David activated the Law of Darkness, and a shadowy sphere flickered into existence above his palm. It pulsed faintly, almost alive, the surface writhing like smoke trapped inside a bubble. It looked disturbingly similar to the projectiles those lizard-like creatures had spat at him before.

  “Alright, let’s see how you like this,” he muttered, hurling the orb toward a tree just outside the perimeter. The sphere struck with a muted thump, and the bark hissed as if doused in acid. The trunk darkened, warped, and a thin layer of wood seemed to melt away.

  David tilted his head, intrigued. “Not bad... but what if I shape it?” He conjured another mass of darkness, this time forcing it into the form of a spear. The weapon quivered in his mental grip, sharp and unstable, but when he launched it at a different tree, the effect was immediate. The spear almost punched through the trunk, leaving a gaping wound that smoldered with shadows. The damage ran deeper, gnawing at the inner wood like a slow, burning rot.

  He imagined what such a weapon would do to a monster. Not just piercing them, but eating away at their insides, melting them from within.

  David glanced at his mana reserves and frowned. The dark projectiles had looked impressive, but the numbers told a different story. They chewed through his energy just as much as lightning bolts, maybe even a little more. Efficiency-wise, he would probably be better off sticking to lightning—or even experimenting with steel spears when he wanted something cheaper in terms of mana.

  Still, curiosity gnawed at him. It felt too early to write darkness off as wasteful. He wasn’t just looking for efficiency; he wanted to see what the Law of Darkness could really do when pushed beyond its ordinary limits. If lightning could become a continuous plasma beam under overcharge, then maybe darkness had a trick of its own hidden behind the same door.

  “Fine,” David muttered under his breath, flexing his fingers as a faint shadowy haze began to form in his palm. “One good test before I start filing this under ‘not worth the mana.’”

  David recharged with a couple of crystals, then added another one just to ensure he had the needed amount to activate the ability. Once he felt the surge filling his core, he summoned a dark projectile above his palm and triggered the Overcharge. That was when things took a turn.

  At first, the black blot simply devoured his mana as expected, drinking it down greedily. But then—something shifted. The shadows around him twitched. They quivered as though alive, edges stretching unnaturally, then began to flow. In a matter of heartbeats, the darkness pooled toward the hovering drop of black mana like water sucked into a drain.

  David blinked. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t physics. His own shadow warped grotesquely, stretching toward the sphere until it peeled away from him entirely, flowing into the hungry blot. Objects nearby—the railing, the benches, even the trees beyond the fence—were stripped of their outlines, left stark and unnatural, like those eerie photographs from Australia taken at noon on the equator, where everything stands without shade.

  He stared, transfixed, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. His gut whispered danger, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He was so caught up in the impossible scene that he almost didn’t notice what was happening to the drop of darkness itself.

  David shook himself from the daze of what he had just witnessed. Forcing his eyes back to the smoldering sphere above his palm, he realized with a jolt that the mass of darkness wasn’t staying small anymore. It swelled larger and larger, pulsing like a living thing, until its size rivaled the iceberg of ice he had once hurled onto Kevin’s car. The sheer scale of it made his stomach twist.

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  Curious and alarmed, he extended his senses inward. His mana reserves were still only halfway drained. That didn’t make sense. Something was feeding the sphere, something that wasn’t just him. Then he rememberd—the shadows. Every trace of darkness within reach had already been drawn into the orb.

  And then it happened: with no more shadows to consume, the sphere turned hungry for his core alone. His mana began plummeting at an astronomical rate, bleeding out of him faster than he could brace for.

  “Shit!” was all David managed to bark before his reserves bottomed out completely. The enormous blot of condensed darkness still floated above his palm, trembling with contained force, and he hadn’t even had the chance to push it away.

  David managed to throw himself back just in time, avoiding being completely swallowed by the swelling charge of darkness. But the moment the orb touched the asphalt, the ground began to sizzle and sag, blackness spilling outward like molten tar. He wasn’t quick enough this time—his legs were caught knee-deep in the creeping tide.

  “Auch—auch—auch!” The hissed curses tore from his mouth as a thousand sharp stings raced up his skin. Even with his Major Law of Darkness protecting him, even knowing he himself had conjured this spell, the magic didn’t seem to care about friendly fire. This new world’s rules had no mercy.

  David staggered forward, fighting to wrench his legs free, but the substance clung like swamp mire. Each step was a desperate pull against invisible hands trying to drag him deeper. He gritted his teeth, muscles straining, until at last he stumbled out onto solid ground.

  He glanced down. His pants had been eaten away, leaving only ragged shorts. His boots were gone entirely, along with every last hair on his legs. The skin beneath burned bright red as though he’d marched through a field of nettles. Still—he exhaled sharply—it hadn’t melted his flesh. That was something.

  Shaking off the sting in his legs, David stood for a moment and watched the last traces of darkness settle. The shadows had already crept back to where they belonged, though he couldn’t say exactly when. Clearly, the phenomenon was temporary; the laws of physics, at least, were putting up some resistance.

  With a grunt, he decided against fussing over burned skin or ruined clothes. The sting was bearable, and honestly, shorts felt cooler anyway. What he really needed were new boots. Once those were taken care of, crystals clutched in his hand to recharge his reserves, he returned to the site of his disastrous experiment.

  What he found stopped him cold. A crater, no less than two or three meters deep, gaped in the asphalt. At the bottom, a sluggish pool of darkness still churned faintly. David gave a low whistle. “Nasty stuff,” he muttered, eyeing it with wary respect.

  After drawing in a bit of energy from his crystals, he forced himself to focus on the lesson buried in the chaos. What exactly had he learned from this so-called ‘successful’ experiment? He lifted a hand, conjured a new orb of darkness, and this time—carefully—reached out with his mana not into himself, but into the shadows around him.

  And it worked. The orb swelled as shadows bled into it, feeding it until he had enough charge to shape it into a spear. The best part? His own reserves had barely dipped.

  “There it is… the answer to my mana deficit.” Shadows weren’t scarce, weren’t limited. They were everywhere. All he had to do was reach out and take them.

  David hurled the sphere of darkness he just conjured straight into the crater his overcharged experiment had gouged, then dusted off his hands and made his way toward the perimeter. Out here, the monsters were perfect targets.

  He began firing black spears casually, each one hissing through the air before skewering a target. It worked, but the monotony of it itched at him—this wasn’t enough. There had to be a smarter way.

  Then an idea struck.

  A massive hound-like creature broke from cover, sprinting toward him with terrifying speed. Its claws tore up asphalt as it ran, eyes burning with alien hunger. David didn’t focus on the beast itself. Instead, his gaze dropped to the smear of shadow stretching ahead of it, cast by the glaring sun at its back.

  He reached for the darkness there. Instantly, the monster faltered. Its limbs sank as though the ground beneath had turned to tar. The beast snarled and thrashed, but the shadow clung, dragging at it, slowing its charge.

  Perfect.

  Then he shaped the same shadow into a spear. With a single motion, he drove it forward. The black blade lanced through the creature’s head.The dog collapsed, and started dissolving into its own shadow.