“Holy sh*t…That’s a huge whale.”

Under the brilliant blue sky, looking down from the fluffy clouds, an ocean lied there. Deeper than the caves, larger than the Earth itself. Filled with wildlife of many different species, this was a heavenly place!

There, in between all the water, and the crashing waves, one could see a boat just floating there calmly.

*Wuuuuoooooooo*

On that little boat, a young boy with an oddly casual looking outfit, stood there with his mouth open and his eyes blank as he stared at the madness before him. His hand not letting go of the paddle, he slowly paddled the boat backwards.

*Wuuuuuooooooo*

“…I’m out.”

And before that young boy, stood a giant whale, much bigger than any whale he had ever seen, except for those whales on National Geographic. Those guys who record those stuff are the pros we all need!

With barnacles in the count of-

…Wait, haven’t I said this before?

*Sounds of flipping paper ensues*

…Yes I have. Damnit, I didn’t realise.

Anyways, with his eyes turning into dots, he watched as the mouth of the giant whale slowly creaked open! The millions of barnacles attached to its mouth slowly sunk into the waters below!

*…WuuuoooooOoOOOOOOOO!!*

“…Sh*t.”

As slowly as he could, he began paddling away from the whale. He didn’t care if he wasn’t heading to the town anymore, he just needed to get away from this thing!

His heart pounded heavily in his chest. Beads of sweat rolled down his face as his instincts told him to escape. And escape he will try to do!

Code word, ‘Try’.

*Wuuuuuushhhh!!*

Just as he was starting to move the boat away, the whale’s mouth fully opened, and the water around it began getting sucked in!

Alex was obviously included!

“W-Wah?!”

As the waters began moving towards the whale’s mouth, his boat was carried along for the bumpy ride. His hull shook violently as a strong torrent of wind moved him closer and closer towards that giant mouth!

As the whale noticed that Alex already close to it, it closed its mouth abruptly, and the suction was stopped entirely. “Woah!” Even after stopping, the waves around Alex had never calmed down, and was still crashing violently onto his wooden hull.

*Byuur*

His boat shook as another strong wave crashed onto the side of his boat. A part of the wood was blown away. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like any water was leaking in. That’s a relief…

“Sh*t.”

Quickly, he pulled out his desert eagle from his holster and aimed. Targeting the whale’s fins, he fired off some quick shots.

However, just like a pellet hitting a metal wall, the fins were hardly damaged. Heck, it wasn’t damaged at all! The bullets he shot using his magic didn’t even make a scratch!

Seeing that, his mind instantly recalled the scene with the octopus, and the results in brought, along with a mountain of blood.

He shivered in absolute fear.

Although he had already knew, but he had no chance of beating something like this!

He needed to run away!

Quickly, he sat down onto the wooden hull and gripped onto the paddles. Concentrating his magic onto his knuckles, he paddled away as fast as he could.

But that wasn’t enough.

“WUUUUOOOOO!”

*BUUUSSSHHHH!!*

Just as he finished turning the boat around, the whale’s mouth opened suddenly, and out of it, came a giant speeding hydro laser!

What that means is simply a giant laser of water.

Wait, but a laser’s supposed to be hot and…Never mind.

“Guuah?!”

The water jet made contact to the water near him, and he was rocketed up into the sky. His boat suffered a lot of damage and flipped, huge cracks could be seen on its side before sinking into the depths.

*Gulp*

He gulped down some saliva as he watched his boat sink. Beads of sweat continued to roll down his already wet face. His eyes darkened in despair as he watched the surface of the water get closer and closer!

And finally, the inevitable happened!

*Byuur!*

Alex plunged right into the ocean, face first too. He forcefully closed his eyes and nose with his hands as he slowly swam back up with his legs. Fortunately, his bandage didn’t come off, or else he would be in a world of pain by now.

Imagine it, having huge wounds on your chest, and then being thrown into seawater, filled with salt.

That’s going to hurt…

“…Buuaah!”

After about a minute of constant swimming, he managed to get his head out of the water. Taking some deep breaths, he turned his head around to the whale, and his face froze in fright.

“WWUUUOOO!”

*BBBUUUSHHH!!*

The whale’s mouth opened once more, and another jet of speeding water was shot out. In fear, he held his breath and dived into the waters, letting the hydro jet crash into the waters above him. He sighed in relief, but accidently opened his mouth and was forced to go up.

“Buuah! That thing is violent!”

He looked on with fear as he watched the whale silently sit there. Alex tilted his head in confusion as he watched the whale just sit there, doing nothing.

And then he finally noticed, that thing has no eyes!

“Wait, then how can it see me?”

To try and get its attention, he conjured a small cube and threw it. Sadly, because of the moving wind, the cube was unable to reach the whale and dropped into the water.

But even so,

“Wuo!”

*Buush!*

It still shot out its hydro laser and blew away the cube he threw. Seeing its suspicious act, his mind instantly kicked into full gear. He also activated [[Concentration]] to help with his thinking speed.

He wasn’t sure how that works, but it works!

As he was thinking about it, a seagull was flying high above the slowly darkening clouds.

“Quack!”

Down in the ocean, the whale slowly turned its head to the seagull. “Quack!” After hearing it quack for some time, the whale looked back down.

“…Hmm.”

His suspicion grew as he watched the whale return back to its original position. He found it odd that it turned to the quack of the seagull, but not to him, who was literally sitting there defenceless and wet.

And then, a small theory developed in his head.

“Let’s see…”

Tracing a small cube underwater, he finished it with the word ‘Explodes after 10 seconds’. He felt his MP decrease slightly as the exploding cube formed in his hand. Quickly, he threw the cube close to the whale.

Right after it made contact,

*Boom!*

“Wuuo!”

*BUUUSSH!!*

The cube exploded, just like he planned, and the whale just as fast shot out a hydro laser at the explosion. Splashes of water danced in the windy air.

“…I see…”

Watching whale close it mouth, he felt confident that his theory was right.

To put it simply, because the whale was unable to see, it used its other senses to find out where its enemies are. No, not using smell, he wasn’t even sure if it could smell, but using its hearing.

He had heard of it before. If his memories served him right, then it should be similar to what bats use back on his home planet, a technique called ‘Echolocation’.

What that means is to hear the noises around it, and form images based on the bouncing noises to help the bats navigate around. But the thing is, the whale hasn’t been sending out noises to make sounds bounce off the waters.

That could be the case, or the howling wind and the crashing waves are making it hard for it to focus on using ‘Echolocation’, forcing it to rely completely on the sudden noises created close to it.

If that was really the case, then he was extremely grateful to this storm. Although he had a hard time paddling because of it, but he lived from this whale’s attacks because of the noises it made!

Hah! What luck!

…Or not.

Out from the opposite side, came a pair of giant tentacles, soon followed by many more tentacles that stretched out to the skies, metaphorically. His perception of depth was just very messed up at that moment.

The tentacles that came out was about 10 meters in height, and was about as wide as a telephone pole he would occasionally see back on Earth. The edges of the tentacles were bladed, similar to that octopus he fought not long ago.

His face warped in fear as he recalled his encounter with the octopus, and what results it brought to him.

He could barely win against that thing, and now something about 10 to 20 times larger than it just appears out of nowhere?! Madness!

“Wuuuooo!!”

The whale instantly noticed the new enemy that just surfaced, and readily opened its mouth. Sucking water from the outside, it fired away another giant water jet, this time at the giant tentacles!

The giant tentacles, or where the tentacles came from, noticed the incoming attack and formed a wall with the tentacles, blocking the water jet from passing.

“W-Woah…”

He stared in awe as it saw the tentacles come out unharmed. Slowly, from behind the tentacles, came the main head of the monster, surfacing from the violent waters. Although it should’ve been obvious, but the tentacles belonged to a giant octopus!

Now, Alex was blocked from two sides, both the North and the South. He stared longingly at the town, blocked by the giant octopus standing aggressively as it eyed the giant whale who was doing the same, except without its eyes.

He could’ve sworn that he saw sparks fly off, but that was surely his imagination.

Right…?

But that aside, he really was forced to a corner. With two giant figures on two sides, and his path to the town blocked off, he only had two choices left. Should he go West, or East?

If he picked the wrong one, he could very well land in an even worse situation than what was currently happening. And that would suck…

“Tch…”

He stayed silent for a while, desperately deciding on where to go. Meanwhile, the whale was first to act, and fired another water jet! Easily, the octopus blocked the water jet and sent off its bladed tentacles at the whale. It too, easily blew away the tentacles with a wide spread shot of its water jet.

The two giants were evenly matched!

“…Damnit.”

Gritting his teeth in defeat, he stretched out his finger bitterly and two traced a small cube. Before letting go, he wrote the word ‘Explodes into mist after 10 seconds’.

With both cubes in hand, he threw both of them towards the two giants. His eyes desperately swam around to catch sight of the two cubes, watching them land into the waters. Both the giants didn’t even notice.

Finally, as the countdown reached zero, the cubes exploded, and a mist covered the ocean. For extra safety, he also threw in an exploding cube into the waters next to him.

*Boom*

With the explosion sending water into the air, he quickly conjured a surfboard and wrote ‘SeaSurfer Shell’. Holding the board tightly, he raised the board into the air, and splashed the board onto the water.

And after that, the board sped beautifully across the dark oceans. Because of the mist, the octopus was unable to determine where Alex was, and because of the explosion, the whale’s ears were ringing like never before.

This was his chance to escape!

Guiding the board away from the two giants, he surfed along the waters, going away from the giants. The whale was first to notice, and readied its hydro jet.

“Wuuooo!”

*BUUUSHH!!*

Looking back in fear, he guided the board away from the trajectory of the water jet, and watched a large splash of water explode into the air at an astounding speed.

Beads of sweat rolled down his face like rain.

The octopus soon noticed that Alex was speeding away, and tried to swing its bladed tentacles at it, but Alex had gotten far enough from the colossal giants, and the blades merely swung at air.

Seeing that the two figures of the giants slowly disappear, Alex let out a sigh of relief as he had gotten out safely!

He was alive!

…But that safety was short lived.

Because the area he was headed to, was where the giant dark vortex was!

“What the f*ck?!”

He shouted in shock as he looked up to the sky. The dark clouds circling around as purple lightning jumped from one cloud to another. The wind was blowing violently as the waves soon followed.

His heart drowned in fear as he began closing in to the vortex, literally.

“…Sh*t.”

And then, when he came to, he was already airborne. He and his surfboard were flying through the air with his hair flapping in the violent wind. Ah, but the little crab’s still asleep, despite all this…

His body froze in terror as he was pulled farther and farther into the air. He unknowingly let go of his surfboard, letting it fly off to who knows where.

He was never scared of heights, but looking down at the ocean as he was getting sucked into that giant vortex in the sky, this was what nightmares are made of.

“……”

Alex smiled in desperation as all his thoughts withered away. His eyes turned to dots and he felt inclined to put his desert eagle to his head and fire.

“Actually, this seems rather fun…I wonder if this is what it feels like to get sucked by a tornado...”

He jokingly thought to himself as he waited for his death. His mentality broke completely as the islands below him only looked like little dots.

Surprisingly, his [Blood Hound] skill hadn’t activated yet. That’s odd…

His eyes let out a tear as he ascended into the skies. His eyes merely watched in absolute terror, and some excitement, as the vortex grew bigger and bigger as he got closer.

And then, just as he turned his head around, he noticed something flying close to him.

“Oh hey…It’s a palm tree.”

And that line was the last thing heard from Alex before he disappeared into the vortex.

……………………