When he saw the first glint of light reflecting in the insectoid eyes of the creatures charging towards the entrance, he fired off a bolt of lightning using his minor electro manipulation. The lightning not only struck but burned and fried the creature inside and out. It also created a temporary bit of light that helped him to see the roughly 20 or more creatures charging towards them. 

He led the charge towards them as he tried to close the distance. The rest of his group followed behind. He was happy that the narrowness of the cave forced the creatures into a tight enough space that when he just started shooting there was no way he could miss so long as he aimed low enough. 

He quickly emptied the rest of his pistol's magazine, but he watched as the blazing bullets tore through at least 18 enemies as they impacted and pierced through a few at a time. The ones hit by the initial impact of his bullets definitely died. He was currently out of ammunition and as he put his pistol in its holster, he cast Static Fists on himself and red lightning enveloped and sparked around his hands.

As some of the creatures leaped towards him, Marcelina quickly dispatched one of them with her new dagger, piercing it straight through its skull from under its mouth and slamming its body to the ground. Charles rammed into another, crushing its head down into its chest. 

Charles then dodged out of the way as one of the creatures went to go for a bite at him, only to see it get blown back by Emma. She was breathing boiling hot water from her mouth with enough pressurized force that it was equivalent to being hit by a sledgehammer. It was an ability she showed off a few days ago and has been slowly getting better at using in combat.

As the two of them started dismantling and ripping into several vinuu by themselves, Ben and Marcy found themselves back to back in this part of the cave close to the entrance. While watching each other's blind spots and attacking any enemies that get close to either of them, Marcelina's eyes started to glow as she used Wild Sight to see in this much darker interior.

She knew that they had killed most of the ones that were charging towards the entrance, but there was more that came from further in the cave to help the first group. She saw that there was still about what she estimated to be 15 left. None of the bigger and more dangerous vinuu seem to arrive yet. She saw some of them started running on the ceiling of the cave, which she pointed out to Ben as he punched vinuu to death. She watched as Ben accurately shot them down wherever she pointed, even though he couldn't see them the way she could. 

In between pointing out ones on the ceiling, she stabbed into the heads, eyes, and necks of any that got close to her and Ben. She killed some of them but the ones that she couldn't Ben would kick to death. Marcelina, seeing how Charles and Emma were handling things with the enemies that came their way, used one of her other abilities to give them an extra boost. 

Activating Beastial Boost, she watched as Charles and Emma both radiated with a faint blue glow of energy. Emma started attacking with much more force and speed. But Charles especially got a much more significant buff from her ability, since he was her actual bonded animal companion. The ability temporarily increased Agility, Might, and Endurance by +10 while also granting +10 to AC and +50 to HP to up to 5 animals of her choosing within 100 feet of her for 10 minutes. If any of the animals she boosted with this ability happened to be bonded to her, the benefits provided would be doubled.

This single ability was the main thing that made Emma and Charles much more effective at killing any creatures that had been trying to attack them while they were scouting the forest. Now it really got to shine as they started shredding through the approaching vinuu with greater ease. At the same time, she watched how the number of enemies quickly thinned out to only 3 left and Ben blasted a massive torrent of flames from the palm of his hand to finish off the rest that were still approaching. 

With that, they killed roughly close to 50 vinuu in total, and it didn't sound like more were approaching. The burning corpses that were set on fire by Benedictus illuminated more of the cave, making it easier to keep an eye out in case more showed up. Ben and Marcy took this opportunity to go ahead and start checking any of the corpses or soul cores while Charles and Emma watched her enemies. 

They moved quickly since most of the corpses were destroyed enough that it was easy to check a lot of them and only a few seconds. For the ones that were still more intact, they butchered them with great swiftness. They were trying to make sure they didn't waste the buff that Charles and Emma were currently enhanced by. The 5 minutes that it took them to check the bodies was worth it as they found about 3 soul cores. Ben took all three of them and put them into his character sheet's inventory so they could be stored in the pocket dimension for now. With that, they chose to continue into the cave. 

Marcelina had prepped some makeshift torches for Ben so he could see in the darkness of the cave. He gladly took one and used one of the still burning bodies of a dead vinuu to light it. Maintaining the lead, he began following the cave while Marcelina continued to use her Wild Sight to get an accurate description of everything inside. She helped describe the layout and kept an eye out for enemies.

As they were walking, they took a note that they had not leveled up, but they did get a notification that they had entered into the Staghorned Vinuu's Nest. It appeared that this cave was some kind of game-like dungeon. It at least meant that their suspicions were correct. Now they can handle it appropriately.

They were in luck as no enemies seemed to show up at first while they traveled the long paths of the cave. That was at least until they reached it. The central chamber where the nest actually was. It was illuminated by bioluminescent mushrooms, and they could see that it was a massive chamber where there were 20 of the alpha vinuu guarding what they could only assume was the queen. It would appear that they had a similar way of structuring their pecking order, like ants, with noticeable changes to be similar to wolves. 

The queen quickly became the main focus as she was nearly triple the size of one of the alpha vinuu. She also had a horn on her snout, but it was more reminiscent of a coconut rhino beetle and that was not counting the antlers she had growing out of her skull. Her antlers seem to be made of a greenish metal. She also had six eyes in total. Her body was not only bigger than the rest of her kind, it was longer, and she had more limbs. She had a total of 12 legs and where her tail should be there was an insectoid thorax where she seemed to lay eggs from. 

To their surprise, upon entering the chamber, they got a notification stating the following: 

You have entered into the chamber of the great vinuu queen of the Polakka Forest. Kill the Staghorned Vinuu Queen and her royal guards. Completion of this quest will reward you with the title of Vinuu Slayer, 1 free ability point, and one random 3-star item. 

Optional quest: Upon killing the queen and her guards, harvest their corpses.

Seeing this, Benedictus immediately reloaded his pistol and cast Infuse Flame on it. Marcelina reactivated beastial boost on both Emma and Charles. At the same time, she activated one of her abilities called Mutual Bond. 

The ability allowed for her to select the two highest stats from her bonded animal companion and boost her own stats of that same type for half of the number of her companion's. Charles' highest stats were Agility and Might, and currently, with him under the effects of Bestial Boost, they were greatly enhanced. Both of the stats were currently at 42, which meant that she was able to boost her own might and agility by 21 points for the next 10 minutes. Learning that the synergy between those two skills of hers created that loophole made her feel like she had some kind of cheat skill at first, but now she felt it was perfect to help her survive in this situation. 

They didn't get much time to discuss any plans, as the light from the torch revealed them to the enemies and the royal guards prepared to protect their queen. They were getting ready to charge towards the group when Benedictus ran towards them in return. He took the torch that he was holding and turned it backwards. Using minor pyro manipulation, he focused on rapidly increasing the amount of fire produced and focusing it in a way to replicate the fiery propulsion of a jet engine. This caused the torch to go flying from his hand at high speed, stabbing into the skull of one of the alpha vinuu that was charging at him. 

The force of the torch stabbing into its head was enough to kill it instantly while its comrades charged past its now dead body. However, many of them died quickly alongside the first guard to fall, as Benedictus pointed his gun at them and unloaded. 16 shots rang out inside the chamber in quick succession. Most of the bullets fired struck the heads of the alphas, killing them, while only a few seem to hit other vital parts of the body, still causing heavy damage enough to kill.

He was about to quickly reload his pistol with his final full magazine, since there was enough distance for him to do so, when the queen opened her mouth and started spewing out a liquid similar to that of green glue in appearance. As a result, Ben had to quickly put up a defensive structure in the form of a stone wall to keep himself from getting hit by this liquid. The liquid hit the wall of stone he had rapidly brought up and left acidic burns on it before rapidly hardening into a sticky green substance similar to bubble gum, with how it seemed to react once hardened.

Benedictus started running out from behind his makeshift barrier while using his geo manipulation to conjure up a couple more in case the queen felt like chucking some more of that acidic sticky substance his way. He decided to focus on her, while Marcelina, Emma, and Charles focused on the rest of the guards. It surprised him to see that they were already doing just that without him needing to give the order. 

Marcelina and Charles zipped around the enemies in rapid quick dashes, inflicting damage more passively. Marcelina focused on hit-and-run slashes while moving at a speed similar to that of a cheetah at maximum sprint with how much dust she was kicking up as she ran. She also seemed to display a level of dexterity and flexibility as she bounced off of some of the enemies in an acrobatic style that he didn't even know she was capable of, and might not actually be normally, if not for her skills enhancing her.

Charles worked well alongside her, leaving deep impacts from horn bashes and powerful kicks as he bounced around at an even greater speed than her. All of this left the alphas open for the finishing blow dealt by Emma, as she would use the distraction presented by Charles and Marcy, to fire off her blasts of scalding hot water. Anytime one of the alphas got too close, Emma would use her wings to quickly take to the air to dodge out of the way.

The queen wanted to assist her guards in dealing with the three of them, but she was prevented from doing so by Benedictus. She was getting ready to spew more of that substance in the direction of the rest of the group when Ben repositioned himself behind her and shot her with a bolt of lightning. To his surprise, it didn't instantly kill her. He did see that the strike dealt a considerable amount of damage but not enough where he felt like it was severely wounded enough. Although he was successful in getting the queen's attention back on him.

She started trying to attack him with her large paws, but he was able to dodge out of the way easily enough. At least that was until she went to try to take a bite out of him. He was quickly able to use minor geo manipulation to create a stone wall that she accidentally bit on instead while backing away to put distance between him and her.

Using the distance he gained, he used minor geo manipulation to create a part of the ground in the shape of a disc under his feet, and used it to rapidly pull him further out of its range. He quickly jumped off of it once he was far enough away and then used that same control he had over the disk to fling it as fast as possible back at her. The stone disc slammed into one of the eyes of the queen with enough force that it smashed it.

It let out a loud scream in pain that shook the inside of the chamber and the alphas immediately tried to turn to focus on Ben, as it essentially had them change aggro to him. Despite that, Ben was not worried, as Marcelina and Charles took that chance to focus down on the remaining alphas, slicing and crushing their limbs as they tried to focus on Ben instead of them. This ended up giving Ben enough time to test something he had not tried before in the heat of combat.

He used Static Fists and the red lightning reappeared around his hands and arms. Due to the wording of Infuse Flame, he suspected that it might be possible to stack it with Static Fists. If this worked, it would be a major boost in damage output. If it didn't, it would just be a bit of wasted mana.

As he let the mana flow at that moment, he felt a sensation of exhilaration when he watched the flames ignite around his fists and arms. Now with his hands and arms coated in burning flame and arcing with red lightning, he rushed back into the fray with the queen creating another stone disc to rapidly move him across the battlefield. This time though, the queen was ready, and she quickly turned and smacked him off of the disc with her thorax. 

The force was strong enough he felt his left arm almost break as he used it to defend himself from the blow. It was definitely severely bruised and hurt to move, but the bones were still intact. But his focus was on the fact that he was rapidly flying into the nearby wall from the sheer force of the hit he took. As his back slammed into the wall of the cave, his world became consumed in pain. He then tumbled to the ground, now lying on the cave floor. The queen swiftly turned around and prepared to strike the final blow.