bang as the forced collided. The darkstalker reared back and screeched. Aaron pounced on it this time, followed up his strike with a combination into its midriff, feeling tough fur under his strikes. His strikes felt like they had no affect at all. The creatures body took the hits easily. But apparently it hurt quite a bit. The Darkstalker defended itself with a few halfhearted claws and Aaron realized it was not used to be on the defensive at all.

It was this floors apex predator and nothing challenged it. So Aaron kept up his offensive, punched and punched and punched, his fists making loud smacking sound as if he was punching gym bag. The creature leapt back and tried to put some distance in between themselves, but Aaron would not let it. He leapt after it, dodged a strike of its claws and landed on the creatures back. The Darkstalker screeched again and raked its back with its claws, But Aaron dodged and then punched again. But the creature was incredibly tough. It was hurting and it had slowed down, yes, but with blunt force it was difficult to kill. If not impossible. Aaron hesitated a moment and then drew his enchanted dagger. Dodged around a claw and put himself right in front of the maw of the creature. The Darkstalker did not hesitate and took the bait. It snapped forward, its sharp teeth barely missing Aaron, its stinking foul breath making Aaron almost stumble. But he caught himself and cut upwards with the enchanted dagger, piercing the underside of its maw.

The dagger punched into the creature with difficulty, but it did. It cut deep and Aaron ripped the blade back out with a savage cut downwards where its throat must be. Hot blood sprayed out and the creature howled in pain. Aaron leapt back as it went berserk, its claws raking only air as it swiped around it in a frenzy. Its jaws snapping and yet with every movement it exasperated the injuries. Aaron waited for an opening and when the creature slowed, Aaron leapt on top of it and buried his dagger into its head. He could feel that he had hit something vital as the creature suddenly sagged and then dropped down the shaft as its claws lost their grip in the earth of the tunnel.

Aaron leapt back and landed at the ledge on top of the shaft. The noise giving him more than enough hints to where what was. The creature fell deeper and deeper, bouncing against the walls and then hit something big and stopped. Aaron paused for a long moment, before he took a deep breath. That thing had been powerful. His punches, even reinforced with Qi had little affect on it. Only the sharp dagger had done the trick in the end. That was bad. Aaron did not want to rely on tools to climb the tower. He balled his fists and sheathed his dagger in a smooth motion before he turned towards the group. They were huddled together, weapons drawn towards the outside, backs to each other.

"Its dead." Aaron told them and the whole group took a collective breath.

"Let me lead you into the shaft, then we should be fine making some light again." Aaron said and grabbed Mortimer's armored arm. The tall warrior flinched and his sword rose dangerously, before he could catch himself. Then he followed Aaron as he lead them into the vertical shaft. It took a while and the group stayed silent, until Aaron told them they were beyond the wall.

Roger opened his bag and light cascaded into existence again. Robin yelped and leaned back as he found himself on the edge of a sudden deep drop into the darkness. But he did not fall. The rest of the group looked around blinking. The wall behind them started to close. The roots dropping like a curtain, bringing with it soil and stone until with a soft crunch the roots locked them into the vertical shaft downwards.

"Darkstalker?" Roger asked and Aaron nodded.

"I think so, sounded like a big dog, giant limbs with claws and a big maw." Aaron answered.

Roger nodded and looked around, but only saw blood spluttered rocks and tufts of black fur. The fur seemed to melt away and curl in on itself in the light and Roger was the first to take a peek over the edge with a glowstone in hand.

"Where did it go? You said you killed it."

"It dropped below." Aaron studied the almost vertical drop and noticed immediately that the shaft wound itself downwards in a spiral with enough rocks and ledges to make it less vertical and more of a very hazardous spiral staircase. Roger studied the way down as well and nodded.

"Good job. Those things usually take a whole group to kill and there are always casualties even if people anticipate them. There is a reason nobody does dark runs on the fourth floor." he said grimly.

The group calmed down in the light of the glowstones and started to slowly climb down. It was a fairly dangerous climbing session, but with the rope held between them, it was fairly safe. It took them around 20 minutes to climb to the spot where the Darkstalker had landed.

It was a giant black furred creature with strange shoulder and hip joints. Its long gangly arms had massive sharp black claws at their ends and could move in any direction. Its joints also allowed it to use its arms and legs to hang backwards on the ceiling and then turn around instantly. The most disturbing thing was its face though. The creature had no eyes. Only holes surrounding a gaping maw that was open in its death showing rows upon rows of sharp teeth and a forked tongue with barbs on them. The maw was in the center of its head and it opened like a flower bud opening. Just instead of petals there was a hideous maw filled with teeth. It was a nightmarish creature and It had been incredibly tough.

The group spent an hour or so taking samples and cutting off the pelt on its back with Aaron's dagger, which was the only blade that could cut into the tough material on accounts of the enchantment on the blade. Shia was mortified her daggers had been useless and she was gloomy the whole way down.

"How can it be that tough? Damn. This is the fifth floor all over again." Shia complained.

Roger sighed.

"That is why mages have such an important role in groups, they provide the firepower to kill shit like that Darkstalker. I do hate them, but they do a lot of damage." he conceded.

It took them four long hours of climbing close to a deep drop until they reached the bottom of the shaft. No other creatures called this shaft their homes, which, considering what had lived here, was understandable. When the group reached the bottom Roger studied his map and nodded satisfied.

"That short cut was worth 2 days of fighting through the fourth floor. There should be a guardian and a light pool close to the next cavern. Once Aaron dealt with that we can search for a camp site."

Aaron was still mildly upset over his fight and he was a bit disturbed how the creature had so easily shrugged off his attacks. The fifth floor was supposed to be even tougher than this, because there creatures this tough would have regenerative powers and each fight would become a fight of attrition. Aaron did not like this at all. After feeling invincible on the third and second floor, the Darkstalker had showed him again that he had a long way to go. Aaron straightened and vowed to do better next time. But first it was time to collect some spirits and fill his dantian. The group from upstairs had never looked so tempting as right now. Aaron pushed aside those thoughts and focused as he walked into the direction Roger indicated.

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