Jasper jumped from around thirty meters high off the rock. The instant his body struck the water, his chest tightened with a feeling he had never experienced before in his life.
Instantly he swallowed a mouthful of water as his arms swung frantically. His eyes were tightly shut while he struggled to stay on the surface without rhythm. His legs searched desperately for solid ground to stand on, but all he felt was emptiness as his body continued sinking.
He opened his eyes and struggled to breathe as water rushed into his nose, ears, and mouth, forcing him to gulp down another mouthful.
He had never seen anyone swim before. He had never even seen a pond of water in his life. His mind struggled to react properly as panic erupted inside his chest.
Coughing violently, he forced his head above the surface for a brief moment and drew in a deep breath while his arms continued slapping the water clumsily.
His mind raced, desperately searching for something he could do to survive. Thinking about the rock wall, he tried to move toward it. He kicked his legs harder and pushed the water behind him while swallowing mouthfuls of water at steady intervals. However, the harder he tried to move toward the wall, the faster he seemed to sink.
After swallowing nearly seven mouthfuls of water, his stomach began to feel tight and uneasy. He quickly forced himself to calm down and stopped moving his hands and legs before taking a deep breath. Once he stopped struggling, his body slowly began sinking deeper into the lake.
As he descended, he stretched both hands forward and thrust them downward, pushing the water behind him. The motion automatically pushed his body forward as he continued sinking.
After a few thrusts through the water, he finally touched the rock wall. Without hesitation, he grabbed onto the stone and pushed himself upward.
Splash!
Using the rock for support, Jasper finally surfaced. He coughed violently as water and saliva spilled from his mouth while he wiped the water from his face. It took several seconds before his senses returned.
Without hesitation, he directed his gaze toward the place where Barry's boat had been moving earlier. But from the water level he couldn't see anything. Panic began rising in his stomach.
Did the fish eat him? his thoughts raced.
He wouldn't be able to swim that far to fight the fish. Jasper felt a deep sense of shame at his inability to save the man who had tried to help him.
However, he refused to give up. Even if the fish had devoured him whole, Jasper would try to tear him out before it digested him into bones.
With that thought, he climbed the rock wall frantically, punching holes into the stone as he tried to reach the top of the islet.
If anyone had witnessed the scene, they would have thought Jasper was some kind of beast climbing the wall. His speed was almost unimaginable. Within fifteen seconds, he reached the top of the islet, which stood more than one hundred meters tall.
Once he stood on the edge, his eyes briefly drifted toward the inner part of the islet before turning back toward the lake, trying to locate the fish and see whether it had already eaten Barry.
But when his gaze fell upon the water, he saw the enormous fish chasing Barry. Not far from the creature, the chubby man was carefully navigating his boat between the floating objects.
Jasper's heart eased slightly when he saw Barry still alive.
However, his expression quickly changed when he noticed that almost all of the floating cubics that had been stopping the fish were already destroyed. He counted only a couple of them remaining before the creature would reach Barry.
He quickly calculated the distance between himself and the fish. It was roughly one hundred meters—the same distance he had climbed up the rock wall.
With that calculation in mind, he stepped back slightly to adjust his position.
Since he couldn't swim to save Barry, he would jump and land directly on the fish's head and knock it out with a punch. That was the plan he had come up with while gasping for air earlier.
He took ten steps back before sprinting forward at full speed toward the edge of the islet. When he reached the spot he had chosen, he pushed all his strength into his legs and leapt forward, his eyes locked on the fish.
Boom!
Jasper launched himself from the top of the islet as the ground beneath his feet cracked and crumbled. His body soared high into the air before beginning its downward arc toward the fish's massive head—or at least that was where he intended to land.
However, the jump was far more powerful than he had expected. Jasper flew far beyond the fish's head where he had planned to land.
While soaring through the air, he glanced downward at the place he had just passed, and his eyes met Barry's shocked gaze. For a brief moment, he even forgot that he was about to fall into the water.
Jasper had miscalculated the strength of his jump. Since this was the first time he had ever leaped like this, he had no idea how powerful it would be.
He overshot the target by at least fifty meters.
Suddenly his heart sank into despair. What had started as an attempt to save a man had now turned into him sharing the same fate.
At that moment, the memory of drowning earlier flashed through his mind—the desperate struggle, the frantic attempt to breathe.
The thought twisted his face with rage.
When he was only ten meters above the water, just before impact, Jasper screamed at the top of his lungs.
With that scream came fury as he frantically moved his legs in a running motion. His legs blurred with speed as he pushed them with all his strength.
The moment his feet touched the water, Jasper's body instinctively began moving across the surface.
Jasper didn't celebrate. His teeth were clenched tightly as he ran forward with a twisted expression of rage.
Within a few seconds he disappeared into the darkness beyond the illuminated area.
Barry, who had watched the man fly over his head and had already prepared himself to rescue him from the water, was completely stunned.
All he had seen was a man fly through the air… and then start running on the surface of the lake.
"Am I going crazy from the fear of death?" Barry muttered as his eyes drifted toward the enormous fish and the remaining two Beast Space Dimensional Pockets waiting to be destroyed.