The space was theirs again. And for the first time since Rouxi had let them join the fight, Lingyun was finally able to breathe.

He could feel his fire simmering under his skin, but unlike last time he had used it, now it felt like it belonged to him. Like it was a limb or an organ that he never knew he was missing until it made itself know.

His grin was on his face as he turned to look at Rouxi where she was leaning against the front door, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked at him with pride and he could feel his chest swelling.

The she raised an eyebrow and pointed at something over her shoulder. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Lingyun spun around and saw it—low, fast, and so wrong that he wanted to puke.

Something darted between the bodies piled near the gate, too small and quick to be another zombie dragging itself forward.

He tracked it instinctively, his hand already moving, fire building in his palm before his brain caught up to what he was seeing.

A cat.

Or what used to be a cat.

Half of its face was completely gone, its jaw hanging loose and exposing teeth that snapped at nothing. Its front leg bent wrong, the bone visible through torn skin, but it moved fast anyway, its bleeding belly low to the ground and heading straight for Gao Sheng’s ankle.

"Ground!" Lingyun shouted, throwing a fireball out without aiming carefully.

The burst hit the cat mid-leap and it twisted sideways, slamming into the porch railing instead of Gao Sheng’s leg.

Then the smell hit. Burned fur and rotted flesh mixing with the smoke and rot of everything that was dead around them.

The cat didn’t stay down. It pushed itself upright with its broken leg dragging behind and launched again, this time aiming for Tan Wei’s throat. Lingyun hit it with another burst and the thing finally stopped moving, its body smoking on the ground.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Lingyun muttered, scanning the driveway for more movement.

The universe had a sick sense of humor.

Three cats appeared from under the pile of bodies near the tree line, their movements jerky and wrong but still fast enough to close distance before anyone could react.

One had no eyes, just empty sockets leaking dark fluid, but it tracked movement like it could see perfectly. Another looked like it had been hit by a car, it was missing most of its back half, intestines dragging behind as it ran on just its front paws.

The third looked almost intact except for the chunk missing from its neck and the way its head tilted too far to the left. They spread out immediately, each one targeting a different soldier.

Lingyun threw another ball of fire at the closest one and caught it before it reached Sun Ming. The second cat twisted around Chenghai’s position and went straight for Chen Minghao’s face.

Lingyun spun low and redirected, throwing another burst of fire, but the angle was wrong and the fire passed too close to Chen Minghao’s shoulder. Chen Minghao jerked back instinctively and the cat missed by inches, hitting the wall instead.

"Watch your feet!" Lingyun called out, his voice sharp. "We got cats!"

The third cat slipped through entirely, too low and too fast for Lingyun to catch without hitting Liu Zhenyu in the process. Zhenlan’s air pressure caught it mid-leap and slammed it into the ground hard enough that it didn’t get back up. Lingyun exhaled and scanned again, looking for the next attack.

"We’ve got more than cats!" warned Yuche and Lingyun could barely hear him.

He was more distracted from something moving near his own feet.

Lingyun looked down just as a snake struck from the gap between two zombie bodies.

It was fast—faster than it should be with half its body crushed and flattened. But it still had its fangs, fangs that were aimed straight for his ankle.

He jumped back and threw fire downward in the same motion, the burst hitting the snake and the ground both. The snake’s head separated from its body and the rest kept writhing for several seconds before finally going still.

"Now it’s ground level too?" Lingyun said, his tone flat and annoyed. "Great. That’s just great."

More snakes appeared, their bodies looking like moving water.

They came from under bodies, from cracks in the pavement, from the debris scattered across the driveway. Small ones, large ones, some with scales falling off in patches and others with their bodies torn open but still moving.

They didn’t make any noise, they just struck—fast, low, aiming for ankles and legs and any exposed skin they could reach.

One went for Wang Junjie’s boot and Lingyun burned it before it connected. Another came from the left side and Yuche’s invisible strike crushed it into the ground. A third slipped past everyone and Deng Kai stomped on it hard enough to break its spine.

Lingyun kept throwing fire, adjusting angles, trying to hit targets without catching his own people in the blast. The problem was the range. The cats and snakes were too close, moving too fast between the soldiers’ positions.

Every burst he threw risked hitting someone on his side. He had to pull back on the intensity, make the flames tighter and more controlled, but that meant slower reactions and less coverage.

A cat launched from the right and went straight for Zhao Rui’s throat.

Lingyun caught it with a controlled burst that sent it spinning backward into the driveway. Another snake struck from below and he burned it mid-strike, the smell of charred flesh adding to the mix of rot and smoke already filling the air.

Two more cats appeared from the tree line and he hit one cleanly while Chenghai’s fist crushed the other into the ground without breaking stride.

"They’re everywhere," Sun Ming said, his voice tight.

"Yeah, I noticed," Lingyun replied, throwing another burst at a snake that was aiming for Tan Wei’s leg.

The attacks kept coming.

Cats from the sides, snakes from below, both moving with the same wrong speed and unnatural persistence. Lingyun’s fire was working but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t cover every angle at once and the close range made every shot a risk. He saw a cat slip past his coverage and go for Gao Sheng’s face.

Zhenlan redirected it with air pressure before it connected. A snake struck from under a body and Yuche crushed it with a precise strike that Lingyun didn’t see but heard—the wet crunch of bone and flesh hitting pavement.

Chenghai was still clearing the remaining ground zombies, his fists moving with brutal efficiency, but even he had to adjust his footing twice to avoid snakes that came from under the bodies he was stepping over.

The soldiers were starting to react faster now, stomping on snakes and kicking at cats when they got too close, but the numbers weren’t dropping. For every cat Lingyun burned and every snake someone crushed, two more appeared from somewhere else.

"Fuck my life," Lingyun said, his breathing heavier now from the sustained effort.

A cluster of four cats came from the left all at once, moving in a loose formation that spread them across multiple targets. Lingyun threw fire in rapid succession, catching two and forcing the third to veer off course into Chenghai’s range.

The fourth slipped through and went straight for Liu Zhenyu’s exposed neck. Zhenlan caught it with air pressure and slammed it into the porch post hard enough to break it apart.

More snakes came from the right.

Lingyun burned three in quick succession, the fire lighting up the ground in short bright bursts. A fourth snake struck from directly below his own position and he jumped back, throwing fire downward without looking. The snake’s body split in half and stopped moving. He landed and immediately scanned for the next threat.

The driveway was covered in bodies now—zombies, birds, cats, snakes—all piled together in a mess of blood and rot and burned flesh. The smell was overwhelming. Lingyun’s eyes were watering from the smoke and his hands ached from throwing fire continuously, but he didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop. The attacks weren’t slowing down.

A cat appeared from under a pile of bodies near the gate and went straight for Chen Minghao’s ankle. Lingyun burned it mid-leap. Two snakes struck from different angles and he caught one while Deng Kai stomped on the other.

Another cat launched from the tree line and Chenghai’s fist crushed it before it reached the porch.

Lingyun scanned the battlefield, his breathing heavy, his focus stretched thin. The birds were still circling in the trees. The ground was covered in bodies. And the cats and snakes kept coming, low and fast and relentless.

"They’re not stopping," Zhao Rui said, his voice tight.

"Yeah," Lingyun replied, throwing another burst of fire at a snake that was aiming for Sun Ming’s leg. "I noticed that too."