The Laughing Swordsman

Yzan looked at Apollo strangely, as though trying to contemplate whether or not he wanted to fight.

After a few moments, it spoke up.

"Why do you wish to fight?"

Apollo tilted his head to the side.

"Why not?"

Yzan took a deep breath, obviously unsure of whether or not he wanted to do this.

"You... are you going to be like that guy?"

He pointed towards Vicar, who innocently pointed at himself.

"Who? Me?"

Yzan nodded.

"Yes, you. The last time we had a spar, you would not stop charging in after healing yourself over and over again. It took nearly a day for me to convince you to stop."

Vicar blinked a few times.

"What are you talking about? That wasn't even that long of a spar. At most, it was a third of the day."

Yzan slammed its claw against the side of the mountain.

"That's still an unreasonably long time to have a spar! Especially when it only consisted of me hitting you away and you coming back to get hit once more!"

Vicar cleared his throat.

"I was simply experimenting with the various techniques that I was able to come up with."

Yzan seemed a little aggrieved.

"But was it truly necessary to do so for so long?"

Vicar blinked a few times.

"It's not like you have anything better to do."

Yzan was speechless for a moment.

"I'll have you know enjoying my rest is quite liberating, alright?"

Apollo scratched the side of his head.

"So... can we spar then?"

Yzan looked towards Apollo, giving him a long stare. Then eventually, it sighed.

"I suppose there truly isn't that much more for me to do. Very well. We can spar"

Suddenly, an extremely strong pressure assaulted Apollo. Though his knees did not buckle, a few cracking sounds came from his body as it resisted. It was so oppressive that Apollo could feel his bones grinding against one another just when he was standing still.

Then, he tried taking a step forward.

Several cracking sounds resounded as his skin stretched strangely just to move around. Apollo's eyebrow twitched.

...He couldn't comprehend how Vicar was able to fight despite being subjected to pressure like this.

Apollo was already on the precipice of losing, and Yzan hadn't actually moved himself. Vicar looked at Apollo then tilted his head to the side.

"Why are you taking so long just to walk up to him?"

Yzan stared at Apollo for a good few seconds before letting out a chuckle.

"It seems that people can't normally walk towards me while facing my pressure, while you are the anomaly, Vicar."

Vicar ended up raising an eyebrow.

"What? It isn't that strong, alright? I am not an anomaly."

Yzan clicked his tongue.

"Then why is it taking your friend so long to walk forwards?"

Vicar shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know."

Yzan sighed.

"It's because not everybody is like you! Don't you understand that? People like us aren't normal!"

Vicar blinked a few times.

"And now here you are, proclaiming that we are some sort of special species."

Yzan seemed to be at a loss for words. Eventually, it turned to look at Apollo and sighed.

"You can't possibly fight with the condition you are in. Why don't you just give up?"

Apollo ended up smiling.

"What? You think I can't win?"

Yzan opened its mouth and closed it a few times.

"It does not appear that you are faring well under the pressure that my body exudes, isn't that just the natural belief that I should have?"

Apollo laughed a little bit.

"Don't get ahead of yourself."

He reached towards his bag of food pellets with his free arm. It ended up letting out quite a few frightening cracking sounds as it did so. Until eventually, he got a few of them and put them into his mouth.

Yzan simply stared curiously.

"...What exactly are those concentrated balls of sustenance supposed to do?"

Apollo had suffered various internal injuries just from existing underneath the pressure. However, other than that, it wasn't able to do much. He began laughing a little more intensely, while his eyes widened.

Apollo unattached the entire bag of food pellets, then without really thinking about the consequences, dumped all of them into his mouth.

The dragon blinked a few times.

"Are we having a food eating contest?"

Almost immediately, Apollo's body exploded out into extremely large amounts of heat. The extra energy nearly overloaded his senses, and even let him resist the pressure on his own.

Apollo's body could sense the extra energy provided, and thus progressed on its way to another evolution. The energy gathered, ready to make an explosive change...

But it suddenly stopped.

The excess energy nearly made Apollo go insane as it felt like there was no place to channel it towards.

All of the build up had gathered to eventually reach a bottleneck.

Apollo grit his teeth, trying to think of some kind of solution.

Then, he pulled out a wind crystal from his pocket that caused the surrounding snow to swirl around it slightly.

He could remember that Mark had said something about this being useful to him. And so, Apollo decided that the use he had for it was to swallow it.

If Mark saw this, he would probably freak out a little, as if a normal person tried to consume it, they would probably end up dying in the process.

It was an object one was supposed to slowly refine, then by the end, they would've gained a 'uniqueness'.

However, it wasn't like Apollo knew that.

The sensation of the wind crystal slipping down his throat felt cool. Until eventually, it hit his stomach acid.

Almost immediately, violent surges of wind were stirred up, circling around Apollo. The surrounding snow whipped around in the form of a tornado around him.

Yzan's eyes widened.

"On my, what is this?"

Vicar tilted his head to the side.

"Eh, why didn't you just do this earlier?"

Apollo's eyes began shifting colors, becoming entirely white.