"Or not," I added, keeping my voice level and my stare. "The choice is yours."

Mind you, they didn’t have a lot of time to make that choice.

Here was hoping that they were smart enough to understand the situation they were facing.

Yuche moved first. He stepped back toward the porch without hesitation, his hands dropping from the metal barrier he had been forcing into place. Chenghai followed immediately after, his bloodied fists lowering as he stepped away from the zombie he had been about to crush.

Zhenlan shifted back, adjusting his stance to cover the pullback, and Lingyun moved with them, his fire dimming as he gave ground.

None of them questioned it. None of them looked at each other. They just moved.

But just as they gave up the little ground they managed to claw back, the horde didn’t hesitate to take it again.

Birds dropped from the trees in a coordinated dive, more than before, each one picking a target and committing. Cats came from both sides in tight clusters, low and fast, splitting across angles so no one person could cover them all. Snakes struck from under the bodies in waves, aiming for ankles and exposed skin.

The human zombies climbed faster now, pulling themselves over the pile near the gate and onto the driveway in numbers that kept growing.

The pressure hit all at once.

Chen Minghao tried to hold the left side, but the ground under his feet shifted without warning, throwing off his balance just enough to matter. Zhao Rui called out threats, but his timing slipped, his focus catching too much at once instead of what mattered first. Liu Zhenyu’s footing went bad as water spread under him, slick and uneven, forcing him to adjust mid-step. Gao Sheng pushed air out in short bursts, but the direction wasn’t clean, knocking some threats away while letting others slip through. Deng Kai kept his aim steady, but blood ran down his face from a claw that had caught his cheek, his vision narrowing as he forced himself to keep up.

Commander Li turned toward me, his stance still forward, his expression tight.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice barely controlled rage. I understood it, I really did. I would be pissed too, if it happened to me. But he was too close to the situation, he didn’t see what I saw. "There are still too many zombies out there and we’ve got nothing left to throw at them."

Before he could even finish his sentence, fire exploded from Zhao Yicheng without warning.

It wasn’t controlled, it wasn’t clean, and it completely covered the area where Zhenlan and Lingyun were standing a few moments before.

It burst out from his mouth and hands in a sudden wave that rolled across the closest zombies, catching and burning fast. The heat hit hard enough to force them back half a step, but it didn’t stop them. They kept coming, bodies burning, movement uneven but still pushing forward.

I raised a brow even as Commander Li’s face turned pale.

Zhenlan, Chenghai, Yuche, and Lingyun were mine. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to them. Even if it meant sacrificing others.

But Zhao Yicheng was just the first bottle to pop its top.

Air burst outward from Gao Sheng next, sharp and uncontrolled, sending two cats slamming sideways into the fence while nearly knocking Sun Ming off his feet.

The ground shifted again under Chen Minghao, cracking just enough to throw off everyone standing too close.

Metal tore loose from the debris near Wang Junjie, bending midair before dropping when he lost control of it.

Water spread across the steps in a sudden rush, pooling where it shouldn’t and making footing worse instead of better.

Tan Wei staggered back as a snake caught his arm, the skin around the bite darkening while the thing that bit him slowed almost immediately, its movement turning sluggish before it dropped dead.

One after another.

There was no visible warning. No control over their powers.

I knew what to look for, this wasn’t my first rodeo, although I had hoped it would be my last.

I saw this coming.

Chen Minghao’s ground control turned against him, the shifts coming at the wrong time, forcing people to adjust when they couldn’t afford to.

Zhao Rui kept calling threats, but there were too many now, his voice a fraction too late each time as Liu Zhenyu’s water spread too wide, creating gaps instead of slowing anything down.

Gao Sheng’s air pushed in bursts that didn’t line up, clearing space in one direction while opening another. Deng Kai stayed steady, but even he hesitated, forced to choose between targets instead of taking them cleanly. Tan Wei held his ground, but his stance shifted as the poison spread through his arm, his movements tightening.

Yuche, from where he stood beside me, pulled metal from whatever he could reach, bending scraps into barriers that barely held. The shapes were rough, the angles off, the force behind them uneven. He adjusted, corrected, tried again, but it wasn’t enough.

They were all slipping.

I stepped forward just enough to see it clearly.

Zhao Yicheng’s fire spread again, catching too wide this time, licking at the edge of the porch.

"Too much," I said. "Use your head. Think pen and not highlighter." My voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

The fire pulled back, not fully controlled, but tighter than before.

Gao Sheng pushed again, another burst that went too far and ended more like a breeze than a tornado.

"Keep it close to your chest," I muttered, shaking my head.

His next attempt was smaller, more focused. It hit a diving bird and sent it off course without touching anyone else.

Chen Minghao shifted his stance, the ground buckling again under him. "You are the immoveable object," I sneered, even as I pulled some of the energy leaking into the ground into myself.

I wasn’t about to let the foundation of my home crumble because these men thought they belonged to the elements and not the other way around.

He adjusted and this time the ground moved slower, steadier, still rough but usable to knock a few zombies off their feet.

I didn’t explain anything. I didn’t need to.

Li saw it.

He didn’t question what was happening. He didn’t ask how it worked. He watched, adjusted, and started moving his people with it instead of against it. He shifted positions, tightened spacing, timed their movements between the surges instead of fighting through them.

They adapted fast.

Their powers didn’t settle, not fully, but they stopped working against them.

Zhao Yicheng’s fire burned in tighter bursts now, catching targets without spreading. Gao Sheng’s air hit where it needed to instead of everywhere at once. Chen Minghao’s ground held long enough to matter. Wang Junjie pulled metal with purpose instead of reacting to it. Liu Zhenyu’s water slowed movement instead of breaking footing.

The pressure didn’t disappear.

But it stopped crushing them.

Li looked at me, then at the others on the porch, then back at his men.

"How do you know all this?" he asked.

Yuche didn’t look at him. He kept his attention on the field, his hands already moving again. "She watches too many anime and dramas," he said when I didn’t bother to reply.

Li raised a brow as he turned to the four men around me. "You seriously buy that?"

Zhenlan scoffed. Chenghai stayed silent. Lingyun let out a short laugh.

I knew that none of them believed my excuses.

But they also accepted them.

And that made my insides do things it probably shouldn’t do.