Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Encountering Zombie Birds
“Zi Ying,” Ying Ao asked, eyebrow raised, “you picked up Tong Ying’s trick too?”
“No.”
“Then what are you basing this on?” This time, Ying Yi pressed.
“The pilot we found was a Level Two zombie,” Lian Yi said, steady. “When I killed him, he didn’t resist. Before, with him holding everything down, we cut through zombies easily. Now he’s gone. The ones outside will smell fresh flesh and drift this way. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Level Two?” Ying Yi’s gaze sharpened.
“Yes.”
Ying Ao rubbed his chin. “That explains why we barely met resistance at the warehouse.”
“Because most of the airport’s zombies were trapped inside those two buildings,” Lian Yi said. “Contained.”
“But the fighter jets are still in the hangars,” Ying Yi muttered. “We can’t fly them all out quickly.”
Lian Yi opened her mouth to answer—
The radio snapped alive.
“Captain! Bird flock inbound, closing on the airport. A hawk is leading them—crows and sparrows too. It’s a black sheet in the sky.”
“Copy.” Ying Yi’s voice turned razor-sharp. “Perimeter team, fall back inside. Seal every entrance. Now.”
He looked at Lian Yi like he’d swallowed something bitter.
Lian Yi only shrugged. Not her fault. The balance broke. Predators came.
By the time the last entrance was locked, the final sliver of sunset died. The flock poured into view, blotting out the sky.
They dropped as one—wings beating wet and uneven, pupil-less eyes fixed on the dorm building. On them.
“Fuck,” Ying Ao breathed. “They’re coming straight for us.”
Seventeen people pinned by thousands of flying bodies—and the enemy had wings.
The jet plan died right there.
“Cover the windows,” Ying Yi ordered. “Find a room with no windows, seal it, and wait for morning.”
The moment he spoke, zombie birds slammed into the glass.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It didn’t stop—like fists pounding on bone, like drums against the nerves in their chests. The squad moved faster.
Cracks spidered across the panes. The glass wouldn’t hold.
Within minutes, everyone packed into a storage room at the corner of the second floor. The space ability user swept clutter into pocket space, clearing enough room to breathe.
Then the earth-type ability user sealed the door and stuffed the gaps with hardened earth. The space ability user dropped boxes back out, wedging them against the entrance.
The room was tiny. Seventeen bodies barely fit. To keep space for fighting, people stacked two-by-two wherever they could.
A single harsh “caw” cut through the building.
Everyone froze.
The zombie birds were inside.
Then came more—cawing, frantic wingbeats, claws scraping walls. A heavy thump hit the storage-room door.
One of them was already testing it.
“How are they here already?” the space ability user whispered, voice thin.
“Smell,” Ying Ao hissed. “We should’ve thrown tear gas earlier.”
“No one expected them to rush in the second a Level Two died,” the comms member muttered, hand sliding toward his gun.
“This is an airport,” Lian Yi said quietly. “Birds were kept away. And that Level Two was a pilot. He wouldn’t have let zombie birds get close. Our arrival broke whatever balance he was holding.”
Outside, night settled in hard.
Then the door started to splinter.
A beak punched through. A wing forced in. One bird squeezed into the room—and caught a headshot the instant it cleared the gap. The earth-type ability user buried the corpse in a surge of dirt, swallowing it before the smell could spread.
But time was against them. More birds pressed. More holes opened. A crafty Level One zombie bird nearly caught the space ability user with its talons, and the room tightened with panic.
“Captain,” someone whispered, “what do we do?”
Ying Yi’s face was set like iron. Even he hadn’t expected to be besieged by birds.
“Get to the big warehouse,” Ying Ao snapped after dropping a zombie crow. “Draw them there, then blow the whole place.”
If they stayed, they’d be torn apart.
“Wait.” Lian Yi’s voice cut clean through the gunfire.
Everyone stopped firing on instinct.
The earth-type ability user shoved up a row of earthen spikes, impaling the sparrows trying to force their way in, then sealed the gap again.
“Listen,” Lian Yi said. “Do you hear the wind? Thunder?”
They strained past the pecking, past the scraping.
Ying Yi’s voice went low. “Moisture’s rising. It’s raining outside.”
Thunder rolled—deep and brutal. For one heartbeat, even the birds went quiet.
Every eye in the cramped room turned to Lian Yi.
Her codename wasn’t Zi Ying for nothing.
“You want to use the storm to amplify your lightning ability,” Ying Yi said, understanding landing fast.
Lian Yi nodded once. “If we miss this, we’re dead. This is the only break we’ll get.”
She looked at the earth-type ability user. “Open a skylight. I need out.”
“I’ll back you up,” Ying Yi said immediately.
Crystal core already ground to powder in his palm, the earth-type ability user forced his ability outward and opened a hole overhead.
Lian Yi leapt through. Ying Yi followed.
The earth-type ability user sealed it behind them, leaving only a cat-eye gap so the people inside could watch.
The moment they hit the roof, rain hammered down.
Ying Yi lifted a hand and snapped a curtain of water into place over Lian Yi’s head, blocking the downpour.
The flock shrieked and surged toward them anyway.
Lian Yi rolled her wrist. An egg-sized sphere of lightning formed in her palm. She waited—just long enough—then hurled it into the rain.
The moment it hit wet air, the lightning spread like a living thing. The first wave of birds didn’t even reach striking distance before they burned into black husks, dropping in a crackling rain of bodies.
More wheeled overhead, circling, probing—then diving again.
Lian Yi answered with a larger sphere. Purple lightning tore across the sky, lighting half the airport in violent flashes.