We always knew it would be an advantage to have access to the sixth stratum earlier than anyone else. Access to new resources, new monster cores and materials. Our antgineers and researchers would be the first to examine them and plumb their possibilities.

Of course, we would also have the first opportunity to claim territory, fortify our hold and strengthen our claim.

Ultimately, we could never have foreseen just how great that advantage would become, nor what shape it would take.

- From the Private notes of Historiant

Super powerful monster, probably Mythic, tier eight for sure, rising up out of the sixth, and it's here to have a chat? There’s no way. What kind of monster wants to have a chat anyways?!

And this mind bridge they’ve connected to me, it’s so thin and tenuous. We couldn’t attack each other through it even if we wanted to, which I suppose is the point.

[Are you sure you don’t want to fight?]

[Yes I’m sure! Do you not understand what ‘I come in peace’ means? Please tell me you’re at least more civilised than the Krath.]

I’m confused.

[Wait a second… you are a monster, right?] I ask.

[Of course I’m a monster. You can sense me, I can sense you. We’re both monsters. You… you aren’t simple are you?]

[No I’m not simple! It’s just… this isn’t what I expected. I suppose… I was also hoping for a grand epic battle to help blow off some steam.]

What kind of monster just wanders up from the depths for a conversation? Most of the time, monsters rising up have been displaced by monsters from below them, pushed out of their cozy hunting grounds and forced to flee to safety higher in the Dungeon. That makes them desperate and aggressive. This monster, on the other hand, sounds perfectly calm. If a bit startled.

[Well… sorry about trying to blast a hole in you with a spell… I suppose.]

[What the heck was that, by the way?]

[No comment.]

[Fair enough. Look, any chance we can have a nice exchange of words here without attacking each other? I’ve come up here on a fact-finding mission for my people.]

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[Your people? Got a monster tribe or something down there?]

[Something like that. We heard that the fifth wasn’t dumping ooze into the stormcloud for some reason, so I came to check it out. The last thing I expected to see was that the place wasn’t toxic anymore! How in the name of the blessed bolt did that happen?]

[Well… that’s a long story. The short version is my family and I invaded and kicked the Krath in their slimy backsides.]

[Good. I can’t stand those slugs.]

[Who can? I’m kind of surprised you had much contact with them. Did they go down into the sixth much?]

[They gave up trying to pollute our layer well before my time. We traded with them a bit, that’s all.]

[Well, if you’re interested in trade, you can talk to my sister, Merchant. She’s all about making trades and deals. What would you even trade with the slugs? Is anything from the fifth useful in the sixth? What with the corruption and all…]

I mean… unpurified, everything in the fifth is kind of useless. Worse than useless, it will actively harm anything it comes into contact with.

[I’m not in the habit of spilling secrets just because I was asked.]

[Alright, no need to be a stick in the mud. I was only curious.]

The more this conversation goes on, the more surprised I become. Just what is going on in the sixth?

[So… you’re a member of a tribe… or group… or gathering of monsters? Are you all born from the same parent or something?]

[What? No, that’s absurd. Do all of you have the same mother?]

[Well… yes. Is there a problem with my mum?]

[You are? How does that even work?]

[We’re an insect type monster species. The Queens lay a lot of eggs by converting Biomass. If you trace back the lineage, all of us came from the one Queen who was spawned from the Dungeon.]

[Huh… interesting. We were all spawned from the Dungeon. I guess you would describe us as a loose alliance of monsters with a common interest.]

[Which is?]

[Fighting other loose alliances of monsters, for the most part,] the hidden creature laughs.

[The sixth sounds like an interesting place…. So you all have territory that you’ve claimed down there? And you fight over it?]

I kind of assumed it was going to be a wild frontier free-for-all once we got to the sixth. Now I find out it’s already claimed by these… monster alliances? What the heck?!

[Pretty much. Below here belongs to my group.]

[Well dang. That’s disappointing.]

[Oh?]

[Yeah. I was keen to go down and conquer new lands for my family. Nobody from up here has been able to access the sixth since… forever. I was hoping to be the first to plant a flag, metaphorically speaking.]

[What? You were going to invade us?]

[Well… not invade you specifically, just the sixth in general. Now that we’ve finally made it through the fifth, it seemed like the natural next step.]

[Hah! By thunder, that’s interesting,] the monster laughs out loud.

[Why is that?]

[Well… the only thing keeping us down below was the toxin in the fifth. During a wave, we can go up as much as we like. What’s going to stop us?]

Oh… I see where this is going.

[Those slugs didn’t keep us safe from you, they kept you safe from us.]

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