The Laughing Swordsman

The insect let loose on the cougar underneath it, putting its all into mauling its skin.

There was not a single trace of mercy. The insect never paused its attack for a single second, slashing it with one arm, then the next, over and over again.

A battle cry was let out by this mercilessly savage beast!

"Waaaaaaaa"

It was a massacre, some people wouldn't be able to stop themselves from saying, the horror!

...Well, at least from the insect's perspective.

It truly was raining down countless strikes in the matter of seconds, but each would only slightly tear through the cougar's skin which would heal right after. The damage was so little that the cougar didn't even bother shifting its attention.

It would hardly take any effort for the cougar to create a new makeshift arm on top of its body and then crush the insect on top of it, but that would just be a waste of time.

However, the cougar was still panicking fervently. As of now, it was only its bottom half. Because the cougar was too hasty in creating new legs, it moved forward awkwardly, sometimes stopping in place and sometimes even going backward.

Instead of taking a couple extra seconds to form real limbs, the cougar decided to continue stumbling as though it was an old man trying to breakdance.

Together with the insect on top letting out a confident warcry, it looked like a strange alternate universe version of bull riding.

As that was happening, Apollo continued to slash at the top half of the cougar, or what was left of it.

By now, there was only a small pile of black ash with several makeshift hook arms at the end. Although there were over ten arms, only one of them could move.

And it did so slowly while faintly trembling.

The arm lifted into the air and landed into the ground. However, before it could pull, there was nothing left to pull. The body that it was attached to had completely turned into black ash.

Then, each arm followed, all disappearing one by one.

Once the last arm became black ash that flaked off, Apollo didn't even spare a second glance before charging towards the bottom half of the cougar.

It only took several seconds to reach it, since the distance covered really was too small. The insect paused its slashes and turned to look at Apollo. Then, as though it understood something, the insect jumped off and ran back to Layla.

With that, Apollo was left to swing mercilessly at the cougar. He did not hold back at all, using both his free hand and bokken to swing. This was despite the fact his free hand was missing both the thumb and pinky.

It was as though the cougar was a log going through a woodchipper, essentially being ground into black ash.

As for the insect, it was standing to the side, but similarly whipped its arms around. Although the power behind its attacks was far too weak to be of any threat, it was able to imitate Apollo almost perfectly.

If nothing else, it was a very quick learner.

On the other hand, the cougar wasn't doing too well. Till the very end, it tried to use its faulty front legs to bring itself forward but accomplished nothing.

In the end, the cougar faded into the wind, in quite a literal sense.

By the end of it all, Apollo lost both his index and ring finger. That meant he was constantly sticking up the middle finger like he was a teenager with bad taste.

Apollo's breathing was ragged, combined with suppressed laughter.

After twitching his head to the side a few times, he calmed down.

Apollo wasn't hit the entire time. The only injury he got was basically self inflicted, on his now constantly profane hand.

He walked over to the insect and Layla while new flesh and bone squirmed around to replace his lost fingers.

"It's done."

Layla clapped a few times.

"Then let's go! There are still many more fun things to see!"

Apollo took a deep breath, still calming down from the previous fight.

"...Have you been here before?"

Layla skipped ahead with her arms spread out to her sides, but still answered Apollo's question.

"Yeah, once or twice!"

Apollo tilted his head to the side.

"So do you know where the high-level toxic creatures we were supposed to capture alive are?"

Layla's furry ears twitched.

"Mmm... Those friends can be all over the place! But there is one over there!"

She proceeded to point in front of herself.

Apollo's eyes followed her finger, but couldn't see anything up ahead. However, he trusted her.

"Then let's hurry."

Apollo sprinted forth.

Seeing this, Layla followed after him, not wanting to be left behind.

"Wait for meeeee!"

As for the insect, it began to panic seeing the two of them run away.

"Waiy fur meeeee!"

With its tiny legs, it skittered on ahead, but was unable to match the pace of Layla and Apollo. It was as though the mom and dad had abandoned their kid.

Though to be fair, it wasn't as though Apollo and Layla were actually the insect's parents. There were several points that made that obvious, such as the fact the supposed parents consisted of a human and a cat girl, while the child was an insect. Though the biggest point was definitely the fact Apollo and Layla were children.

Still, the betrayal the insect felt was very real, though that didn't stop it from running after them.

As for Apollo and Layla, it did not take long for them to reach a high-level toxic creature, the humanoid version. Layla had good eyes, which was pretty convenient.

Apollo looked at Layla, recalling how she almost killed all the two-horned demons when they were supposed to take the gemstones.

"Don't kill it."

Layla pouted.

"Ok, ok!"

One of the creature's eyes pivoted towards Apollo and Layla.

The creature spotted them.