Hearing that she agreed giving him a sly grin, "Well if such a thing happens I will gladly accept."

Marcelina interrupted there banter and reminded them of the task at hand, "Well does that mean we can keep moving because I don't want to be in a hall in case whatever has been eating these corpses shows up?" 

"Yeah you're right. Let's keep moving," he agreed as they continued down the passageway once more through this hidden dungeon. 

After about 5 more minutes walking they found themselves approaching the opening of another larger area within and saw what looked like light. Upon getting closer they could tell that the light was coming from what looked like a bonfire. That didn't sound right to them as it would imply an intelligent creature inside. Thankfully though the light illuminated the room enough for them to see what was in there properly while remaining hidden in the shadows of the passageway. 

Munching on some of the corpses were short humanoid pangolin looking creatures with four eyes and four arms. They had stag antlers and their teeth resembled that of a shark not just in shape, but also in the multiple rows of retractable teeth that they seem to have. They were dressed in tribal clothing and speaking in grunty slurred simplistic sounds. They assume this was some kind of primitive tribal creature that they were all seeing for the first time. 

There seemed to be about 6 of these creatures in the room feasting on some of the corpses of the giant blue snakes that Roksazza had slain the last time she was here. They were so busy eating they didn't even look towards the passageway or the group was. They seemed to be about between 3ft to 3 and 1/2ft tall and very aggressive as they growled at each other whenever another came close to one of the corpses they were munching on. Now knowing what they were potentially going to have to fight the group prepared themselves.

They quietly tried to enter into the room, but the moment that they were all out of the hall the creatures caught a whiff of their scent. It look like there would be no sneaking up on them as they were spotted once the first one caught scent of them entering into that area. Preparing themselves they quickly grabbed their weapons and got ready for a fight. 

The group watched as the first of the creatures came rushing at them much faster than even the vinuu. It seemed these creatures were ferocious and fast as they were easily able to start closing distance in a matter of only a few seconds. But they were no match for the quick thinking of Benedictus. He stomped his foot and spikes appeared from beneath each of the creatures that were charging at them. 

Some of the creatures were able to dodge out of the way, but not all were so lucky. 2 of them ended up getting impaled instantly. Three of them dodged to the right and one dodged to the left. The one that had dodged to the left was unlucky as it was pounced upon by both Charles and Emma who quickly pinned it to the ground and started beating it to death. After severely pummeling it with their paws and horns, Emma grabbed one of its legs with her teeth and Charles did the same with one of its arms. They pulled in different directions and ripped it in half.

The first of the three that had dodged off to the right found itself being grabbed by the neck and smashed into the ground by the sheer strength of Roksazza. With her fist she punched it one time as hard as she could in its head. Not only was the blow strong enough to instantly exploded head like a squished watermelon, but it even left a sizable dent in the ground with large cracks forming around where her fist struck.

Another one had tried to pounce on Roksazza, but Marcelina didn't give it a chance to get close enough. While it was in mid-pounce she pierced it through the skull with her rapier. The blade had pierced through its eyes and out the other side of its head. It's body began to dangle on her rapier before she swiftly kicked it off of her blade. 

The last one started to seem afraid watching how in seconds the rest of its people were slaughtered. It wanted to run away but it never got a chance. The second it turned to flee it was charred to a crisp by a lightning strike from behind. 

As the traces of the lightning still ark around Benedictus' fingers after finishing off the last one, he looked to the others and said, "That was easy. They must not be that dangerous of enemies."

They all soon got a notification that they had gained XP. Realizing that this was all of the enemies in this room the group seem to silently all agree. These things were fast and aggressive, but ultimately currently weak in comparison to them. 

They offered about the same amount of XP as an alpha vinuu. Benedictus took this to mean that they were about comparable and strength to one. For lower level individuals these things would be quite dangerous, but as they currently stand these things were a mild inconvenience at best. 

The group took a moment to look around and check and see if there was anything of note or value. They saw that the creatures seem to have been stockpiling the soul cores left behind in the corpses that Roksazza was unable to claim. She didn't even seem to understand what they were or how Benedictus and Marcelina looked at the orbs with great joy. 

Stating her confusion she requested an explanation, "What are those things, and why do you both seem to be happy there's so many?"

"They're soul cores. Don't tell me you haven't found any before now," Marcelina quickly answered kind of assuming that Roksazza was joking.

Roksazza ask some follow-up questions, "What is a soul core and why is it important?"

"This must be your first time seeing one if you don't know the answer to that. Collecting these things you can trade them in in the Ascension Shop for items, gold, and a variety of different types of points. The more rare the core the more you get for trading it in," Benedictus answered while examining and placing all 12 soul cores in his inventory. 

Roksazza was utterly surprised by that information, "Wait really?!" 

"You must not have been scavenging the corpses. I was shocked to find my first one inside of a elite vinuu alpha. If I hadn't burned its body to a crisp I would have never spotted the orb inside.... Speaking of which it appears that we have 5 one-star cores and the remaining 7 are all two-star cores. This must mean that they didn't put the boss core here with the rest. They either haven't gotten to it yet or they have it somewhere else," Benedictus reminisced and then remarked. 

Marcelina realized what that meant and looked towards the passageway to the next area, "I guess we continue on into the boss room." 

"Thankfully it's just on that passageway. This place wasn't too big but the enemies here were quite vicious. They were all very tough due to their hard scales and they had a lot of raw strength. The boss was no joke either," Roksazza inform them based off of what she remembers about this dungeon the last time she was here. 

"What was the boss by the way," Benedictus asked while taking the lead once again and continuing down the passageway. 

"It was called a Infant Azure Lynwyrm. I'm assuming the adult ones were fastly bigger because it was huge," she answered.

The group made their way further in to the boss room. This passageway was much longer than the rest but when they made it to the boss room they saw the corpse of a giant blue scaled draconic creature that resembled the common depiction of the Chinese dragon. It was a little bit more serpentine in its facial features and instead of antlers it had ram horns. 

Although it looked dangerous it's body was now dead on the ground after having been clearly sliced thoroughly enough by Roksazza. Her sword was even still sticking out of the creature's skull where she dealt the finishing blow piercing its brain with her blade. They were actually surprised to see she was able to bring such a large beast down by herself, as it was nearly three times larger than an elephant and about twice as long as an adult anaconda.

They soon found that they weren't the only ones in the room as they quickly spotted another one of those tribal creatures. This one was performing some weird magical ritual as it was waving around a staff and green energy was channeling from it to the corpse of the creature. It seemed to have removed the soul core of the boss and also took its heart, placing both in between it and the corpse. 

It looked exhausted like it had been performing this ritual for days. But it chuckled with joy as it seems to be finally completing what it was doing. They watched as the heart dissolved and the soul core turned to ash. The liquefied heart seeped in through the creatures pores underneath its scales and it's blood began to glow with a blue light. The ashes of the soul core floated around the creature for a moment before burrowing into its chest.

In a matter of seconds it's bones began to crack and snap as it's flesh was torn and its body reshaped. It grew to nearly 7ft tall and it's muscles became much more defined and beefy. This thing started to look like an absolute unit of a monster. It's sandy yellow scales turned bright blue, and it's solid black eyes became solid green with a faint glow coming from them. It grew a second pair of antlers much smaller than the original pair and green lightning began arcing between the tips of its horns. It's tail suddenly sprouted large quilts like a porcupine. 

Marcelina immediately realized that they were probably about to get into a serious fight. She cursed, "Oh shit." 

"Brace yourselves for battle," Benedictus commanded them as the creature turned its attention to them. 

It then snapped its fingers and shouted a phrase in the weird language these creatures speak. Suddenly light began to emanate from the corpse of the boss monster. Green lightning began to streak from its eyes as its body began to move. 

"Well that's not okay. I already killed that thing once. Boshra! Looks like I'm doing this again," Roksazza complained seeing the creature that almost killed her last time start to rise once more as an undead servant of the now transformed creature. 

Benedictus pulled out his pistol and began channeling his mana in preparation for an attack. He complained while sighing, "Well fuck me. Looks like we're doing this the hard way."