The Laughing Swordsman

The dark green insects swarmed Apollo, who responded by swinging his bokken. His swings were gradually becoming light, yet faster.

Small arcs of lightning danced in the air, seemingly everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Apollo was able to kill numerous dark green insects. However, a few still slipped by him. In particular, was the arm that wielded the bokken. After all, he would have to change his grip on the bokken to hit that location.

Apollo could greatly minimize the damage he took if he focused on slashing normally, but he couldn't ignore the insects gnawing on his arm, as losing the muscles on his arm would spell doom.

Yet, trying to slash his arm with his bokken would also spell doom.

...Wait, why did he have to use his bokken?

Apollo had a hand that was completely free, ready to attack, but didn't take advantage of it. It wasn't like he hadn't used his hand as a sword before.

Apollo was simply too conditioned to swing just his bokken. It was what he had been doing for so long.

But only through change, could one adapt and become stronger.

Apollo stretched out his fingers, pretending his hand was a sword. Then traced an arc towards his arm.

Apollo's hand blurred while several insects on top of his arm burst into dark green blood. He felt as though the entire time he had been trying to make his way through the darkness on his own, as aimless as he could be.

However, a tiny light had formed high in the air.

It was a star.

The arcs of lightning that were initially gathering on Apollo's bokken shifted to his hand. Now, anything that touched his hand would be electrocuted to death, giving it a similar lethality to his bokken.

Focusing on two hands was noticeably harder than just one, forcing Apollo to strain his attention to his limits.

Thankfully, his brain was able to keep up, albeit just barely.

As time passed, Apollo refined his technique further, moving around both his bokken and hand fluidly. If there weren't any insects, the way Apollo swung didn't appear to be for the purpose of fighting, but as a dance performance.

His bokken flashed, splitting several insects into two. What remained of them fell to the ground with a plop, letting out dark green blood.

His hand blurred. Several insects were electrocuted, becoming black. They fell to the ground while sizzling, but were otherwise intact.

While the insects were still able to land on Apollo, they would die immediately afterwards. As such, his body was gradually regenerating.

However, Apollo wasn't done here.

He continued to improve his technique, not getting faster, but appearing to increase in speed.

Apollo looked up into the darkness. One after another, stars appeared.

Until a vast starry expanse was before him.

The light was weak, hardly giving Apollo vision. But it was enough.

He moved his arms around like snakes. To the naked eye, it even seemed like Apollo didn't have bones.

Several tiny arcs of lightning danced within the swarm along with faint blurs.

The insects were pushed back further and further and at some point, they couldn't even get close to Apollo's body.

Apollo looked like a mess, covered with the amount of blood he had on him. However, he was still laughing proudly.

After a few minutes of this prolonged assault, the insects retreated in sync, then flew far away. Despite their suicidal tactics earlier, it seemed they were afraid of Apollo once they realized they stood no chance.

It was as though the clouds parted, revealing a sunny day.

Apollo survived.

His breathing was haggard, while his vision was blurry.

Under his feet were countless insect corpses, killed in various ways, and dark green blood.

Viscous dark green blood slowly dripped off his body, which was quite disgusting, to say the least. Under normal circumstances, Apollo would be repulsed by the situation he was in.

However, he was simply too weak to care.

As the dark green blood continued to slide off, it revealed bright red flesh. Even if one tried really hard, they would be unable to discern a single piece of skin still attached to his body. In fact, even one of Apollo's eyes was missing, plucked off during the fight.

Not even his lips had survived. They were torn off completely, revealing Apollo's white teeth that were especially striking with the dark red flesh around them. Naturally, Apollo could no longer smile in this state, but he was still giggling.

Such a sight was unsettling, but...

"Ah, friend is finished playing?"

Layla looked over and tilted her head to the side, not caring about Apollo's appearance in the slightest. Her hands were covered with a thick amount of dark green liquid, while her mouth was messily covered by it too. She had finished one of the hexagonal cells in its entirety.

As for Apollo, he just had enough with Layla, not bothering to even spare a second glance.

Apollo limped over to the nearest hexagonal cell, put his hand on the edge, then dipped his head straight into it. He definitely had his concerns over what effects this dark green liquid would have, but could hardly care about it at this point.

Apollo directly swallowed as much of it as he could. It was uncomfortable, but he did not slow.

The dark green liquid was very sweet. So sweet, that it was nasty.

There was nothing inherently wrong with the taste other than being too strong, similar to food that was far too spicy. Perhaps if a small amount of this dark green liquid was added to a meal, it could make it several times more appetizing.

However, Apollo didn't have anything like that.

And so, he burned his tongue in order to consume it. The hexagonal cell was rapidly drained of its contents.

Suddenly, Apollo lifted his head up high and took in a deep breath.

At the same time, a light green insect innocently tapped him on the ankle.