The Laughing Swordsman

Apollo wasn't exactly thinking straight, but he could still hear Otis' words. Especially when Otis said that the only way he could burn it all down was with a phoenix flame...

The familiarity of that word struck a chord in his mind.

After all, he currently had a flicker of flame from the undying phoenix in his pocket. In other words, it was the very weakness that Otis mentioned.

Apollo attempted to reach into his pocket. However, in that short moment that hand wasn't attacking, countless mushrooms surrounded him, essentially suffocating him. While they didn't cause any real harm, they restricted Apollo.

He put his all into channeling the lightning in his body, then let it burst out into a wave. The surrounding mushrooms all turned to ash. Now, only the occasional arc of lightning appeared on Apollo's body. He was out of energy for now.

Once more, he attempted to reach for the black crystal on him, but quickly realized he wouldn't be fast enough.

Apollo immediately shifted to defending with both his hand and sword, no longer blocking all the mushrooms as easily due to the lack of lightning. Otis' eyes lit up when he saw this and thought it was an opportunity.

Countless hyphae shot towards Apollo with the intent to damage his body like a spear. Yet, right when they were about to reach, large amounts of lightning gathered around Apollo's body and zapped all the nearby hyphae.

In the end, they were still in a stalemate.

Although Apollo had something that could potentially turn the tables, he couldn't get to it. Apollo continued to try, but found his attempts were unsuccessful.

Otis furrowed his brows.

He noticed Apollo was acting a little different, but didn't know what changed.

Otis thought that his previous taunt might have worked to a certain extent and decided to continue.

"My senses are connected to every single plant I control. I will always know where anything is so long as they touch my plants. No matter what, every action is transparent if it's next to my plants!"

He smirked.

"You won't be able to escape me, nobody can!"

"Peek-a-boo!"

"AH!"

Otis' head snapped to the right, where he heard the voice, while his body recoiled backward. Layla was there. She had covered her face with both hands, then suddenly parted them to reveal her face.

It was as though Layla became a parent trying to entertain their child.

Otis let the mycelium carry himself away.

"How did you get there?"

He asked in genuine astonishment as he was not lying about his remark earlier. Otis really could tell where anybody was so long as they touched their plants.

Well, almost anybody.

For whatever reason, Otis could not even catch the slightest sign of Layla. Ironically enough, the only thing she was trying to do was have some fun.

Layla watched on for a little while but felt she was forgotten rather quickly. As such, she made her presence known.

This made Otis panic and doubt his senses.

He focused on growing mushrooms between him and Layla.

However, by doing so, Apollo was left unattended.

As such, he was free to do what he needed.

So naturally, he took out the black crystal in his pocket.

The flicker of flame from the undying phoenix.

Though Apollo wasn't certain on how to activate it, he simply followed his intuition and pressed down hard with his index finger and thumb in an attempt to crush it.

As he expected, the black crystal cracked.

Flame immediately seeped out, reaching out far as though the crystal had grown a freakishly long tongue. Apollo's hand immediately began to feel the heat. Without hesitation, he threw it towards the nearest mushroom.

The black crystal rapidly melted until it was simply a fairly small ball of flame.

It latched on to the mushroom, letting out sizzling sounds. For a moment, it simply remained there, not spreading like how a normal flame would.

Otis' attention shifted from Layla to the flame that suddenly appeared. He raised an eyebrow, assuming that Apollo casted some lackluster fire spell in an attempt to burn the mushrooms.

Otis was about to shift his focus back on Layla, but...

Within just a second, the flame spread across most of the mycelium and mushrooms in the air. If one blinked during that time, it would seem like a new slide in a slideshow.

Suddenly, Otis screamed out in pain.

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

It was a cry of pure agony. The cry did not originate from an emotion, or even supported by it for that matter. It was simply a cry that came from pain.

While Otis' senses were shared with the plants he controlled, he also felt pain when they were destroyed. However, if he simply disconnected his senses or lowered the degree of connection, the pain would be negligible.

Otis hurriedly cut off his senses to get rid of the burning pain.

...Yet, that pain didn't disappear.

The mushrooms stopped growing such intensity and were even being burned, causing their numbers to rapidly decrease.

Otis was confused, but didn't think that the flame was a phoenix's flame. After all, those kinds of things were more of legends than anything else. He decided to bite the bullet and put his all into growing more mushrooms.

Apollo was able to get much closer in that short time. However, now the sky was nearly being blotted out by mushrooms, forcing him to pause. Though that didn't stop the flames from spreading across them.

Like a virus, they bubbled up violently. Yet, they rapidly wilted becoming ash moments later.

Otis' eyes were bloodshot from the pain he was experiencing, muddling his thoughts. However, he was still forced to come to the realization that this flame was not normal.

...It may very well be a phoenix flame.

The legends say that those flames will burn until they are satisfied.

There were two conditions for this.

One, they had to burn a certain amount.

And two, anything they began burning had to finish burning.