David had already flown about half a kilometer when he finally dared to glance back. The monster was just a tiny blot in the distance now, sluggish and indistinct against the skyline.

  "Huh... so you’re slow after all," he muttered, exhaling in relief. The grid beneath his feet wobbled slightly. He eased up on his mana output—no point burning through reserves if the thing couldn’t catch up anyway.

  The crystals he’d snatched before his escape were still enough, but at this rate... maybe he will last an hour, tops. Definitely not a long-term flight plan.

  For a moment, as the wind howled past, his mind drifted. There’d been that old internet meme—something about an immortal snail that always crawled toward you. If it ever touched you, you’d die instantly. The twist was that you got a million dollars for taking the deal. The question was: what would you do with your life, knowing that somewhere out there, a snail was forever inching your way?

  He squinted again at the distant monster, its tendrils glinting in the light of the moon. Yeah. No snail. No million bucks. But the vibe was eerily similar.

  "Guess I’m the idiot who said yes to the deal," he muttered, tightening his grip on the grid as he continued to glide forward into the uncertain horizon.

  David angled his improvised metal flying carpet, keeping the monster at a cautious distance as he glided above the buildings. The air whipped past him, biting at his face while he tried to think three steps ahead. Spotting a small storefront below, he tilted downward and guided the metal grate through a window, shattering it in the process. After shaking off the shards, he quickly looks around the store and finds what he needs — a sports bag. Perfect.

  He grabbed it, slung it over his shoulder, and shot back into the open air. Making a wide loop through the district, he returned to the familiar rooftop—his old battlefield. The crystals still pulsed faintly where he had left them. He extended a hand and drew energy into himself until his core was full, then scooped several cores into the bag.

  “Alright,” he muttered under his breath, cinching the strap tight. “Fuel problem solved. Welcome aboard David Airlines.”

  He settled back onto the floating grate, launched skyward again, and let the city sprawl beneath him. The extra weight tugged on his arms as he steered, but it was manageable. His mind, however, refused to stay still. Something didn’t add up.

  The robots. They hadn’t fired once.

  Frowning, David leaned over the edge of his craft as he drifted toward the defensive perimeter. The machines still stood where he had placed them Then it clicked—the waves had stopped. No new monsters had come through. Only this one remained.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Where would I find fuel for my jet?”

  He glanced again toward the rooftops. The pile of crystal cores shimmered faintly in the distance “I burn through one panther’s worth of energy every ten minutes,” he calculated aloud. “That’ll last... a while. Hopefully.”

  But then he noticed movement on the horizon. The airborne horror was closing in, maybe two hundred meters now. Down below, his sentry robots suddenly came alive, their targeting systems locking on and unleashing a barrage of bullets. Muzzle flashes strobed across the complex.

  “Good boys,” David said, gripping the edges of the grate as it jolted forward. “Now let’s see if we can outfly a nightmare.”

  He poured mana into the metal beneath his feet. The makeshift craft hummed, trembled, then surged ahead.

  Hmm. David sat cross-legged on the metal grate, gliding through the cool night air and thinking. Not exactly comfortable. Maybe he should pick up a pillow on the way back. But not yet. He wouldn’t stop until he reached the far edge of the zone. Once the monster caught up, he’d dart straight toward the city—grab what he needed, recharge, and get moving again.

  He stuck to that plan. When he reached the edge, as far from the office building as possible, he let the creature close in before banking sharply and racing back toward his base. The wind whipped against his face as he skimmed low over rooftops, the hum of magic vibrating beneath him through the metal.

  Landing back on the office rooftop, he moved quickly. He’d come up with a plan during the flight—and it was time to make it real. David dashed inside, found a computer chair, and yanked off its seat from the rolling base. Perfect. Then he took the grate and the top of the chair and ran to the warehouse where the humanoid robots were initially stored, he remembered that there was definitely a lot of winch there. With a few knots and a lot of determination, he rigged the seat onto the grate, securing it with the winch cable.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Then came the cargo upgrade. He grabbed several duffel bags, filled them with monster core crystals, and hooked them along the edges of his makeshift flying platform. When he was done, he stepped back, admiring his work—a rough but glorious throne hovering in the night.

  David laughed under his breath. “Now that’s an upgrade, Xzibyte would be proud”

  He picked up his laptop, climbed onto the seat, and kicked off the roof. The grate shuddered, then steadied as his magic took hold again. He rose smoothly into the air, turning toward the horizon where the faint, glowing silhouette of the flying Cthulhu-beast loomed in the distance.

  As he flew past his automated defences—still scanning the perimeter, silent now that no new enemies approached—he made a mental note. “I really need to teach them how to harvest those cores from the new beasts,” he muttered.

  The new flight setup demanded more mana than before, but David had plenty of crystal cores to spare. He leaned back on his makeshift flying chair. Slowing his speed, he pivoted in place, facing the horizon where the monster loomed closer and waited. Two hundred meters. That was close enough.

  He drew in mana through the crystals piled beside him. Then, with a slow exhale, he raised his hand and conjured three spears of darkness. They shimmered with a subtle violet hue, cutting through the night as they flew toward the levitating beast. The monster’s shield hissed as the dark energy hit, its surface rippling a bit like disturbed water before absorbing the attack entirely.

  David frowned. “Figures. It’s eating it again.”

  He shifted his balance, steadying his chair as it wobbled under the strain of simultaneous casting and flight control. “Alright, let’s try something dumber.”

  From his thigh holster, he drew his Desert Eagle—a heavy, satisfying weight in his hand. He hadn’t used it that night before, afraid it might interfere with his spells, but now seemed as good a time as any.

  He aimed and fired. The gun’s thunderclap cracked through the night. One, two, three shots hit dead center on the shimmering barrier. Sparks scattered, but the shield held. More importantly—it didn’t glow, didn’t feed on the kinetic energy the way it did with magic.

  David’s eyes narrowed. “So you only eat mana, huh? That’s good to know.”

  He reloaded calmly, the chair dipping slightly as his focus wavered, then holstered the pistol again. “Alright, not much use now—but I’ll remember that next time.”

  With that, he angled the levitating seat forward and continued his slow, measured retreat through the dark sky, keeping one eye on the monster.

  David yawned. Even with [Sleep Resistance], exhaustion was creeping in. The past few days had been a blur of preparation, tension, and sleepless nights leading up to the boss fight he’d imagined would be short and decisive. Instead, it had turned into an endless chase—him running, the monster following like some persistent nightmare.

  He rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to focus. The endless hum of mana in his veins was starting to grate on him. Then he remembered Kevin’s car—the one with the autopilot. Perfect. A chance to breathe.

  Still hovering on his makeshift flying chair, David adjusted his course toward the office complex. He landed softly near the car. A quick check showed the battery was nearly full. Excellent.

  He started transferring his supplies—bags of crystal cores, laptop, some water and food—into the car’s back seat. The flying platform with the chair, however, was another story. It didn’t fit, and he wasn’t about to spend half an hour dismantling it. He sighed, leaning against the car. If things went south, he could always make another way out.

  David slid into the car and eased it onto the road, letting the quiet hum of the electric motor fill the silence. As he drove, he began measuring the monster’s pursuit speed. Every few minutes he switched to autopilot, glancing at the dashboard to compare the car’s average pace to the slow but relentless approach of the creature somewhere behind him. The math wasn’t encouraging, but it was enough.

  Reaching the invisible edge of the dome, David pulled up the navigation screen and tapped out a route along the widest possible perimeter. The navigation system, of course, had no idea there was a shimmering barrier out there, but David did. He’d lived inside this time loop long enough to trace its borders from memory. The line of the route blinked blue on the map.

  He sighed, checked the rear seat where the heap of crystal-cores lay, no free space there. “Next time,” he muttered, “I’m bringing a pillow.” Then he reclined the seat, closed his eyes, and let exhaustion wash over him.

  He woke up with a jolt.

  A cold pulse of danger hit him a split second before his eyes opened. The car had stopped. The autopilot’s soft chime was still blinking on the dashboard, but ahead—blocking the road—was another vehicle, empty. His stomach dropped. One of the cars abandoned when everyone vanished at the start of the loop.

  “Damn it,” David hissed, fumbling for the manual controls. “I should’ve cleared the route first—”

  He never finished the thought.

  The roof buckled inward with a deafening crunch. Metal screamed. A tentacle, thick as a tree trunk, crushed the car like paper—and David with it.