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Noah braced his arms against the jaws without suffering any physical damage to his ghostly arms as he used the momentum of the giant shark leaping from the water to catapult himself high into the air. The onlookers on board the cruise ships deck had released their hold on Josh as they watched stunned as he ascended above them with their mouths agape.
"Josh, my axe!" Noah bellowed to Josh as he began to tilt backward in the air.
Josh didn't hesitate as he saw hope, reacting instantly to swing the fire emergency axe in both hands with all his strength to toss it towards Noah. The axe flew straight outwards from his grasp, axehead first in Noah's direction. Forcing him into dodging its trajectory and spinning out of control. Josh gripped the rails with all his strength to watch the axe fly past Noah without blinking as his knuckles turned white from the result of his poor throw under pressure.
At the last moment, as the axe left the range of Noah's reach, a glowing purple spirit-hand firmly caught hold of the handle of the fire emergency axe. His body had twisted through at an unnatural angle, revealing to the onlookers his intense glowing purple eyes, which signalled his [Battle Instinct] activating to dodge the danger of the axe hurtling towards him.
He flipped through the air to catch his axe, completely aware of the hungry jaws of the giant shark below him. It opened its maw wide, revealing the rows of serrated teeth before slamming shut, catching only empty air. Suddenly, Noah's battle instinct warned him a more significant threat was approaching. He surveyed the water around him, seeing a titanic shadow appear beneath the gigantic shark.
A vortex started inexplicably drawing in the shark inwards, a whirlpool abruptly appeared in the ocean below it. All was explained when a colossal tentacle broke through the surface of the sea, hurtling toward Noah suspended helplessly in the air. He instinctively threw his body tumbling into an unpredictable motion that would be impossible to emulate consciously as his eyes locked on to his target below. The ability-using shark biting down on a quickly tiring Alex.
As his figure tumbled through the air in a chaotic pattern, the tentacle was unable to grab hold of him as he cartwheeled through the air. Noah's eyes remained fixated on the scene of Alex's struggle below as he noticed the giant blank shark flailing as it was unwillingly enveloped inside the mouth of the returned Kraken. Screams rang out as the survivors abandoned the gory spectacle, they all fled in terror at the Kraken's appearance.
Noah's focus doesn't waver as the unnatural calm of his [Battle Instinct] ability gives him the undeniable certainty of what must be done for him to survive. He descended on the ability-using shark, minutely adjusting his body from the path of another tentacle. He grabs hold of his axe's handle with eight pairs of hands as his body makes one final twist to put his landing position feet first. He raises his axe high above his head while Josh watches on from the deck as he was the only person who did not flee.
Noah unleashes an echoing roar as his axe swings down on top of the giant shark's closed eye with the full force of the momentum from his falling descent, magnifying the physical damage caused by the axe many times over. The axehead disappeared entirely into the huge shark's eye socket in a shower of blood. His blue ethereal glowing spirit armour disappeared after absorbing the fall damage from Noah's landing. His axe plunged deep into the shark's skull, halfway down the handle even despite the thick leathery hide encasing its body. There was only a thin membrane over its eyes that could not prevent the amount of force contained within the swing, combined with his [Six Spirit Arms] ability.
Alex took that chance to throw his back into the hull of the cruise ship as he simultaneously released his grip on the enormous shark's rugged teeth as its slammed jaws closed mere inches in front of his face. The giant shark had beached itself halfway on top of the now wholly submerged wreckage of the ferry's hull deck. Alex stood on in knee-deep water relative to his titanic frame, now nearing twice Noah's height. As the giant shark started to thrash as it began its death throes, piercing blue light emerged from the exposed flesh around the embedded axe.
The enormous shark became still. The bloodied axe was slowly forced from the wound by Noah and Alex's combined efforts at pulling. Revealing intense blue light as the shark's lifeforce began to accumulate at the bloody gaping hole leaking light where its eye previously belonged. After the fire emergency axe was removed, the blue-lifeforce accumulated at the wound dimmed down. The light entered deeper into the shark's flesh, which then began to knit itself together at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Shit! It can fucking heal itself!" Noah exclaimed in warning to Alex.
Alex looked at him silently in understanding as they both backed away in unison at a loss of how they could escape the entrapment of a giant immortal shark and the titanic Kraken. At the same time, the water had reached a point where they had to float to stay in place. While they attempted not to turn to despair in this hopeless situation, there was a splash beside them, which alerted Noah. He instantaneously became vigilant as he turned to investigate.
Floating beside the pair, only a short distance away, a yellow lifeboat was still attached to its winch. The enormous shark thrashed in front of the team, bringing back their attention to the shark's merciless empty eyes that had just finished reforming. The giant shark immediately lunged towards them upon regaining its consciousness, forcing them to cling to this chance at life, which had presented itself to them moments before.
They began to swim, attempting to avoid a gigantic tentacle threatening to entangle them along with the giant invulnerable shark. Noah was alerted by his battle instincts as he briefly dove under the water while dragging Alex with him, successfully moving from the tentacle's path. The beached shark wasn't quite as lucky, as a tentacle wound itself around the shark's open maw. Noah and Alex swam in desperation while Josh, standing with Sophie, shouted encouragement to them.
They quickly neared the yellow lifeboat, the giant shark had escaped from the Kraken's grip as it thrashed and bit down on the exposed tentacle, removing a large chunk in a spray of fishy-smelling blood. Noah and Alex took advantage of this short respite to escape while these two giants battled amongst each other. The Kraken dwarfed the shark in size but was still too small to threaten the cruise ship, which was too big, its hull had been reinforced to withstand colliding with icebergs.
Upon reaching the life raft, Alex grabbed Noah by the waist, throwing him on board before hauling himself over the side as it dipped sideways dangerously close to capsizing under his colossal frame. After activating the [Titanic Growth] ability a second time, Alex was fast approaching the world's tallest man's height before the apocalypse happened.
After they were both inside the capsule, faint orange-lifeforce began to flow through the lifeboat as the winch above began to pull them slowly upwards. Now that they felt free from danger, they looked back to where the enormous shark tangled with the Kraken in time to witness the Kraken drag the giant shark inside its briefly exposed mouth at the surface of the bloodied ocean as it swallowed the enormous shark in one bite. The Kraken turned its attention back towards them as a voice spoke inside their mind, leaving the deaf Alex stunned. Noah felt a wave of lifeforce enter his body from his [Omega Role] as the giant shark was killed, leaving him reeling.
『You will not escape me this time, food!』a voice of rage filled his head as a colossal tentacle lunged towards them on a direct collision course at their current rate of ascent. Before it was about to arrive, the tentacle was suddenly knocked off-course by a harpoon made of ice.
"Who was that?" Noah bewilderedly asked the silent Alex, who read his lips but looked equally confused as he shrugged.
A brief pause later, there was a thud below them as the giant tentacle drummed against the reinforced hull of the cruise ship since the Kraken could no longer reach them.
***
The lifeboat was pulled slowly higher, and Noah began laughing. A moment later, Alex joined in as the terror of the ordeal had finally passed, and they were both still alive. They both laughed so hard that tears of relief began streaming down their faces as they arrived on the deck of the cruise ship.
"We made it!" Noah exclaimed to the broadly grinning Alex as he dropped his active abilities. Josh lunged into his life partner's loving embrace as the Kraken screamed wordlessly in rage from the water below.
