The Laughing Swordsman

The dark green insects swarmed Apollo, almost like they had become a hurricane. As for Apollo, he was slashing his bokken. It appeared like a blur to the naked eye, proving that it was moving fast.

Unfortunately, it was not fast enough.

The dark green insects continued to bite at Apollo, rending away more and more of his flesh. Although he was healing, it was not enough to replace how much he was losing.

Layla wasn't helping and had no intentions of doing so, meaning Apollo was on his own. His body began releasing large amounts of heat, red scars snaked across his skin, and his muscles tightened to their limits.

Apollo's strikes became faster.

His laughs gradually climbed in volume, while his eyes began to widen.

...But it was not enough.

There were simply far too many bugs. In just a second, hundreds of bugs would die from a few of Apollo's slashes, but a hundred and one would replace them.

It was as though he was a corpse nailed to a wall, being pecked away slowly by crows.

The insects crawled under his clothes, skittering freely with their little legs. It did not take long for nearly all of Apollo's skin to be peeled off, while his flesh began to follow.

To replace the skin, was a nasty combination of both his bright red blood and the dark green blood of the insects.

Apollo was completely overwhelmed.

Not by strength, but by numbers.

With every strike of his bokken, the insects would be reduced to liquid. If this was a video game and the insects had health bars, the damage would be enough to overkill them several times over.

However, that excess damage did nothing for Apollo, as it did not matter how fast he killed the insects, but the fact that they died.

Apollo was acutely aware of this fact, but he couldn't think of any true method to fix it. After all, increased speed also meant increased strength, right?

Arcs of lightning crackled around Apollo's body. He wanted to throw a giant wave of lightning and blow each of them away.

They rapidly gathered towards his bokken.

...Then disappeared.

As the arcs of lighting traveled up to Apollo's bokken, they would end up zapping one of the many insects nearby. While many of the insects were being electrocuted and killed, it also meant that Apollo was unable to gather the lightning on top of it.

The extra killing power provided by the lightning did not do that much as swinging his bokken normally already killed any insect that it touched. The only thing the lightning did was zap the bugs that were already going to die and catch a few stragglers on the side.

Apollo decided to keep channeling the lightning for as long as he could anyway, despite the lack of effectiveness.

After all, he needed anything he could get right now.

Within the hurricane of insects, streaks of lighting traveled across it. However, the small amount of lightning was insignificant compared to the sheer size of the hurricane.

The insects had already peeled away most of the fat on Apollo's body and began peeling away his muscles.

That was bad. Like, really bad.

Although Apollo was strong, he depended on his muscles to move. 

If he could no longer move, he would be unable to swing his bokken. 

If he couldn't swing his bokken, he wouldn't be able to fight back against the insects.

If he couldn't fight back against the insects, he would die.

Apollo could sense his death hanging over him, like a sword held up with a thin piece of string.

Ready to fall at any moment.

Apollo continued swinging his bokken madly, laughing with a needlessly loud volume. In a certain sense, it was like the struggles of a drowning man.

The man flailed his arms around wildly, causing water to splash around pointlessly. It not only used up far too much energy, but did very little to keep the man afloat.

Apollo's first instinct when overwhelmed was to use brute strength and if that didn't work, just use more brute strength.

Like a certain saying about duct tape.

But that wouldn't work.

Suddenly, Apollo saw himself back in his own room, being attacked by Willow on all ends. He did not have strength or speed, but had to fight against someone both stronger than him and faster. Not only was the force behind each attack enough to snap his wrist, but the experience was like being surrounded and being attacked on all ends.

It was here he refined his technique several times over, dying countless times in search of a light that would let him pierce through the darkness.

Apollo laughed even louder.

So why was he like this?

The insects tore even more flesh off of him, making even his bones visible in certain sections.

Apollo had fought off Willow, someone both stronger and faster than him. How did it make sense that he was having so much trouble with these insects?

Sure, there were countless of them, but their strength could not even be compared to his.

Apollo's eyes widened further.

He had become rusty.

Anger boiled up, not targeted towards the insects, but himself.

Refine.

He had to refine his technique.

The synapses in Apollo's brain fired madly, causing his perception of time to slow down.

He had to go faster, like the wind.

No, not the wind, like lightning.

An insect directly bit into Apollo's eyeball, sending strong signals of pain to his brain. But it was not enough to interrupt his thoughts.

Apollo felt light, almost like a feather.

And that wasn't because most of his body had disappeared.

Refine...

Apollo gradually came to a familiar feeling, one he had as he fought against Willow.

Refine it.

Apollo felt he was in perfect control of his body, but this time he seemed to be surpassing it, surpassing perfection itself.

At some point, Apollo no longer saw himself swinging a sword, but flowing through water.

Refine it, to become something greater than perfect.