The Laughing Swordsman

Apollo wasn't expecting it. Otis suddenly canceled the ability and used the vines coming out of his heart to shove Apollo up with all he had.

It wasn't necessarily strong. If Apollo was prepared for it, he could've easily resisted and rendered it ineffective.

However, he didn't react in time.

Apollo felt a strong pull, almost like he was being forcefully dragged away by several people. His immediate reaction was to resist the pull and fly downwards.

But it was already too late.

Apollo was essentially caught up in a tornado. The force was so strong, it didn't feel like wind, but some resilient solid object pushing him around. He didn't give up on resisting despite that.

Apollo's laughs reverberated throughout the air while his eyes were bloodshot from the wind that was pressing down on him.

He truly was exerting his body to its limits.

Unfortunately, it just wasn't enough.

It was as though Apollo became a leaf, helplessly taken by the wind. He constantly rose up higher, almost like the direction that gravity was pulling him wasn't down, but up.

As for Otis, he began to tremble. It was unknown whether or not Apollo was killed or even harmed by his actions, but that wasn't what mattered. Otis did not back down and eventually won the fight, in a certain sense.

He himself was probably more injured than Apollo and might even die right here. However, that fact stood. Otis didn't realize it, but his body was trembling violently. The damage he took while pushing both him and Apollo up was tremendous.

As for how bad they were, Otis couldn't really tell since the only thing he could rely on was a visual assessment of the wounds.

Since Otis lost the ability to feel, the severity of the pain wasn't known to him.

Otis attempted to move, but found his limbs stopped responding to him. It seemed that his body forcefully shut down those functions due to the sorry state that it was in.

With a bit of resignation, Otis laid down on the vine below him and covered up his wounds with white flowers that somehow grew on top of his skin.

From there, he simply carried himself away.

Otis hadn't given up on Apollo, but before that, he had to make sure that death wasn't imminent. After all, how was Otis supposed to know it succeeded if his eyes didn't witness it.

The whole process appeared slightly off as Otis' expression was dull, as though he were dead. On top of that, it was pretty easy to tell that the condition of his body was in bad shape, life-threatening even.

Yet, Otis looked at his wounds with an eerily calm expression.

It almost looked like a corpse came to life, looked at itself, and said something along the lines of, 'Oh, that's my body.'

With that, Otis began leaving the toxic wasteland. As for his destination, not even he knew.

Currently, Layla was on the ground. The ground below her was coated with a thick pile of ash. Though before this place was very damp from the filth rain, it was quite dry now.

Layla was pouting and looking up to the sky, where Otis and Apollo were.

"I want to play too!"

After a bit of sulking, she flapped both arms up and down like a child pretending to be a bird. Unfortunately, other than blowing aside the nearby ashes, her body remained stationary.

For a moment, Layla simply stood there looking up into the sky. After several minutes passed, she began stamping her foot against the ground.

Once Layla realized that not only Otis was leaving, but Apollo wasn't coming back down, she got really upset.

"Where is friend goinggggg!"

Layla let out a distressed hum while throwing a tantrum. In frustration, she kicked at a hill in front of her.

A deafening bang resounded.

The majority of the hill was now in the air in the form of scattered dirt and stones, flying far off into the distance. A cone-shaped crater had formed on the hill. What remained of it were a few pieces of debris that were left out.

Layla did not succeed in venting out her frustrations. She stood there quietly for a few moments before crossing her arms.

"Friend is so mean!"

After a few more moments, Layla stamped her foot on the ground, causing tremors to reverberate within the ground of the toxic wasteland.

"Why did friend leave?"

  Eventually, Layla stopped and looked upward once again with a sad expression. She began to flap her arms once more, trying to fly, but without any success.

"Mmmmm!"

Then, Layla crouched down on the ground and pressed her lips together.

Suddenly, an ear-splitting bang resounded, shaking the air.

Layla shot up into the sky at frighteningly fast speeds. She quickly reached the strange section of wind that carried Apollo up. However, something strange happened.

While Apollo was carried upwards, the winds seemed resistant against Layla. Although she pierced through the wind at monumental speeds, it slowed down rapidly.

It was as though Layla's speed was working against her.

In the end, she was sent back down to the ground like a meteor. After crashing, several massive fragments of the ground shot into the air.

At this point, Layla sat down on the ground with her hands wrapped around her legs. She laid her head in between her knees as tears began to form.

"Friend... if only I could fly, then I could see friend."

At that moment, a familiar light green insect skittered over to Layla. It was covered in dust, probably from the destruction Layla caused earlier. Yet, despite witnessing it first hand, the insect wasn't afraid and even began approaching Layla

Once the insect reached Layla's foot, it tapped that foot a few times.

"Fwend?"

Layla perked up and looked at the insect curiously.

"...Can friend teach me how to fly?"

The insect scratched the side of its head with its arm.

Then nodded.