Before the massive, razor-sharp teeth of the shark could reach Sora!
Behind the shark, Sora caught sight of a small opening leading into a narrow cave, though the shadows were deep and he couldn’t see the interior with absolute clarity.
Sora moved with frantic speed, using his airbending to blast himself directly underneath the shark.
“Woah!” The velocity of his dive was blistering, leaving a violent trail of bubbles in his wake.
Looking up, Sora watched the colossal belly of the shark glide right above him, and he drove himself even deeper to ensure no part of the massive beast could clip him.
He didn’t stop there.
He channeled his air rapidly, creating a localized current that acted like a small propeller, driving him straight toward the cave’s narrow mouth.
“Boooh!!” He rocketed through the crushing deep toward the cleft in the rock.
Realizing its prey was slipping away, the shark pivoted with immense speed to give chase, but Sora hit the narrow opening first and slipped inside.
“Boom!!” The titan slammed its massive body against the cave entrance, sending a violent shudder through the surrounding stone.
The shark kept ramming the rock, but it was entirely unable to widen the tight gap.
Once Sora was absolutely sure the shark couldn’t reach him for the time being, his bruised body relaxed just a fraction.
He looked around the cramped cave, casting his gaze upward until he spotted a tiny air pocket clinging to the stone ceiling, untouched by the sea.
Sora swam up and immediately deactivated his spinning air shield!
The moment his airbending ceased, the crushing ocean water rushed in, completely enveloping his body in harsh, salty brine.
The saltwater stung his fresh, open gashes, triggering a wave of blinding agony and itching across his skin.
“Hah…
hah!” Sora gasped raggedly, fighting with every ounce of his willpower to keep his consciousness from fading into black.
He kept his head tilted back, stretching his neck toward the narrow air pocket to draw a breath, but the air he inhaled was heavy, reeking of saltwater and the suffocating pressure of the deep.
“Damn it!
This suffocating feeling again…” The memory of the asthma attacks from his past life flared up, filling him with a deep, sickening sense of revulsion.
Sora forced the panic out of his mind, focusing entirely on his current reality: his left arm was shattered, his oxygen supply was critically low, and he wouldn’t survive here for long.
Two minutes ticked by, and Sora was still completely unable to find a way out of this deadly trap!
Peering through the narrow entrance, he watched the massive outline of the shark circling the cave, waiting for him to step outside.
“Damn it!
Doesn’t this creature ever get bored?!” Perhaps the beasts of the Avatar world possessed a far sharper intelligence than ordinary animals.
Sora forced his mind to work, running his hand over the rigid, cold stone of the cave walls.
“The hydrostatic pressure of the deep ocean is putting me in an absolute corner.” His body was significantly stronger than that of an average human, but it wasn’t durable enough to indefinitely sustain life beneath the weight of the sea.
“This is useless.
I have to find an alternative, or my life is forfeit.
And if I die here, no one will ever even know my corpse is rotting at the bottom of the ocean.” The cold reality of his own mortality settled in, forcing him to cast aside all arrogance and commit everything he had to survival.
With his back against the wall, Sora’s survival instincts kicked into overdrive.
Closing his eyes, he tuned into the throbbing pain across his skin, then shifted his focus outward, trying to sense the ocean water surrounding him, searching for anything he could exploit to turn the tide.
Five minutes slipped away—a brief moment that felt like a slow, agonizing eternity of torment inside the dark cave.
His oxygen was depleting with every single passing second!
Sora kept reaching out with his senses, desperately trying to detect a breakthrough, when a bizarre sensation suddenly registered in his mind.
The air was all around him, hidden in a form he had been entirely blind to before because of its scale, but suddenly…
“What?!” Sora screamed within his own mind, completely paralyzed by shock.
A fundamental truth from his past life flashed through his thoughts: water is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom!
Water consists of: Two hydrogen atoms (H) One oxygen atom (O) Resulting in H_2O!
Which meant every single molecule of water held an atom of oxygen!
Sora tried to expand his awareness, focusing intently on the micro-components inside the tiny droplets of water, but the sensation slipped through his fingers, refusing to lock in easily.
He refused to surrender.
He centered his focus again, fighting to grasp the concept and assert his control over it.
After dozens of grueling attempts, Sora finally felt a minuscule cluster of oxygen atoms—amounting to roughly a spoonful.
In reality, a spoonful was immense, containing millions upon millions of individual oxygen atoms!
A profound surge of accomplishment washed over him, and his mind immediately traced back to Toph Beifong, who had unlocked metalbending by sensing the trace impurities of earth trapped within refined ore.
“If Toph is the greatest earthbender alive, then I, Sora, am the greatest airbender to ever live!
Hahaha!” Exhilaration and a dangerous spark of arrogance flared within him.
This breakthrough completely redefined the path of his training; the ability to perceive and manipulate oxygen at an atomic scale would fundamentally alter his method of combat in the future.
Sora maintained his hold on the oxygen atoms.
Once he locked onto the specific particles, he exerted his will, severing them cleanly from the hydrogen bonds.
A pocket of air the size of a tennis ball materialized before him.
Sora took the sphere of air, shaping it into a gentle, steady stream that flowed into his lungs smoothly, avoiding any sudden pressure shocks to his chest.
The fresh oxygen entering his system felt like ice on fire, soothing his frayed nerves and dulling the physical agony racking his frame.
He kept bending without pause, continuously stripping the oxygen atoms from the hydrogen.
As time passed, his control smoothed out, allowing him to manifest a sphere of pure oxygen the size of a basketball, plunging him into a state of profound relaxation and relief.
Sora knew right then that this evolution in his bending had pushed his overall power into an entirely different echelon.
The air he was manipulating now felt significantly more cohesive, denser, and infinitely sharper.
Before this moment, he could only control the collective gas molecules that already made up the atmosphere; now, he could manipulate the very elements at an atomic level.
The difference in scale was night and day.
Sora continued his internal training while allowing his body to rest, the pure air filtering through his lungs accelerating his recovery and dulling the remaining pain.