The Laughing Swordsman

Apollo's bokken tore apart the secondary reformed being in two. The halves shot to the side, letting Apollo and Layla pass through.

Apollo turned around to look at the result of his attack, but the results weren't ideal.

Although the secondary reformed being was torn in two, tendrils of flesh immediately shot out from the wounds. These tendrils combined with each other and forcefully pulled the secondary reformed being together.

Just like that, it was good as new.

The entire process only took a couple of seconds.

Apollo continued laughing, as though mocking the secondary reformed being's efforts. However, he was going to have to take this battle seriously, else it would never end.

Apollo dashed forward, as did the being. 

Apollo raised his bokken, while the being raised both its claws.

Red scars snaked across Apollo's arms, and the being roared.

The two reached each other in the blink of an eye. Apollo's wild eyes met with the being's. Despite lasting for only a fraction of a second, they seemed to have a staredown with one another.

Both of them had frighteningly strong regeneration, meaning that a battle between the two of them would last long.

And so, the start of a bitter battle was about to beg-

"Nyah!"

...Or, at least, that was how it seemed like it would go.

A thundering boom resounded.

Right before the two collided, Layla decided to join in. Her participation involved slapping the secondary reformed being. However, as casual as it was for her, it contained a devastating force.

The secondary reformed being blasted back, slamming through several walls. By the time it stopped, it was already reduced to paste.

As for Apollo, he too was launched backward while part of his spine directly cracked. The recoil from Layla's slap nearly ripped Apollo's spine out of his hip.

And so, the two of them flew out to the streets.

Which was teeming with black beings of all kinds.

However, almost all of them were reformed black beings, courtesy of Willow and Hex. The black beings screeched before charging towards Apollo and Layla.

Apollo responded by tracing a horizontal arc with his bokken, directly splitting several of them apart.

Along with him, Layla enthusiastically smashed any black being that got within her range. She had a bright smile on her face, like she was having the best time in the world. Her tail swayed violently, making the little bell at the end let out many jingles.

Apollo arbitrarily chose a direction and bolted forwards. He would slash any black being in front of him while Layla took care of the ones to the sides and behind him.

Apollo continued laughing loudly, with widened eyes.

However, he no longer tried to wrestle Layla off of him.

It was almost like Apollo was trying to say he would temporarily accept this arrangement.

Not that he actually had a choice, but...

...

A small frown was forming on Willow's face.

All things considered, it was more or less the ideal situation. Thankfully, Hex didn't try to attack her, even when she got fairly close to him. Although Hex was fast, Willow could just barely keep up by disappearing and straining her wings.

On top of that, her strategy of culling the black beings after Hex had slashed them was going fine.

But there was only one small problem that made Willow frown.

She underestimated the sheer quantity of black beings. There were far too many. It was to the extent that they outnumbered the number of people that should've been in the empire.

Together with Hex, Willow was able to heavily reduce their numbers. In a certain sense, one could see Hex as a lawnmower while Willow was the one pushing it. By working together, they were able to cut through plenty of grass, which was kind of satisfying.

Yet, it was hard to even notice this decrease given how many black beings there were. At this rate, the corpses of the fallen black beings would probably continue to combine into even more powerful versions.

The secondary reformed beings did not require that much flesh to become the monstrosities that they were, yet presented a fair amount of trouble, anyway.

...So what would happen after all of the flesh combined into one?

Willow shook her head and swung her pitch black sword, mashing some pieces of black flesh further.

Although Willow held her doubts, she couldn't stop now. If nobody cleaned up after Hex, the situation would spiral out of control far too fast.

Unfortunately, Willow could only slow down this loss of control, but not stop it.

In their killing spree, quite a few secondary reformed beings appeared. This was because Hex had been arbitrarily choosing where to go, sometimes backtracking to places he had already been in.

As such, quite a few reformed black beings died, giving rise to the secondary reformed beings.

One of them directly charged towards Hex like a reckless bull.

In response, Hex raised the sleeve without a claw and began gathering dark green mist. He continued to giggle softly, showing how little he cared about the foe in front of him.

And rightfully so.

Once the secondary reformed being was a few meters away, Hex released a violent surge of dark green energy, directly blasting it into several large pieces. It was as though the being stepped on a mine with several tons of dynamite underneath.

This sight made Willow furrow her brows.

If she wanted to further slash the pieces of flesh left by the secondary reformed being, that would mean leaving Hex unattended. 

Although she believed taking care of that flesh was important, the core of the issue was how these secondary reformed beings came to be. And so, she ignored them.

However, that didn't mean the other secondary reformed beings would do the same.

Three secondary reformed beings approached from behind Willow, meaning that Hex wouldn't deal with them. After all, he was focused on killing those in front of him.

Beads of sweat formed on Willow's forehead.

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