The Laughing Swordsman

The sudden increase in pressure caused Apollo's bones to creak. Yet, he continued forwards anyway. As for the lightning around him, it had become extremely violent, jumping around like overly excited children.

Then, it began to gather.

However, it didn't become a lightning bolt, but rather, a miniature lightning dragon. Once it had formed, it created a pressure of its own, considerably relieving the burden of pressure.

As for Yzan, he was only expecting a spar that would last one exchange, maybe two. From what he could tell, this was going to last a while if Apollo was just going to stand back up each time.

And as such, it longer wanted to play around. It sucked in a deep breath and opened its mouth wide. A giant ball of black flame formed at the end of his mouth.

As for Apollo, winds began to stir around him, causing the snow to lift and his hair to dance wildly. It gradually became corporeal, creating grey colored winds that obscured his figure.

Suddenly, Yzan let the giant ball of black flame loose, shooting it towards Apollo. It expanded rapidly as it traveled, soon becoming a diameter of twenty meters, nearly filling up Apollo's entire vision.

In response to this giant thing, he pushed his foot off the ground and suddenly disappeared.

Apollo shot forwards while within the shadow world. However, he could only go so far before he was pulled back out.

And unfortunately, it wasn't enough to completely evade the fireball. In the end, he suddenly found himself within it, immediately burning away at his skin and singeing his hair.

However, Apollo soon burst out of it, almost like he shot above the water to gasp for air. Though in this case, he gasped for a laugh. His skin had mostly burned away, including his eyelids. His heavily charred body continued to charge forth, while the lightning dragon also came to support him, swooping out from the fireball.

Black flames gathered on the end of Yzan's claw before he suddenly swiped, throwing a large blanket of flames. Apollo pulled his bokken back, letting corporeal grey winds gather around it, whipping around violently.

Then, he swung, pushing his thumb against the hilt.

A loud screech filled the air, almost like the sound of nails against a chalkboard.

Apollo had thrown a giant wind blade ahead of him, tearing through the air and even the ground. Upon hitting the flame wall, it burst through, also creating a giant gap for him to pass through.

He dashed on through, along with the lightning dragon, soon to be right in front of their target.

Yzan seemed really annoyed. He gathered a large amount of black energy in front of his mouth, and even brought up both hands to hold it up, expanding it further.

Then, Yzan let loose, spewing out an enormous wave of energy. The lightning dragon hurried out of the way, just barely escaping the range with its quick flight. On the other hand, Apollo was unable to do so.

He was hit full force by the energy, immediately feeling his skin peel away. Though Apollo pointed his bokken ahead of himself, the black energy was simply too pervasive. His regeneration could not keep up at the rate at which he was taking damage.

In other words, if it kept going on like this, he would soon find himself dead.

As though death was inspiration to him, like an artist on fire, Apollo came up with something on the fly. Strong forces of wind gathered at the tip of his bokken, swirling violently in a spiral. It assisted in diverting the black energy away from his body.

It helped him greatly, slowing down the rate at which he was taking damage. However, it couldn't block all of it. In the end, Apollo was taking more damage than he could handle.

First, it was his skin that peeled away, then the various fats covering his body. His eyelids had peeled off completely, making his eyes immediately bloodshot from the blck energy. His muscles reddened considerably, on the verge of tearing apart.

...Until eventually, Apollo was blown away.

He completely lost his footing, taken away by the winds. Soon after, Yzan also couldn't spew any more of that black energy.

However, there was something else also going for Yzan. The lightning dragon.

It let out an electrifying howl, crackling violently as it charged straight towards Yzan's neck with its mouth wide open.

This seemed quite promising, yet right when it was about to land, black flames suddenly sprouted from Yzan's body, raging violently.

The lightning dragon had caught fire, burning up rapidly. Nonetheless, it stubbornly bit down onto Yzan even as it burned into nothingness, until eventually it disappeared altogether.

The black flames obscured Yzan's figure entirely. At the place where there used to be two amber eyes, were now glowing with a bright red, almost matching Apollo's glowing white eyes.

...Well, at least how they were glowing before.

Currently, Apollo was lying on his back with no more strength to spare. Under normal circumstances, he would take out a few food pellets and eat them, thus letting him still have the energy to fight.

However, he had already consumed all of them to evolve. There was simply none left for him to use.

Yzan stomped onto the ground ferociously, causing a thundering boom to ring out. It let out a drawn out breath, ready to take on Apollo with all his might.

Yet, once the snow  cleared, it revealed that very person lying down on the ground powerlessly.

Yzan blinked a few times, almost unable to take the situation in.

"...Oh."

Vicar tilted his head to the side.

"If you still want to fight, I can participate."

Yzan clearly flinched, quickly dispelling the black flames around him. Then, he proceeded to shake his head back and forth as fast as he could, almost like a kid offered some extra vegetables.

"No thanks, no thanks."