The Laughing Swordsman

Chapter 333 – Won, But…

Apollo dashed forth, splashing the water around as he ran. He preemptively swung with his bokken before pressing his thumb against the hilt. A blade of wind shot through the water, parting it as it traveled towards Vicar.

Along with that, a lightning bolt shot towards him.

Vicar let out a soft sigh.

"The same tricks."

The gleam of a crescent moon appeared, before the blade of wind was directly blown away. As for the lighting bolt it was also slammed aside.

But right as that happened, Apollo pushed off the ground before disappearing.

He reappeared to Vicar's side, halfway through a swing. As for Vicar, he was also in the middle of a swing.

A loud clang rang out.

When their blades clashed this time, Apollo was overwhelmed. This was a stark difference to when they were both evenly matched earlier. However, this did not catch Apollo off guard.

After all, he was only using one hand to hold onto the bokken.

As for the other hand, it whipped at Vicar's torso, sending out a violent point-blank wind blade. And for the first time, Vicar was unable to dodge.

A crisp metallic bang rang out.

Vicar's armor was cut through while a thin line of blood appeared on his body. Before Apollo could be happy about finally getting a hit in, the momentum of the greatsword pushed his bokken back and slammed it against him.

With a clear thump, Apollo was sent backwards once more.

However, despite his cracked rib cage, there was a confident smile on his face. After stabilizing himself, he began to eat more food pellets to speed up the healing process.

Vicar slowly looked down at the injury that appeared on his body.

"You have injured me."

After a few moments, he chuckled.

"Well done."

Apollo took a deep breath before dashing in once more. Together with the lighting bolt, he continued to attack. The lighting bolt was taken care of easily by him like before, however, it wasn't so easy to deal with Apollo's other attacks.

Both his bokken and hand whipped through the air, sending out several attacks towards Vicar.

However, though before Apollo was able to hit him, it wasn't so easy this time. It appeared Vicar was prepared for it this time, thus was able to swing in such a way that blocked both.

As a wind blade and bokken traveled towards Vicar, the greatsword traveled in an elusive trajectory that blocked both.

However, this didn't make Apollo give up. Before the force behind the greatsword would overwhelm him, he pushed off the ground and appeared on the other side of Vicar, attacking with both his hand and bokken once more.

And once again, his attacks were blocked.

Like this, Apollo continued to appear around Vicar, letting loose several swings and forcing him to block multiple. Various clashes and bangs rang out in succession.

It seemed like they were in a stalemate for a while. However, Apollo was slowly speeding up.

The rate at which he sped up was very slow, but it definitely existed.

At first, both his bokken and hand danced in the air like sharks, violently moving around with murderous intent. However, as time went on, they became more like slippery eels, hard to catch onto.

As Apollo continued, he eventually saw a set of stars.

And as such, he did everything he could to slash all of them.

Apollo let out several strikes all at once, but they were all blocked by the greatsword. Before he could get hit by the greatsword, he pushed off the ground and attacked from a different angle.

However, this time, he suddenly found that his free hand had been cut off entirely.

Vicar had caught him.

Apollo retreated in order to give time for his hand to regrow. His breathing was steady, mixed with some laughter in between.

Vicar narrowed his eyes as he watched Apollo's hand slowly reform, from the bones to the skin.

"You have quite the strong natural regeneration ability."

In response, Apollo dashed forth, fully intent on doing the same thing. He let out a flurry of strikes the moment he could, but all of them were defended by Vicar with a few whips of his sword.

Apollo pushed off the ground, appearing at a different angle and tried again.

Normally, the biggest problem with using his hand as a weapon was that it was far weaker than his bokken, thus would be heavily injured after hitting the opposing weapon. However, since he could use wind blades instead, that fixed the biggest part of the problem.

And with that, he continued to ramp up the amount of attacks he let out.

And eventually, another attack landed.

It was another wind blade which directly tore apart Vicar's armor and made another thin red line appear on his torso. Right afterwards, his hand was cut off.

However, Apollo simply backed off and waited for it to heal. Then, charged back in once more.

After a few minutes, another attack landed, this time his bokken slammed against the armor, leaving a huge dent that greatly damaged it.

Then, one minute later, he landed another attack.

Then thirty seconds later.

Slowly but surely, various wounds began appearing across Vicar's body. Until eventually, a lightning bolt shot towards Vicar's back.

With the gleam of a crescent moon, it shot back, and Apollo's strike was defended against. But right after that, Apollo whipped with his free hand, sending another wind blade into Vicar, slamming hard against his chest.

Vicar coughed up a mouthful of blood, now in bad condition.

Apollo was beginning to feel very confident.

However, in the next moment, all of Vicar's injuries suddenly mended, and his heavily damaged armor restored to normal.

Apollo's eyes widened, as the adrenaline suddenly left his body.

"What?"

Vicar coughed.

"Ah, I will count that as your win. I thought I could still hold on without using my healing ability."

And so, Apollo won the fight.

But it felt like he lost.