David tried to repeat the same trick on a different monster—a panther protected by a force field. Unlike before, when he fed a creature to its own shadow, nothing happened this time. The shadows within the barrier refused to obey him, as if the shield itself had severed his control. Narrowing his focus, he reached for the portion of the shadow that extended beyond the barrier—and there, finally, he saw a reaction: the dark tendrils began gnawing at the beast’s outer defenses.

  Sparks of resistance crackled across the shimmering barrier. For a moment it held, deflecting the creeping dark, but eventually the shield fractured, splintering apart like glass under pressure. The instant it failed, the panther was dragged down by its own shadow, consumed just like the dog before it.

  David let out a sharp breath, noting the pattern. So… I can’t push my mana directly past a barrier. That means if I meet more enemies with the same sort of ability, I’ll have to rely on breaking them first. Hopefully, there won’t be too many of those.

  With these thoughts in mind, David realized that there was no point in fighting here - the robots were doing just fine on their own - and he went into the building to sleep.

  David slept without dreams and woke to morning light that felt annoyingly ordinary. The perimeter cameras and feed from the robots showed the usual: robots were patrolling and fighting the monsters, the amount of ammunition was still a lot. Lizard-like monsters—the ones that spat darkness— started spawning and were already prowling the outer ring. New robots, armed with real guns rather than pistols, were doing the heavy lifting today. He could have stayed in bed and let them handle it.

  But he didn’t. There was a small, hot thing lodged in his chest that had nothing to do with survival and everything to do with spite. He remembered how he received the Law of Darkness - by melting under the flow of dark energy of the creatures. David wanted to make them feel a sliver of that pain in return.

  So he went out and tried the trick again. He concentrated, felt for the shadow under a sullen, slinking monster, and drew the shadow into a sort of trap—an inky pit that clotted around the creature’s feet like marsh mud. The beast slowed; its movements grew heavy. For a moment the scene felt triumphant.

  And then something confused him. The shadow didn’t devour the creature the way it had eaten the dogs or the panthers. The lizard snarled and thrashed, clearly annoyed, but not being dissolved. The blackness licked at its scales and retreated.

  David frowned. He watched the creature with narrowed eyes and then realized: the monsters bore the same elemental signatures as the powers they spat. Those laws came with immunity baked in. In short: they got the resistance to darkness the way he now wielded it.

  For the first time in a while, the loop felt less like a playground for experimentation and more like a clever machine teaching him rules he had to obey.

  The lizard thrashed helplessly in the trap of shadow-mire David had conjured. Its claws tore at the darkness, but the swampy tendrils only sucked it deeper, keeping the creature pinned. The monster didn’t spit those searing globes of black energy—it was too busy trying to survive. David let it struggle for another moment, then raised his hand.

  A streak of lightning shot from his palm. The bolt struck the lizard squarely, and its body jerked violently before collapsing into stillness. Smoke curled from its charred hide.

  [Level Up]

  David exhaled, then walked closer to the corpse. He activated Mana Perception, letting his awareness seep through the blackened flesh. There—it pulsed faintly, buried inside. The core was there, standard core just a bit bigger than the ones he’d pulled from the giant dogs. Nothing exotic like the panther’s third-eye variant, but still a prize. Probably the reason why the system ranked it after the panther was the nasty law it used and ranged attacks.

  David crouched down, studying it for another moment, then grabbed the lizard by one charred leg. “Come on, you’re coming with me.”

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  After teaching the robots how to extract cores from the corpses of panthers—before the bodies piled too high around the perimeter—and from the charred lizard monsters (though he had to find one that wasn’t reduced to cinders, otherwise the machines might not recognize it), David finally sat down beside the growing heap of harvested cores.

  He didn’t need more of them just yet. The stash he’d already built from the giant hellhounds could last him a long while. But he wasn’t planning for comfort. Not this time. He wanted out of the dome, and if he was going to attempt an escape in this iteration, he would need every possible advantage. Reserves of mana were his insurance.

  With that thought, David picked up a core, held it between his fingers, and let the fragile structure unravel into pure mana. Wisps of power dissolved into his channels, flooding his body and expanding the limits of his core. Another followed, and another.

  255th... 400th... 550th...

  You have improved your magical core: Rank E+ → D-

  David froze, a grin spreading across his face. "Finally," he muttered. He could feel the shift inside himself—mana flowing stronger and steadier. With this much raw energy stored, he could fight for far longer without worrying about running dry. No new flashy abilities announced themselves, but that was fine. The sheer expansion of his reservoir was worth celebrating.

  Through Mana Perception, he observed the transformation within. His core no longer resembled the rough, jagged tumor of crystal it once was. Instead, it had smoothed into something cleaner, rounder, almost polished—like a gemstone finally cut and shaped after endless grinding.

  Satisfied, David leaned back and decided it was time for a break. He wiped his forehead, grabbed the laptop he’d left in the lobby, and booted up the control feed for the robots. A moment later, his brow furrowed.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” he whispered, eyes narrowing at the screen.

  Bursting out onto the street, David froze for a heartbeat at the sight before him. His robots were under attack. New monsters. Already? His mind stumbled over the thought, this soon? The lizards had only appeared this morning. Was this escalation a sign that his adventures under the dome were drawing to an end? He certainly hopes so.

  The creatures were grotesque, like bloated sacks of fabric drifting unnaturally through the air. Most were being clipped from the sky by his armed assistants' gunfire, but several managed to float just high enough to escape their firing arcs. Of course. The robots had been built for human environments, for cleaning and maintenance, not for anti-air combat.

  A flash of heat caught his eye—one of the things spat a fireball, the incandescent sphere slamming into a robot. David flinched, but to his surprise the machine remained standing. The steel frame was unfazed, though the plastic casing melted and sagged, smoke curling upward from the damage.

  “Damn it,” he hissed. If they burned through the camera and wiring, he’d have to activate new units. At least he had a surplus—more weapons than robots—but still, the thought of losing machines was not pleasant.

  No time to waste. He drew on his power, the shadows at his feet writhing and from the darkness rose a spear of solid darkness, sleek and sharp. He hurled it with a thought, the weapon streaking upward with lethal precision.

  The projectile punched clean through one of the floating monsters. The thing gave a high-pitched wheeze as air leaked from its ruptured form, deflating like a pierced balloon. It spiraled down, crumpling in on itself, before hitting the ground with a wet thud. The impact finished what the spear had started.

  David exhaled slowly, lowering his hand. One down. Plenty more to go.

  David broke into a run along the perimeter, his eyes scanning the skies for every floating monstrosity he could spot. Shadow spears flared to life in his hands one after another, quickly filling from the shadows around. Every strike punched clean holes through the creatures’ balloon-like bodies, and the air soon filled with a chorus of ridiculous deflations—halfway between the hiss of torn fabric and the sound of whoopee cushions. David almost laughed despite the danger. If nothing else, the System had a twisted sense of humor.

  Still, he couldn’t help but wonder—where the hell was the System pulling these things from? They were nothing like the dogs, panthers, or lizards he’d faced before. Different worlds, maybe? Or were these creatures completely artificial?

  One by one, the floating sacks of fire-spewing flesh fell or burst apart, and soon the perimeter was secure. The threat he’d nearly overlooked while gorging himself on monster cores was gone, and the compound was safe again. Evening shadows stretched across the dome, the last light slanting orange against the metal walls. David sighed, already making a mental checklist. The fight was over, but his work wasn’t. Now he had to reprogram the robots—teach them to scan the skies. Otherwise, this would happen again, and next time he might not catch it in time.