The spiral staircase inside the dungeon is extremely steep. After a long period of accumulation, dust and dirt have turned the surface of the staircase into a slope, making it extremely dangerous to walk on it. There is a risk of falling if you are not careful.

  Fortunately, these people are basically senior mercenaries with rich experience. They are quite stable.

  In order to ensure the safety of the magician Jia Lan, the team specially arranged personnel to protect him.

  The "Golden Thief" who was on a reconnaissance mission in the front showed his excellent reconnaissance skills. He acted cautiously on the surface, but in fact he acted quickly. He carefully checked the possible traps and mechanisms on the spiral staircase, and squatted from time to time to carefully observe the tiny traces on the dirt of the staircase.

  Suddenly, the 'Golden Level Thief' in front stopped and turned to warn everyone: "Everyone be careful, there are signs of biological activity ahead, but its specific species cannot be determined at present."

  He spread out his palm, showing a five-finger print similar to the size of a human palm, but the knuckles are obviously much longer than ordinary fingers, and the fingertips are in the shape of sharp and curved claws.

  "This seems to be the paw print of some kind of rodent, but why is it so huge?" After measuring the distance between the front and back paw prints, he said in surprise: "If you don't count the length of the tail, it is at least two meters long!"

  The old thief Jimmy bent down, picked up a piece of pale skeleton, carefully observed the tooth marks on it, and inspected the traces around, and said in surprise: "Could it be a giant rat? But even giant rats usually don't grow so big!"

  The 'Golden Level Thief' nodded to Old Jimmy in agreement, and did not look down on him because of his level and disability.

  Then, he looked up and reported to the leader Kenmet: "Boss, there is good news and bad news, which one do you want to hear first?" Kenmet laughed and cursed: "Damn it! I hate this kind of multiple-choice questions the most! Tell me!"

  The 'Golden Thief' explained: "The good news is that the flying head did fall under the dungeon. The bad news is that there is a giant rat nest here. Giant rats are social animals. Judging from the number of claw marks on the ground, the number may be quite large."

  Giant rats are one of the monsters that mercenaries often encounter in ruins exploration. Adult individuals can grow up to more than one meter long.

  Although its body size is large, other than this, its other characteristics and habits are not much different from ordinary rats, so it is not too difficult to deal with.

  However, this monster is always hungry and is much more aggressive than ordinary rats.

  Different levels of hunger will affect their courage. If they are extremely hungry, they may even be more dangerous than wolves.

  The number of giant rats in a nest ranges from a dozen to hundreds. Once they attack at the same time, they will pose a great threat with their sharp teeth that can crush rocks.

  Although the 'Golden Thief' reported the "bad news", both Kenmet and the mercenaries behind him seemed quite relaxed and did not show any tension due to the presence of the giant rats.

  After all, they are all high-level silver or even gold-level warriors, and the giant rats are at most black iron-level monsters.

  Old Jimmy imitated the tone of the 'Golden Thief' and interrupted the mercenaries' jokes: "There is also good news and bad news."

  "The good news is that the distribution of claw marks is denser as you go down, and there are almost no claw marks on the ground at the entrance of the dungeon, which means that these giant rats are quite afraid of light, and their range of activities is limited to the inside of the dungeon, and they rarely appear on the ground."

  Old Jimmy then added: "But the bad news is that giant rats with this characteristic may be dark demon rats that are more dangerous than ordinary giant rats."

  Upon hearing this, everyone frowned and subconsciously looked at the claw marks on the ground that were twice as wide as ordinary giant rats.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  At the same time, creatures associated with the words "darkness" and "demon" usually make people feel afraid.

  Kenmet waved the two-handed sword in his hand and said confidently: "No matter what it is, just kill it all! Don't say it's a two-meter-long rat, even a three-meter-long one..." However, before he finished speaking, his eyes suddenly became dull and stared straight at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

  Everyone present was shocked and turned around involuntarily, but they almost lost their composure because of the scene in front of them.

  In the depths of darkness that the "Eternal Light Staff" could not illuminate, a dense blood-red glow suddenly appeared, and then a huge rat slowly emerged from the darkness.

  "Oh my God!" A mercenary exclaimed involuntarily, "Is this a rat?"

  It was normal for the mercenary to react like this, because the rat that slowly walked out of the darkness in a hunting posture was much bigger than they had expected, far from the two meters they had estimated, but reached an astonishing three meters.

  At first glance, the body of this giant rat was not as slender as ordinary rats, but rather appeared sturdy and wild, like a ferocious wild boar.

  Its bulging muscles were covered by the upright bristles like steel needles, and the thick bone spurs penetrated the skin and were exposed on the surface of the body.

  All the mercenaries, including Kenmet, the gold-level great swordsman, couldn't help but take a breath of cold air.

  Before Kenmet ordered a retreat, the giant rat let out a sharp hiss, "Squeak..." Then, countless rats of all sizes surged out from the darkness behind it like a tide, clinging to it one after another, screaming and rushing towards them.

  "Stop these beasts!" Kenmet shouted, and two shield warriors quickly rushed forward, blocking the narrow spiral staircase side by side, blocking the rats' way with heavy armor and metal shields.

  At the same time, three sword warriors in light armor rushed behind their companions and supported their backs with their shoulders.

  The rats and shields collided violently on the spiral staircase.

  Although the five people occupied a favorable position on the slope above, they were still forced to retreat by the rats.

  The five people roared in unison, and various colors of flames suddenly burst out from their bodies. With concerted efforts, they barely blocked the charge of the rats and stopped them abruptly.

  The width of the spiral staircase was only enough for two or three people to pass through, and it was blocked by five high-level silver mercenaries. Given the size of the giant rats, it was impossible for too many individuals to rush up at the same time.

  The three silver sword warriors took the opportunity to swing their swords and slashed at the rats rushing up through the gap between the two shield warriors.

  As the sword light flashed, blood and flesh flew everywhere.

  Jia Lan, who stayed behind, watched the flames bursting from the silver warriors, and asked the guard beside him, Old Jimmy, in a low voice in surprise: "What is that?"

  Old Jimmy was stunned by Jia Lan's question. He turned his head and realized that he was referring to the silver-white flames on the warriors. Then he looked at him with a strange expression and said, "That's Dou Qi. To be precise, that layer of flame is the Dou Qi flame formed when Dou Qi is released to protect the body and burns in the air... Haven't you seen it?"

  Jia Lan laughed dryly and didn't know how to answer.

  Last time in Kelan City, he didn't see the Iguana Fang Mercenary Group and the Storm Wolf Mercenary Group using this skill during the fight.

  Old Jimmy didn't care, thinking that Jia Lan had lived in the Science and Magic Academy for a long time and rarely dealt with warriors, so he had never seen the Dou Qi flame released by warriors in battle.

  "The various types of Dou Qi cultivated by warriors will be violently released from the body during battle, forming this flame-like substance. Its different colors are related to the properties of the Dou Qi in the warrior's body." Old Jimmy explained while paying attention to the battle situation.

  "Green represents wind-type Dou Qi, red represents fire-type Dou Qi, blue represents water-type Dou Qi, yellow represents earth-type Dou Qi, green represents wood-type Dou Qi... and there are some special types of Dou Qi."

  After listening to Old Jimmy's explanation, Jia Lan was speechless. He had never heard of the concept of "dou qi".

  In the previous era, the "dou qi" that warriors used to enhance their strength was an invisible and intangible "dou qi" that only existed in the body, without such fancy sound and light effects.

  After careful observation, Jia Lan found that "dou qi" was completely different from the "dou qi" he knew.

  Just as "arcane" is to spellcasters, "dou qi" is the source of the power of warriors.

  However, in his opinion, dou qi is more like another mode of using elemental energy.

  Are all warriors of this era elemental warriors?

  Unfortunately, the war situation is urgent at the moment, and he cannot study it in depth.

  In addition to Old Jimmy who was responsible for protecting him, Captain Kenmet and two other gold-level mercenaries also joined the battle.

  The most eye-catching one among them was the gold-level archer. With the sound of the bowstring "clanging", the whistling arrows shot down the giant rats that stepped on the bodies of their own kind and tried to cross the human wall. Many of them fell to the bottom of the deep spiral staircase with arrows screaming.

  However, there were many giant rats. Although most of them were just ordinary giant rats, these giant rats were more than one meter long and as big as jackals. Their fangs were as sharp as wolf teeth. They would even bite the swords that were cut at them without fear, forcing several silver warriors to struggle to throw off the heavy rat bodies hanging on their weapons.

  As a result, the attack frequency became slow, and it was impossible to completely protect the two shield warriors who were holding iron shields to block the rats.

  "Get out of the way! Let me do it!" A layer of blazing dark golden flames rose from Captain Kenmet's body. He suddenly leaped over the heads of his companions, shouted loudly, and slashed heavily from the air into the rat group.