Who Are You!?

Daniel yanked the tuna right out of the shark's mouth. but in that same moment, Daniel's hand slipped off the shark's fin.

"Oh shit!"

Daniel cursed as a horrible realization dawned on him; the shark had been moving at its top speed trying to shake him off its body, thus, falling off its back would be akin to falling off a car moving at top speed.

Daniel hurriedly tried to balance himself, but the moment his foot touched the water;

Crack!

His ankle shattered.

"Ahk!"

An agonizing grunt escaped Daniel's lips as he was introduced to a unique kind of pain with each passing second.

With every single part of his body that touched the water's surface, a bone broke, one joint dislocated, and finally, his muscle fibers cramped up from being overly pounded.

Ruby who was sailing the yacht over, looked ahead and saw her lover skidaddle across the surface of the open waters like a rolling anteater on a bumpy landscape.

Then as if the universe was looking to make her life more miserable, a huge wave with familiar ripples began to head toward the spot where Daniel had begun to drown.

From the blood trail that could be seen behind the waves, Ruby knew it was the shark and it seemed to be on a revenge mission.

"Watch out!"

She screamed in terror but knowing that there was nothing Daniel could do about the situation due to his injuries, Ruby's eyes turned bloodshot as she revved up the yacht to its highest speed and set herself on a collision course with the homing shark.

Daniel, sinking ever so slowly, began to wonder why everything had turned out the way it had. All he wanted to do was hunt for breakfast and peacefully spend the rest of the day with his beloved Ruby.

But no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't tell the reason why he was so stubborn about getting his catch back, or why he had decided to wrestle it from the shark's jaws.

As he gradually reflected on the situation, he realized that he was indeed reckless, and thought that it was perhaps because he had been in the hot sun for too long.

[Perhaps, a few mills of hot blood rushed into my head a bit.] He thought to himself as fewer bubbles escaped his mouth the deeper he sunk.

'Having my prize snatched before my very eyes after hours of enduring the hot sun; does the stupid shark think I'm a pushover?'

'It's a pity I won't be able to watch it draw its last breath- Shit, Ruby!' Daniel finally remembered his lover whom he was about to plunge into a life of utter loneliness.

'What would she do now? Fuck I messed up bad this time.' He added as his mind began to race at full speed trying to find a solution to the current predicament he had landed himself and his life partner.

'Well, there's nothing I can do now; I can't feel my limbs and my spine seemed to have sustained significant damage.' Daniel thought to himself as he gradually began to lose hope.

Worrying about anything else at this point was useless to him; after all, there was no solution he could come to that won't require him to move his body which was no longer responding to his commands.

'What a total waste! Not only did I lose the tuna, but that stupid fish also managed to escape, and now I've also lost Ruby.' Daniel continued to lament like someone who was having an end-of-life rally on his deathbed.

He was already halfway to the ocean floor when his blurry vision caught the sight of two shadows approaching one another with reckless momentum. He saw one of the shadows leap out of the water before both of them collided with one another like two wrecking balls.

Kaboom!

Daniel felt the water around him shift slightly before seeing something greenish spread all over the area over him.

Boom!

Just a second later, the sound of a large and heavy object slamming into the water flitted into his ears.

Turning his aching neck towards the source of the commotion, Daniel saw a very familiar yacht slowly make its way towards the bottom of the ocean, and just a few meters below it was a familiar and alluring but unmoving body.

This body didn't seem to be moving and was looking like it was in the same state as his current self; wrecked and wracked.

Ruby who was bleeding from the side of her head was already losing consciousness; she had hit her head on the yacht railing earlier and her brain was in a level of shock that seemed like she would develop blunt force brain trauma.

'I plead with my fleeting life and dying breath to any god that might be hearing me at this moment; please save her.'

Daniel gathered every form of mental and emotional feeling he had left and channeled it into his dying request before descending into utter darkness.

But just as he was about to lose all of his senses, he thought he heard someone say; [Deal.] before noticing several shadows converge at the spot where the sinking yacht was.

Knowing that it was most likely the civilians who had arrived to help, Daniel thanked the mysterious voice in his heart before his vision descended into utter darkness.

After what felt like minutes, Daniel noticed something was amiss; his body seemed to be placed in a certain state where all his senses were working but at the same time not.

He felt like he was no longer drowning but was now floating above the ocean surface, so he immediately tried to open his eyes; and when he did, he found himself looking at what anyone would call 'the most marvelous sight in existence.'

Up above, in the sky, were the most stars anyone could ever claim to see, and even farther behind these stars was an even denser cluster of innumerable stars which most definitely had all the colors one could ever think of.

To the left side of his vision, there were three mysterious suns: one white, the other silvery, and the last one golden.

Then to the right side of his vision also hung three moons; one black, another blood-red, and the third one was a purple moon.

Daniel looked at the scenery and marveled at its majesty and radiance; it seemed to be a sky that contained everything that existed in life.

There was blinding light radiating from the white sun and suffocating darkness pluming out of the black moon.

Rigorous life energy was also surging out of the silvery sun, and an eerie undead feeling seething within the blood-red moon.

Finally, there was an untainted and extremely holy aura coming off the golden sun and a thoroughly evil and abominable aura pouring down from the purple moon.

[What an unbelievable sight! How's this even possible!?] Daniel thought to himself, and his thought echoed across the area.

[Hehe ha-ha! Puny mortal, you have no idea what's possible!] A thunderous laughter boomed across the area, blurring Daniel's vision and shaking him to the very core of his soul.

Daniel hurriedly rose to his feet, and at that moment, he realized that he had been floating on an ocean with an unexplainable appearance.

Just like the sky, one-half of the ocean had a clear, sky-blue color with about a dozen marine beings swimming and hopping around joyfully.

The other part of the ocean on the other hand was blood-red, with a legion of pitch-black skeletal beings moving around; these skeletons had purple flames in their eye sockets and several runic engravings of the same color all over their body.

The moment these skeleton beasts noticed Daniel, they all swarmed towards him with their mouths agape, howling in a sort of hoarse nether-worldly voice that almost knocked him unconscious.

Several angry-looking goblins lunged toward him baring their fangs and claws, looking to rip him to shreds.

But just as they were about to touch him, a cold snort reverberated across the area, before the very fabric of space seemed to tear apart and a sickly-looking pale arm pushed Daniel from the center of the dimension towards the bright part of it.

Daniel was so stunned by the entire situation that he couldn't even react to the whole chaos; it felt like his mind was simply recording the entire event and storing them without processing a single scenario.

Just as he fell into the bright area, a crab of the same size as the goblin jumped out of the water and clashed with the goblin.

Bang!

Strong shockwaves spread across the entire area as the goblin was sent flying several meters into the air, before skidding across the surface of the water in a manner that was freshly familiar to Daniel.

The crab on the other hand simply made several threatening gestures at the beasts on the other side, before returning to the ocean floor.

The air in front of Daniel began to churn and ripple, causing him to hurriedly stand to his feet and take a guarded stance.

An amused chuckle echoed out of the ripples in front of Daniel followed by the visage of a middle-aged man slowly and casually walking out of the ripples.

Just as the middle-aged man stepped out of the portal, Daniel's eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and for a moment, he thought his non-existent heart skipped a beat.

"H-how is this possible!?"

"W-who are you!?"

Daniel stuttered at the figure that was busy grinning back at him.