The Laughing Swordsman

One of the men furrowed his brows.

"You see something?"

He spun around, observing his surroundings.

"...I don't see anything."

As for the man with glowing eyes, he only panicked more.

"It's a... a monster!"

His breathing became heavy.

"Run... we have to run!"

He bolted off, coincidentally heading towards Apollo and Layla. The entire time, he was screaming.

The other men brushed it off as a joke.

In fact, one of them could not stop himself from laughing.

"Haha, since when was he such a wuss? Heh, let me tell you about a time he acted all high and-"

The man was interrupted.

The upper half of his body was ripped from his legs.

Blood sprayed across the trees.

While his lower body fell lifelessly, his torso was held up in the air.

There was a dull expression on his face. He died before he could even register the pain.

The upper half of his body rapidly transformed to a deep black.

And like dust carried by the wind, his body decomposed into little black specks, floating off into the atmosphere.

"Damn!"

"What the hell?"

After letting out a few curses, the remaining men ran without hesitation.

However, it was already too late.

The stragglers at the back were immediately torn apart.

They shared the same fate as the first, dying and rotting into numerous black specks.

The men quickly lost their composure.

"No...No!"

"This has to be a joke!"

"Dammit, this is for the greater good!"

One of the men grabbed his compatriot and tossed him back.

The man who was sacrificed had a nasty expression on his face.

"You bas-"

He was torn apart before he could finish his sentence.

They struggled. At the brink of death, many unleashed their potential, running at speeds they never reached before.

Yet...

It was futile.

Despair ran rampant among the group.

They died like they were disposable. Like their existence was worthless.

Though their eyes reeked of hopelessness, their instincts forced their bodies to move.

Other than the man who ran off first, they all died one after another.

The lone survivor caught sight of Apollo and Layla.

He directly ran towards them.

"Help me! You have to help me..."

Layla giggled.

"I want to play too!"

She dashed towards the man.

The last survivor was filled with hope.

He thought that someone had come to save him.

There was a grateful smile on his face.

"Yes, thank you! I will repay-"

The smile froze on his face.

Layla had torn the man in two, just like how the others died.

She cheered, holding up the man's torso high above her.

"Yay, I win!"

The man could feel his consciousness slipping away from him.

In his last moments, he could still not fully comprehend what happened to him.

"...Why does it... hurt... so much?"

The corner of Apollo's lip twitched.

A tiny seed of fear seeped into his heart.

Not because of her strength, but her strange cruelty.

For some reason, the butterfly flashed in his mind.

The butterfly that died trying to run from Layla.

Apollo took a deep breath.

Layla was innocent.

However, she was too innocent. Because she didn't understand common sense, she committed various gruesome acts.

To her, it was all just a game.

Layla held up the torso with a smile.

"Hehe, do you want to play with him? It's ok, you can have him!"

To Apollo, it looked like she was talking to the air.

However, at this point, he knew better than to think nothing was there.

Apollo looked using his blindspot.

There was a strange creature standing near Layla.

It was roughly three meters tall. Its skin was a deep blue that touched the edge of being black.

It had a long head, like a horse. However, other than a gaping jaw, there were no facial features. There were rows of needlessly long, but small, teeth.

The rest of its body was relatively humanoid but scraggly. The creature had six fingers on top of opposable thumbs. Like its body, its fingers were as thin as twigs.

It was quite grotesque, especially because of the saliva dripping down from its mouth.

However, to Layla, its unsettling appearance was normal.

The creature gave a deep bow to Layla. Following that, it gingerly took the corpse from Layla's grasp.

The creature sunk its teeth into the corpse, causing it to rapidly decay into black dust.

It waved to Layla, then scurried off into the forest.

Layla waved back.

"Bye!~"

Apollo walked over to Layla.

"What was that thing?"

Layla giggled.

"A friend!"

Apollo sighed.

"...Alright."

Why was he expecting a normal answer in the first place?

He looked towards the penumbra tree. Although some of the fruit was harvested, there was still some left.

Apollo pointed towards the tree.

"Should we get some of that?"

Layla perked up.

"Ohh! Yes, please!"

The pair walked over to the penumbra tree and shared the remaining fruits of light.

Apollo thought about the conversation from earlier.

The scavengers... weren't as noble as Galileo thought they were. It seemed the food shortage problem wasn't because of the shadow monkeys.

But the people collecting the food.

Apollo sighed.

He considered it a fortunate thing. After all, this misunderstanding gave him a mission to do and a reward to claim.

Apollo felt drowsy from the fruit of light.

He sat down on a branch but held back the urge to fall asleep.

Suddenly, his eyes let out a faint glow.

The black mist became thicker while the range of his vision increased.

In the distance, he could see many shadow monkeys.

There were mostly in groups, however, there were also many stragglers.

That was when he saw one of the stragglers suddenly decay into black mist.

After focusing, he could catch a glimpse of what killed the shadow monkey.

It was the creature from earlier.

The creature flickered in and out of Apollo's vision.

Once it was done with its meal, it chased after other stragglers.

The shadow monkeys were faster than it, so the creature could not catch its prey easily.

But then.... nearly a hundred of these creatures encircled the shadow monkeys.