The Laughing Swordsman

The high-level toxic creature had skin with colors ranging from black, brown, and yellow randomly plastered across its skin. It matched the natural ground below it pretty well, meaning it would be fairly hard to make out while lying down on the ground.

This variation wasn't extraordinarily tall, standing at three meters high. However, it was still quite a bit taller than Apollo and Layla.

The creature did not have a head, but rather two eyes attached to two lines of flesh. Those two eyes were independent of each other, so each eye could look in one direction.

As for the set of jaws in the middle of its chest, they were open a little and moved a little as though breathing.

Upon noticing Layla and Apollo approaching it, the creature dug its claw deep into the ground, then pulled upwards, scattering large amounts of dirt towards the two.

Layla raised one hand and made a slapping motion, stirring up large gales that directly blew the dirt aside.

Once it cleared, the creature was revealed.

...And it was running away.

Layla giggled.

"Too slow!"

As she said, the creature was running fairly fast, but it was still slower than both of their speeds. However, the creature kept one eye forward to see where it was running and the other eye backward to see how close they were.

Thus, the creature was able to tell that they were fast approaching.

However, instead of turning back to fight, it was insistent on fleeing. Suddenly, the creature dug into the ground, escaping into the earth as though falling into a pool of water.

Apollo's eyebrow twitched. He didn't have any real way of following the creature. However, Layla simply dived into the ground as though it wasn't actually solid.

Before Layla left, Apollo called out to her.

"Remember, don't kill it!"

Layla had dug partway into the ground, causing her voice to be muffled.

"I know!"

With that, Apollo's steps slowed to a stop. He stood there awkwardly, waiting for Layla to be back with the creature.

Apollo looked around occasionally, but there was nothing to see. He tapped his foot against the ground and rested his bokken on his shoulder.

There was a faint rumbling sound coming from the ground. Suddenly, the high-level toxic creature burst out of the ground, flying high into the sky, dispersing quite a lot of dirt into the air. One of its arms was missing while dark red blood spilled out of the stump that remained.

Layla hopped out right after, shooting towards the creature.

Apollo's eyelid twitched.

"No killing!"

Layla had her claw pulled back all the way, ready to attack. However, once she heard Apollo's words, she calmed herself down.

"No killing!"

Layla decided to go for a grab instead of attacking.

The creature flailed its remaining limbs around, but Layla easily caught onto its ankle. Before it could struggle any further, Layla flung it downwards, causing its leg to directly snap off.

The creature shot towards the ground like a laser beam.

A thundering boom reverberated through the air.

The creature hit the ground hard forming a large crater in the ground. However, despite taking on such a large impact and losing both an arm and a leg, it was alive.

The creature pushed off the ground and awkwardly hobbled on its remaining leg. Seeing this, Apollo let out a sigh of relief. He charged forth, wanting to take care of it from here as it was a bit hard to trust Layla's process.

The creature saw him coming with one of its eyes and raised its remaining claw. Apollo didn't bother dodging as he didn't see the need to and met its strike with his bokken head on.

A deafening bang resounded.

Apollo's feet sank into the ground, even cracking the ground underneath him. He was pushing his bokken against the creature's claw. They were interlocked together and faintly trembling.

The two of them pushed against the other with as much force as they could muster. Like Apollo, the creature's foot had sunk into the ground.

This was a little surprising to Apollo as the first impression it gave off was a helpless weak creature. However, it had a surprising amount of strength.

It was much more than the cougar's, though its regenerative power seemed far weaker.

However, their stalemate wasn't going to last long.

After all, Layla wasn't just going to sit still.

"Wah!"

She plunged down from the air, aiming straight for the creature. Apollo looked up and noticed what was about to happen. This immediately caused him to panic as he wasn't confident in the creature surviving.

Apollo took a step backwards, breaking their clash. The creature tripped forward from the sudden change in force.

Then, a boom reverberated.

Layla landed on the creature's remaining leg, smashing it into paste. She continued on, slamming into the ground and scattering stone fragments high into the air.

As the creature fell over, Apollo's bokken flashed.

The creature's last limb, its arm, was cut off.

The process wasn't the cleanest, but at least now the creature should be impaired pretty badly due to the loss of its limbs.

Apollo let out a soft sigh and began thinking how he could bring this thing to the shadow world.

That was when the mouth on the creature's chest opened wide, spitting out several red tendrils. Apollo instinctively slashed the ones coming for him. However, Layla simply stood there, letting them wrap around her arm.

Cold sweat formed on Apollo's forehead.

Not because he was scared for Layla, but for the creature.

Layla raised her arm, lifting the creature high into the air.

Apollo reached out with his hand.

"Wait!"

However, he warned too late.

Layla slammed the creature down onto the ground. With a bang, another crater formed. As for the creature, its body became a mangled mess and no longer moved.

Apollo turned to Layla and looked her dead in the eye.

"...I said no killing."

Layla looked away.

"Hehe...."