Miles, after killing the Nightmare Liger, was more confident in his abilities. When he felt Culga’s emotions and epiphany, he also learned how she was using energy to unleash devastating attacks. And thanks to that, his Body Branch techniques solidified even further.

After resting, Miles descended the stairs one by one, and the creatures got stronger on every floor. Monsters on the 11th floor were still at a low-tier, but their elements and abilities were even stronger. Some could even use two different branches and caused lots of trouble for Miles, but resting after every battle and with the ability of regeneration, he made his way to the bottom steadily.

On the 20th floor, the boss was still Dark Elemental. A Light Swallower Pig. These monsters could suck the light from the surroundings to darken the area to hide within. In murky areas, they were quite deadly. But the floors in the tower weren’t that dark, despite the lack of a light source. So a giant circle of darkness was quite eye-catching. Knowing that there was a creature inside was also helpful. Miles, after identifying the monster, killed the monster in no time and actually dropped an orb. It allowed the user to create a similar effect. If Miles used it, it would suck all the light in a certain area.

The trend continued on the following floors. From 21 to the 30th floor, the element was mostly shadow, which was a rarer form of the Dark element. It was quite troublesome and hard to deal with, but thankfully monsters were still low-tier. But the boss on the 30th floor did have an ultimate.

It was a Nightwing Crow. Although rare, not that troublesome. If it wasn’t for the information he got from school, he might not have learned about this monster because of how few their numbers were. But thanks to that information, he won the battle, although hardly. The monster’s ultimate allowed it to freely change the form of the attacks it was using. A dark blade it was sending would turn into liquid when Miles was defending, and after it passed through him, they would solidify again to attack him from the back.

It was really vexing to deal with, but with the help of his ultimate, and mixing of two elements available to him, he won the battle. Of course, the lightning element was more effective, but the wind element added speed and sharpness to his attacks.

The tier of the monsters from then on was raised to mid-tier. Which was bad news, as Miles was in this tier as well. And not at the peak of it. He could hardly deal with the monsters on other floors and now they were even stronger in all senses. Energy-wise, element-wise, and technique-wise. But by resting a lot, he reached all the way to the top.

He almost lost an arm on the 40th floor, but he prevailed and killed the bastard. The creature was Abyss Bunny. A creature with deadly fangs and claws with the ability to use the darkness element to create traps. It was a brutal battle and Miles fell into a trap that had been set on the floor as soon as he descended the stairs. Only after that did he smarten up enough to keep energy vision open to locate the traps. It was still a very hard battle but by using every means he had, he won.

The monsters on the following floors were a tad weaker than the boss on the 40th floor but some floors had multiple monsters. Making the overall difficulty higher. But it didn't matter how many monsters he had to battle, he persevered. He had no other choice. The tower was locked and there was only one way out. Killing the boss at the top, or in this case, the lowest floor.

But when he stepped into the 50th floor, his blood still drained. The floor was dark, darker than anything he had seen before. It wasn’t cold per se but the feeling it gave, that creepy, disquiets air, made his scalp tingle.

He tried to see through it with the dark vision to no avail. As if something was blocking his vision, he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. He switched to elemental and energy vision, but the outcome was the same. He could see nothing. Only darkness reigned on that floor.

Miles took a step forward only after entering the floor for more than 10 minutes. Whatever was waiting for him, watching him, didn’t attack either. He knew there was something out there, he knew there was a monster, but he didn’t know what it was.

This was one of the rare moments where he was in the dark, figuratively. He was in the dark literally but most of the time, he would know the monsters he was dealing with. There were several reasons for that, first, most of the monsters would be recorded in archives for all hunters to know. All AI Wristwatches had a library of monsters in their storage to help their companions at any time.

Other than that, Miles, with his connections, knew more than a regular hunter. His family was one of the most influential in Unity, and Miles had access to much secret information, including rare monsters.

Thirdly, the academy. As a separate institution, that was hellbent on destroying anything threatening humanity, they had quite a library filled with many details about varying monsters. Miles was a cautious person, thus had learned many things about many monsters in case he would be separated from Coin. But still, there were monsters out there with secret abilities and some monsters had never been seen before.

For example, the Queen Ant. Her strongest and deadly attack was news even to Milosh. The Invisible Knight, without an ability such as Miles's Monster Eyes, it would be impossible to identify these creatures, let alone their abilities. Birds that could create runes in F-Circle were also newsworthy. And now this. Miles scanned his memory and Coin was doing the same, but despite working as hard as they could, they failed to find a monster that matched the one watching them in the darkness.

“Are you sure the darkness is not originating from something else, Miles?” Coin asked. “Like the walls in Lonely Cave?”

“I am sure, buddy. This is a monster’s work.” Miles answered with a sigh. “I can’t see it, but it is lurking in the darkness.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to start the attack, since it is not attacking either. But, this is starting to get on my nerves.” Miles and Coin were discussing in his mind, but they felt impending death was upon them in the next second with a single utterance.

“Welcome, my child.”