Chapter 18: Desperate Escape
"I'm so cooked!" Apolo shouted as he watched the massive water wave crash toward him.
Without hesitating, he dove downward with everything he had.
The ocean swallowed him instantly. Cold pressure squeezed his chest from all sides. He kicked harder, pulling himself deeper into the murky darkness.
A hundred meters away, Apolo burst through the surface, gasping. His face was purple from lack of air. He sucked in oxygen desperately, each breath burning his throat.
When he looked back, he saw the enormous wave slam into the spot he'd just escaped from. Worse still, the waves that followed were rolling straight toward him.
As fast as he could, he tried to swim away, but the waves caught him and crashed over his head. He struggled at first, trying to keep his balance, but then a sudden thought hit him. He loosened his body and let the water take him.
With each push of the wave, he was tossed over a hundred meters across the ocean. Foam sprayed around him. The roar of moving water filled his ears.
Apolo was secretly excited.
But that excitement didn't last long.
The next moment, he saw the huge shadow again—silently stalking him from below, gliding through the water like death itself.
"Oh no! Can't this shark see I'm too small? Can't it see that eating me won't even fill one tooth!?"
Apolo thought in frustration and hatred.
Still, he kept moving. He used the waves created by the massive shark's movements to propel himself forward, gliding across the surface even faster. Thanks to his resistance to the Saltwater which could not stung his eyes, but his lungs was burning though manageable.
Everything was going well—except for his heart pounding so hard it felt like it wanted to break through his ribs.
Then, suddenly—
The waves stopped.
The shark had disappeared.
"Where is it?" Apolo whispered in his head. His arms stiffened. The ocean became eerily calm. He slowly turned back…
No shadow.
No movement.
"Fewww…" Apolo let out a shaky breath, relief washing through his chest like cool water.
He faced the island again. It was less than a kilometer away now. Trees lined the shore. Setting sun reflected off wet sand. He forced himself to swim faster, arms slicing through the surface. His strokes grew smoother, more controlled.
"Swimming isn't even hard to learn. I'm actually getting good at it without being taught," Apolo thought, noticing his speed increasing. His body adapted quickly—another gift from his hybrid blood.
"Six hundred meters..five hundred.three—"
"THRUM THRUM… THRUM!"
His sharp ears caught a deep vibrating sound echoing from beneath the water. The vibration traveled through his bones.
Terrified, Apolo looked down through the dark water.
"Oh God!" he screamed in his mind.
A massive mouth filled with dagger-like teeth opened beneath him, rushing upward with shocking speed. Each tooth was the size of his forearm.
Instinctively, Apolo leaped into the air, legs burning with effort, barely avoiding the closing jaws.
"SPLASH!!"
He hit the water hard and started swimming like his life depended on it. Every muscle in his body screamed. His arms felt like lead, but terror kept them moving.
He didn't get far.
Out of nowhere, a huge force slammed into him from below, launching him skyward like a cannonball. The impact drove the air from his lungs. The shark followed, its mouth wide open—a living nightmare chasing him into the air.
"CREEEKKK…"
Apolo heard the sickening crack of his ribcage bending under the impact. Pain exploded across his chest. He was thrown almost a hundred meters up, spinning helplessly.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the shark rising after him, mouth open wide enough to swallow a car, waiting for him to fall in.
But Apolo twisted midair—ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs—and grabbed the pointed tip of its nose. His fingers dug into rough, sandpaper-like skin. His body screamed in protest, but he pulled himself higher again, using the shark's momentum.
For a split second, he hovered above the beast as its massive body began falling back toward the water.
"Isn't this a king shark? Or a great white? If it's either of them, I'm finished if I go back into that water," Apolo thought, horror gripping him.
Time felt slow. The wind rushed past his face. He could see every detail—the shark's dead black eyes, the rows of teeth, the water far below.
He calculated quickly.
"If I fall normally, I'll land in its mouth… before it even touches the water."
His mind raced. His heart pounded. His broken ribs throbbed with every breath.
"Is water my weakness? My two closest deaths… both were in water."
He looked down, measuring the distance, the angle, the timing.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, Apolo roared:
"So what if you're big!? I made a promise—I won't be helpless before chaos beasts again!"
Using the wind pressure around him, Apolo performed a midair backflip, his body arcing gracefully behind the falling shark. He bent his arm, muscles coiling tight, and slammed a powerful fist into the back of its head.
"BAAAANG!"
The sound echoed like thunder rolling across the ocean. Birds scattered from distant trees. The impact rippled through the air.
His punch felt like hitting thick, reinforced leather—tough and unyielding. Pain shot up his arm. But he didn't stop. Planting his feet on the shark's rough hide, he pushed off with all his strength, borrowing the rebound of his punch and the force of his kick.
The combined power rocketed him toward the ocean bank like an arrow released from a bow.
He crashed onto the shore, sand exploding around him. He rolled once, twice, before forcing himself up. Sharp rocks scraped his skin. Salt burned his wounds. Without waiting a single heartbeat, he dashed forward with everything he had.
His feet pounded against wet sand, then dry ground, then thick grass. Trees blurred past him.
In the next instant, Apolo turned into a blur and vanished deep into the barbarian island, leaving only scattered footprints and the distant splash of an angry shark behind him.
A few minutes later, he came across a tall coconut tree with a huge rocke behind it.
Resting his back on the treeline, he laughed weakly as his chest burned with pain.
"I'm alive… I'll take that."