[”Close Call…”]

As things would have it, I’d been right. It wasn’t hard to tell as I broke through a flimsy door, shoulder first, to a house thick with smoke and ember, blood-curdling snarls snapping at my heels. Option three had, indeed, been a profoundly stupid one. Twice so as I, somehow, had landed the honor of herding the undead horde with my flashing death mark, glowing like a beacon of bad decisions.

Scrambling to regain my balance, having barely gotten off the floor, I felt chipped nails scrape at my heels, promising something far worse if I stayed down. Some of those snarls really were way too close.

Without looking back, I grabbed hold of a smoldering chair, already running once more as I threw it over my shoulder—breath ragged, pulse thundering in my ears.

Had I volunteered for this role out of some noble sense of duty? A selfless “Don’t ask others to do what you wouldn’t do yourself” mantra? No, absolutely not. It had just been impossible to convince Mei to do it, even though she was faster, more agile, and infinitely better suited to the task than I was.

Her refusal, naturally, left me with the burden and if I lived long enough to see the end of this, I planned to complain about it at length. If I really did survive.

Not all Jiangshi were as sluggish as the lumbering brute back at the pavilion. I’d discovered that to my own detriment.

Now, as I threw myself forward to slide beneath an ashen beam, I could see them with startling clarity. Pallid, ravaged hands snatching for my ankles. Bloodied teeth and dark gums nibbling after my toes.

Neither of which I intended to give them.

I didn’t spare the hundred silhouettes—which might’ve only been a slight hyperbole. I hadn’t really gotten the chance to stop and count them—fighting for my tasty flesh a second glance. Not when I needed every ounce of focus to stay ahead.

Scrambling to my feet, I simply shouted, “Now!” as I darted for the door, but the shadow on the burnt-out second floor had already moved.

The heavy barrel, perched precariously on its smoldering ledge, teetered over. It crashed into the beam I had just slid beneath a second earlier, splitting open and spilling crude lantern oil in a wide, indiscriminate splash.

The embers caught it eagerly.

By the time the flames roared to life, however, we were already halfway out of the building—Mei on the second floor, her steps nimble and sure, and me on the first, doing my damnedest not to trip over my own panic.

The heat hit me first, searing against my back like the breath of an angry god. Their gurgling screams, rising in grotesque harmony, followed as the mindless horde burst into flames behind me. It almost sounded like pain, almost sounded human, but I didn’t pause to consider it. I didn’t dare. Instead, I kicked another barrel over in passing, the lid coming loose beneath my heel.

We’d only managed to haul so many of the barrels inside during the sparse minutes we’d been given, but as I threw myself forward, tumbling out the door just in time for an explosion to roar past inches above my head, I wondered if we might’ve overdone it. The heat licked at me, scorching my skin and prickling my fingers where I shielded the back of my head.

Then came the ground—mercifully cold, the mud outside startling against my fevered skin. I lay there, half-stunned, wheezing for breath, and blinking furiously to clear the blinding flash from my vision. My ears whined with the echo of the explosion, but through it, I began to make out the groaning, shuddering creak of the building behind me.

I turned just in time to see it collapse. It fell with a sound like thunder, a violent cascade of dust, splinters, and flame that swallowed whatever remained of the undead horde inside.

Coughing against the acrid air, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move, crawling forward through the muck and ash. My muscles screamed in protest, my skin a patchwork of stinging heat and raw pain.

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Then, like a cruel joke from the universe—or a prize for my reckless theatrics—the first notification blinked into view before my eyes.

// // Enemy Neutralized

// Combat Essence Increased

//

// // Enemy Neutralized

// Combat Essence Increased

//

// // Enemy Neutralized

// Combat Essence Increased

//

// // Enemy Neutralized

// Combat Essence…

//

There were a lot of them. More than I’d hoped for. The death mark had been far better at rallying the horde than I’d intended—so effective it had damned near killed me.

Running down the street without a care for how the crimson skull above my head flared had been a mistake. I had barely made it a hundred steps before every shadow had seemingly turned into a—not-so-living—living thing. Doors had creaked open. Broken windows had belched bodies into the night. Some lumbering, some crawling, some moving far too quickly for my liking.

A single pass through that gauntlet, and the leisurely saunter back I’d hoped for—back to the building we’d prepared—was no longer an option. A glance over my shoulder had confirmed it: too many shambling dead. Too many to fight. Too many to reason with. And definitely too many to lead in an orderly fashion.

The plan, such as it was, quickly fell apart. At the time, I’d been forced to improvise, breaking through windows, kicking down doors, vaulting over burning wreckage—all while the horde clawed at my heels. I lost count of how many times I thought I was done for, only to scramble free by the skin of my teeth.

But now, crouched in the muck, my lungs burning and my limbs trembling, eyes following the swarm of notifications lighting up before me, a perverse satisfaction welled in my chest.

If I wasn’t careful, I might get addicted to this.

"Not too shabby of a plan, was it?" I chuckled, still sprawled in the mud as the sound of slow, uneven steps approached me. Tilting my head, however, relief died in my throat. It wasn’t Mei.

It was a man—or what had once been a man—shambling toward me. Half his body was charred, the rest pocked with bite marks and bruises. His slack jaw hung open in a gurgling death rattle, and his distant, unseeing eyes seemed fixed on me.

The sound that escaped the Jiangshi’s ruined lips was the kind of guttural groan that belonged in nightmares, the quintessential “Ahrrg!” of every zombie flick I’d ever watched. It almost sent me scrambling into another mad dash.

But before I could haul myself upright, something slammed into the back of the thing’s head with a sickening crack. It staggered, then dropped face-first into the mud. The next blow, driven with enough force to punch straight through its rotting skull, made sure it stayed there.

// // Enemy Neutralized

// Combat Essence Increased

//

"Wrong time to be taking a nap, no?"

I didn’t need to look to know it was Mei. Her voice carried that familiar mixture of exasperation and sharp-edged humor, though there was something else layered beneath it. Relief, maybe.

Singed, smeared with soot and blood, and visibly winded, she tossed the broken plank aside with a grimace, shaking out her hands as if to rid them of the sensation of bone crunching under wood.

Even battered and exhausted, it was unmistakably her. The telltale red skull hovering above her head, flickering now like a dying ember, was a dead giveaway.

00:00:01…

00:00:00…

[You are no longer marked for death.]

Mei exhaled, a long, shaky breath as the glow above her finally faded. “So?” she asked, brushing stray strands of damp hair from her face. “What lunacy do you have planned next, oh fearless shepherd?”

She was joking, of course. But the way her eyes lingered on mine told me she expected an answer. Something more than a shrug and a smile.

“We savor the moment,” I coughed, wiping what little mud I could from my front as I weakly got to my feet. If Mei looked like a mess, I probably held the appearance of something dragged through hell and spat back out. I at least felt the part. “Because something tells me this is the last breather we’ll get before the night is over.”

Mei followed my gaze, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the street. “What?” she asked, as sense of restlessness creeping into her voice, “You don’t expect more of those things to be hiding around, do you?”

To her, it must’ve looked like nothing. A wide, empty street stretching ahead, lit only by the flickering glow of the surrounding ruins. Smoldering timbers, distant embers. Quiet, save for the occasional crackle of fire and the mournful groan of settling wreckage.

To me? It was different. The broadness of the street. The lack of debris in the way. The faint, ominous curve of the Ganghe River glinting just ahead, barely visible through the smoke.

The whole scene screamed “Boss encounter.”

“You’ll see soon enough,” I said, my voice calm despite the knot forming in my stomach. I had no clue what lay waiting around that bend. But something did. Of that, I was certain.

Mei raised an eyebrow but didn’t press. Maybe she was tired. Or maybe, like me, she felt it too—the weight of something hanging just out of reach, something that wanted us to keep moving.

So we did.