Day D finally arrived.

  The boss was due to appear any minute.

  David sat at the very center of his construction — the absurd, gigantic jungle gym of steel cubes — cross?legged, trying very hard not to think about how close he was to either freedom or death. He forced himself into a lotus pose, spine straight, hands resting on his knees, breathing slow.

  He checked his watch.

  Five minutes.

  "Don’t panic," he told himself silently. "You have a plan. A real one. You’ll get out of this damn Groundhog Day. And maybe—just maybe—you’ll see real people again. Actual humans."

  The thought lingered longer than he expected.

  David glanced sideways at Kevin?the?robot. The machine stood nearby, dutifully holding a Javelin launcher, ready to help slow the boss down when the time came.

  “Sorry, metal bro,” David muttered. “You are cool… but damn, I miss my meat bro.”

  He winced.

  “Yeah… that sounded a lot better in my head.”

  He exhaled and closed his eyes again.

  Relax. Monks do this all the time, right?

  Ommm…

  Ommmmmm…

  Ommmmmmmm…

  Nothing.

  “Great. Maybe I should’ve brought prayer beads. Or a book. Meditation for Dummies,” he thought bitterly. “At least I didn’t bring booze. Had more than enough of that over the last twenty… thirty iterations?”

  He frowned.

  “…I honestly don’t remember anymore.”

  A cold notification materialized in the air.

  [An Examiner has been assigned.]

  David’s eyes snapped open.

  “Already!?”

  His heart skipped.

  “Damn it… I spaced out.”

  The monster arrived without ceremony.

  One moment the air inside the steel labyrinth was empty, and the next—a mass of writhing tentacles and impossible geometry tore its way into reality. The boss. A Cthulhu-like abomination wrapped in a perfectly smooth, translucent force field, spherical and impenetrable.

  It appeared only a few cubes away from David.

  And immediately got stuck.

  The round shield slammed into the angular cage of steel beams, wedging itself between the square frames of the jungle gym. For a heartbeat, David froze—then his lips split into a grin. The beams groaned, metal screaming as they bent inward under the pressure of the monster’s shield. Slowly. Painfully. But not enough.

  Not enough to count as being trapped.

  The system hesitated.

  The shield pressed. The beams bowed. But because they moved—because they yielded just a little—the system did not intervene. No emergency teleport. No unfair correction.

  David laughed, sharp and victorious.

  “Ha! Eat that, you undergrown calamari!”

  The monster thrashed, tentacles slapping against steel, making dents in them. The structure held—barely.

  David turned and raised his voice. “Alright, guys.”

  A dozen robots stood ready across the lattice, missile launchers, Javelins, and jury-rigged weapons locked and aimed.

  “When it looks like it’s about to squeeze out—fire. Don’t stop. Every second counts.”

  The robots acknowledged in perfect unison.

  “Beep.”

  “That should slow him down even more.”

  David didn’t wait to see the first volley. He sprinted, leapt, and landed on one of the massive steel beams left behind from construction. The moment his boots hit metal, the world answered his will.

  [Law of Steel].

  The beam tore free and surged forward like a launched spear, carrying David with it. Wind screamed past his ears as he shot through ruined streets and empty avenues, away from the trapped god, away from the shrinking dome.

  Toward the bunker.

  Toward the missile.

  Behind him, steel shrieked.

  Ahead of him, the future finally moved forward.

  David burst into the bunker and slammed the hermetic doors shut behind him. They sealed with a dull thunk, the kind of sound that promised safety without enthusiasm. For a second, silence swallowed him.

  Near the entrance stood a couple of crates with rations and several bottles of water. David snorted.

  “Well. Who knows,” he muttered. “Kill the final boss and the System gives me a new quest: Survive the nuclear winter you just caused. Wouldn’t even be surprised.”

  He moved deeper inside.

  The command center no longer looked like a forgotten Cold War relic with a pair of beige CRTs blinking into oblivion. Over the past days, David had dragged in equipment piece by piece—modern computers, batteries and other useful equipment. Cables snaking along all over the floor. Now it felt… serious.

  He pulled on the VR helmet and blinked.

  The world snapped into place through the eyes of one of his robots.

  The monster still struggled inside the metal jungle gym. Twisted beams groaned, some bent nearly double, others cracked under the invisible pressure of the shield—but slowly. Painfully slowly.

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  “Hah,” David laughed. “You’re not even halfway out.”

  He took the helmet off, rolled himself over to the main terminal on a wheeled chair, exhaled, and pressed the button.

  INIT_LAUNCH.SEQ

  [ OK ] LINK ESTABLISHED

  [ OK ] IGNITION SYSTEM: ARMED

  RUN PRE-FLIGHT CHECK

  [ OK ] STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY

  [ OK ] NOZZLE ALIGNMENT

  [ OK ] GUIDANCE MODULE

  [ WARN ] TELEMETRY BUFFER: 92% FULL

  [ OK ] POWER BUS STABLE

  CLEAR FOR IGNITION? (Y/N)

  “Of course it’s clear,” David said, jabbing the key.

  Y

  [ INFO ] COUNTDOWN INITIALIZED

  T-10

  T-9

  T-8

  T-7

  T-6

  T-5

  T-4

  T-3

  T-2

  T-1

  [ INFO ] IGNITION COMMAND SENT

  [ OK ] IGNITER RESPONSE

  [ OK ] CHAMBER PRESSURE RISING

  [ WARN ] PRESSURE DELTA OUT OF RANGE

  [ WARN ] NOZZLE TEMP SPIKE

  [ CRITICAL ] PRESSURE OSCILLATION DETECTED

  [ CRITICAL ] STRUCTURAL LOCKS ENGAGED

  [ INFO ] LAUNCH CLAMPS: HOLDING

  [ FAIL ] THRUST BELOW MINIMUM

  [ FAIL ] LIFT-OFF CONDITION NOT MET

  [ INFO ] ENGINE SHUTDOWN

  [ INFO ] IGNITION SEQUENCE TERMINATED

  [ INFO ] CORE PROCESS HALTED

  PROGRAM TERMINATED.

  “What do you mean PROGRAM TERMINATED?!” David shouted, slamming his fist into the console. “It worked in simulation! It worked perfectly!”

  The monitors stared back at him, dead and indifferent.

  “Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.”

  He was already moving, fingers flying, pulling up diagnostics, trying to fix the rocket, swearing under his breath. Every second counted.

  The monster was almost free.

  One last iron cube held it back. A single remaining beam groaned, bending inward as a thick, slick tentacle wrapped around it, squeezing, straining—just one more push and the creature would tear itself out of its temporary prison and surge toward its goal.

  Then—

  “Beep.”

  “Beep-beep-beep.”

  The air filled with sharp electronic chirps as the robots acknowledged their combat protocols.

  Eight Javelins rose in perfect synchronization. Targeting systems locked.

  And—

  BOOM.

  The simultaneous impact was deafening. Explosions blossomed against the creature’s shield, and one of the tentacles was ripped clean off, spinning away in a spray of dark fluid before slamming into the steel lattice below.

  The monster let out a sound that was less a roar and more a deep, distorted wail—something that vibrated through metal and bone alike. It twisted violently, recoiling, then immediately reached out with another tentacle, wrapping it around a different beam, refusing to stop.

  That was the signal.

  The rest of the robots opened fire.

  RATATATATATATA.

  Gunfire erupted from every direction. Bullets hammered into the creature’s shield, sparks and flashes lighting up the massive jungle-gym structure. Barrels began to glow from the heat, accuracy dropping slightly as the weapons overheated—but they were robots. Tireless and precise. Nearly every round found its mark.

  The firing only paused in brief moments when they needed to reload.

  Still, inch by inch, the monster forced its way out.

  With a final heave, it tore free from the iron cage. Bent beams snapped back or collapsed entirely. The creature rose upward, its massive body lifting into the air, climbing above the effective firing angles.

  The bullets chased it for a few seconds longer—then fell silent.

  Above the ruined jungle gym, an unnatural quiet settled.

  Two of the three rocket engines were dead. Not damaged—rotted. Entire wiring harnesses reduced to brittle, green-stained skeletons.

  “Budget cuts,” David snarled. “Of course.”

  He kicked the service hatch.

  The metal panel tore free, spun through the air, and slammed halfway into a concrete wall with a dull, meaty thud. The kind of impact that would have shattered bones if it had been flesh.

  Behind him, one of the newer computers flickered. Kevin?the?robot was calling. On the screen, the monster was pulling away from the trap, rising higher with every second.

  Damn it.

  He’d missed the launch window.

  No time to think. David sprinted to the terminal and started typing at an inhuman speed. Keys clattered like machine-gun fire, pauses only coming when the ancient processor wheezed, struggling to keep up.

  [ INFO ] THRUST MIN VALUE... OVERRIDDEN

  [ INFO ] LIFT-OFF CONDITION MET

  [ INFO ] ENGINE 1, 2 AND 3 ACTIVATION

  Deep below, the engines ignited.

  Only one of them truly came alive.

  Flame erupted from a single nozzle. The silo shook. The rocket began to rise—slow, uneven, wrong.

  “No. Not yet.”

  David raised one hand.

  The ascent stopped.

  The silo doors were already open. Error messages flooded the screens—dozens of them, cascading too fast to read—but David was already typing again, forcing new configurations through systems that hadn’t been meant to obey.

  ENTER.

  The computer protested. Authority violations. Automated reports being sent to bureaucratic ghosts that did not exist anymore.

  David didn’t read them.

  Instead, he jumped.

  Using the sheer mass of the rocket, he pulled himself towards the rocket using the [Law of Steel], his boots hitting the rocket with a loud thud. Then he pressed himself flat against the hull, arms and legs spread wide.

  For a moment, he clung there, like a parody of some old comic book hero that he liked as a kid “Man-spider”.

  David burst out of the silo vertically, the rocket screaming beneath his feet. At the peak, he wrenched it sideways with sheer will and brute force, forcing the nose down into a horizontal line. The rocket resisted, roaring, fighting him like a living thing, but David planted his feet on it as if it were a board and rode it down, sparks and heat washing over him.

  He jumped and touched down hard, knees bending, boots scraping against scorched concrete. The engines never stopped pushing. The rocket strained forward, trembling, desperate to be free. David clenched his jaw and held it there in the air beside him, muscles screaming, mana pouring out of him in violent waves.

  He turned toward the direction where the monster would come from. According to his calculations, any second now.

  The air around him began to vibrate.

  He drew in power. More. Still more. The pressure built until even the ground beneath his feet began to hum.

  “Hope this doesn’t break you,” he muttered, glancing at the rocket.

  The plan was simple. The moment the monster appeared—throw the rocket with everything he had, jump back into the silo while it flew, seal the doors, and pray that the monster will be dead before the shockwave reaches him.

  His reserves hit their limit.

  That wasn’t enough.

  David triggered [Rage].

  His eyes began to glow softly, light bleeding out from beneath his eyelids as another torrent of mana flooded his body. Hundreds of iterations had taught him restraint—just enough not to crush the rocket like tin foil. But he couldn’t hold it much longer.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Fly already, you bastard.”

  Ten seconds passed.

  Then the horizon broke.

  The flying crystal kraken rose into view, its massive shield distorting the sky around it, tentacles trailing behind.

  “Now.”

  David unleashed everything.

  He hurled the rocket.

  For an instant it was still hovering above him.

  Then—

  Clap.

  Only his enhanced perception caught what happened. He had overdone it.

  The clap was a sonic boom.

  One moment the rocket existed in front of him. The next, it was already embedded in the monster’s shield.

  Too fast.

  He wouldn’t make it back to the silo.

  David reacted on instinct alone—throwing his arms up, covering his face.

  The world turned white.

  Brighter than anything he had ever seen.

  Pain erased thought.

  For a single impossible moment, he could see through his own hands—every bone outlined in blinding light.

  Text burned itself across his vision, perfectly clear, superimposed over his skeleton:

  New Ability Acquired: [Major Law of Sun]

  “Nice…” he might have thought.

  But his mind no longer had the capacity to understand words.

  There was only pain.

  And then—

  Nothing.

  Welcome to the end of the first arc?

  End of the first book??

  End of the first act???

  First of all, thank you to all my subscribers (all 27 of you lol) who actually read my ramblings.

  When I first started writing this story, I had no idea it would end up in the form it has now. Along the way, a lot of things changed — including the plot itself.

  I’m going to continue writing this story, and I hope to do so without long breaks (I already have ideas for at least 50 more chapters).

  Also, as you may have noticed, I’ve updated the cover. I’m planning to try using royal road ads as well to bring in more readers.

  Anyway, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave any feedback or questions in the comments. I’m really trying to improve as a writer, and I’d love to hear what you think about my writing and how I can make it better.