Zhenlan felt the air around him change before he saw what caused it.

The zombies had stopped pushing forward as hard and it looked, for a single second, like they might actually stand a chance.

Then again, there were thirteen men fighting and hundreds of zombies still in front of them.

The odds were definitely not in their favor.

Chenghai cleared another section of the driveway and the space in front of him opened up just enough to let him breathe. The wall of zombies that they were originally facing was now broken into smaller groups, which was another point in their favor. Zhenlan shifted left, adjusting his stance without thinking, his breathing steady and even as he tried to figure out what was setting him off.

Besides the zombies of course.

"Left side’s thinning," someone called out and Zhenlan heard numerous exhales at the same moment.

"Don’t relax," another voice snapped back, that one sounded like Commander Li.

Zhenlan didn’t look at them. He didn’t need to.

He didn’t know if he was getting stronger or if he was just better at using his powers, but the air around him was easier to move now.

He didn’t have to push as hard to knock zombies off balance, and the gaps between bursts stretched longer as the horde lost its shape. The soldiers kept firing, still controlled, still steady, but there was less urgency behind it now. The worst of the weight had passed.

That was when, from the corner of his eyes, he saw something moving wrong.

Whatever it was, it was fast.

Too fast.

And it wasn’t coming from the ground.

Zhenlan’s head snapped up just as a thing dropped out of the sky and went straight for Zhao Rui’s face.

"Abo—"

The warning cut off as Zhenlan pushed air upward in a sharp burst. The bird, if that was what you wanted to call it, jerked sideways mid-dive, missing Zhao Rui’s head by less than half a meter before slamming into the railing.

"What the—"

The bird didn’t stay down. It hit, twisted, and launched again, this time straight for Tan Wei’s throat.

Zhenlan shoved it sideways again and it smashed into the wall with a wet sound before dropping to the floor.

It pushed itself back up.

"Are you kidding me—"

The thing hopped forward and Zhenlan was finally able to get a good view of the thing.

They weren’t normal birds anymore. Feathers came off in clumps or didn’t exist at all, exposing strips of torn muscle and pale bone underneath.

Wings moved the wrong way, joints bending where they shouldn’t, some were half-broken and hanging loose while the rest of the body forced them to keep moving.

Every flap made a wet, grinding sound like something tearing inside. Their eyes were clouded over, leaking thick black blood that ran down their heads and soaked into what feathers they had left.

Beaks were cracked or split, some hanging open at odd angles, snapping blindly at anything close enough to reach. Different species, different sizes, but all of them moved the same way—jerky, wrong, and still fast enough to hit before you could react, wings broken, beak snapping.

"There are fucking zombie birds now?!?" Lingyun shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos.

"Eyes up!" someone barked and three birds dropped from the nearest tree all at once.

Zhenlan didn’t waste his breath answering. He just moved in response to the incoming attack.

He used his air and pushed the first bird off its course before it reached Sun Ming. The second one twisted mid-air, correcting, and he hit it again harder this time, sending it spinning back into the driveway. The third slipped through low and fast, too close to catch in time.

Chenghai’s fist came down and crushed it into the ground without even looking.

"Keep them off the porch!" Zhao Rui snapped and Zhenlan moved to help.

He shifted his focus upward, scanning the tree line, the roof, the sky. The birds weren’t coming in one wave. They were dropping in bursts, from different directions, forcing them to split their attention.

One from the left.

One from above.

One from the gate.

He pushed air out, redirected it, and shoved them off course one after another, each movement tighter than the last.

"Above you!" Deng Kai shouted.

"I see it," Zhenlan replied, forcing the words out through gritted teeth.

The bird twisted mid-air, correcting against the pressure, and came in again.

Zhenlan hit it harder and it slammed into the post hard enough to break apart, but even then, something managed to slip through.

A bird hit Gao Sheng’s shoulder and tore into him before he could react. "Fuck—!"

Gao Sheng jerked back, his rifle swinging up, and the bird launched again toward his face.

Zhenlan forced air between them and knocked it off course just in time.

"Stay down!" Gao Sheng snapped, bringing the rifle up again.

The bird didn’t listen. Instead, it circled and came back.

Zhenlan crushed it into the ground on the second pass.

Too fast.

They were all too fast.

The attacks kept coming, dropping from above, from angles that didn’t give the humans enough time to think. Zhenlan stopped trying to track patterns, stop trying to figure their next move, and focused on movement instead.

Anything that dropped, he pushed upward. Anything that turned, he redirected. Anything that got too close, he hit harder.

Chenghai didn’t look up once. He just kept moving through the remaining zombies, breaking them apart with steady, brutal force.

Lingyun’s fire burned across the right side of the driveway, but the birds stayed out of it, circling wide before diving in again.

"Annoying little shits," Lingyun muttered, throwing another burst of flame upward. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Yuche stayed behind them, steady, precise, but even he missed once as a bird twisted mid-air and dropped lower than expected.

Zhenlan covered it. "Behind you," he said, voice calm.

"I had it," Yuche replied.

"You hesitated."

Yuche didn’t answer and Zhenlan didn’t push it.

He looked up again just in time to catch another bird dropping from the roof. He hit it hard and sent it flying back into the tree line.

Two more followed.

He knocked both aside without breaking rhythm.

Another came straight down.

He slammed it into the railing and it didn’t get back up.

Adjust.

The soldiers were catching on now. Sun Ming shifted his stance, glancing up between shots. Deng Kai started calling angles faster, sharper.

"Left—above—two!"

Zhenlan had already moved and the bird hit the ground instead of the man.

The pressure around him felt different now. It wasn’t the heavy push from the front, but the constant need to watch everything at once. Ground. Air. Movement. Angles.

His shoulders ached but he simply rolled them and pushed through the pain.

Didn’t matter.

All that mattered was taking one more breath, living for one more minute.

He kept going, waving his arm as a cluster of four dropped at once.

"Multiple attacks!" screamed one of the soldiers, and Zhenlan pushed in quick succession, one, two, three—

The fourth slipped through, twisting low toward Liu Zhenyu.

Zhenlan caught it at the last second and slammed it into the wall hard enough that it didn’t move again.

"Got it," Liu Zhenyu said, breath tight.

Zhenlan didn’t respond.

The attacks slowed.

The birds still circled in the trees, but they stopped diving.

For now.

Chenghai dropped the last zombie near the gate and straightened, scanning for anything still moving.

The gunfire stopped.

Silence settled over the driveway.

Zhenlan lowered his hands slowly, his breathing heavier now but still under control. His eyes stayed up, tracking the branches, the roofline, anything that moved.

"They backing off?" Lingyun asked.

"I don’t know," Zhenlan replied. The last time the zombies had backed off, the birds arrived. Now that the birds were waiting for something...

He shook his head as he fought to control his breathing.

"Great. So we’ve got flying ones now," Lingyun muttered. "That’s not getting old at all."

Zhenlan didn’t answer.

The ground was covered in bodies. Zombies. Birds. Blood. Feathers.

The space was theirs again.

Until it wasn’t.