The Reborn Young Master's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse BL

Because in this world, hesitation kills. Act decisively before the chance slips through your fingers.

He stepped out into the mansion's courtyard, silent except for the faint rustle of orchard trees swaying gently in the highland wind. 

The air here was crisper, thinner, laced with faint energy that made his skin prickle.

Above him, the sky was a moody gradient of dusk violet, the sun just brushing the horizon like it didn't dare set without permission.

Asher sat on a velvet cushion placed on the elevated stone platform beneath a centuries-old orchard tree. 

Its leaves were a soft green as it swayed from the wind.

Silvia circled Asher slowly, her paws silent on the marble floor of the courtyard as he came down from his meditation.

Her fur shimmered silver under the filtered sunlight, her eyes sharp and otherworldly.

"The first lesson I'll teach is control. To have control is to understand your new abilities. Darkness doesn't mean despair," She told him.

 "It's the realm of memory, concealment, and transition. When you embrace it, it will hide you from what hunts, and reveal what lies unseen. But try to dominate it... and it will consume you."

"And space," She'd added, with that almost smug expression "belongs to beings like me. Celestials. It's a divine gift—born of the stars and stitched through with the bones of time. You have it because something—or someone—gave you another chance. But that means the world will want to take it back."

"So someone gave me a second chance at life? How is that possible?"

"The world works in mysterious ways Master. I see that You're beginning to understand it," She said.

"The space around you is not empty, Master. It's memory. It's potential. It listens."

He tilted his head toward her, wiping sweat from his brow.

"The way it bends… the way I felt time stretch when I first enter this Space—what was that?"

Silvia sat down and flicked her tail, her voice soft but firm. "That is the first taste of control. At Rank 1, you've awakened two branches of spatial manipulation. First: localized time distortion. You can slow time within a five-meter radius around you. You move as normal, but everything else slows like a slow down button. Five seconds, maximum, for now."

She paused, letting the weight of that sink in.

"Second: anchoring," She said, her eyes glowing faintly.

"You can mark a place in space. And for five seconds, you hold the right to return that place—rewind it—to its anchored state."

"You mean... like a rewind button?" Asher asked, brow furrowed.

Silvia nodded. "If you anchor a hallway, and your enemy charges in and if you rewind, their movements vanish. Wounds disappear. Even death can be rewritten, briefly. But only what occurred within that radius and time frame. And only what you choose to bind."

"Just five seconds," Asher murmured.

"Time is a luxury most don't have," Silvia said, rising to her feet.

"Now you do. But use it wisely. Anchor too late, and it's wasted. Anchor too soon, and you might miss your real chance."

"I understand. Can I use space to teleport?" 

She stepped closer, gaze steady. "This is not teleportation. Not yet. You are not moving through space, you are shaping it. Bending it. Folding it. And when the time comes, you'll learn to tear it wide open."

"Now, you must meditate, and connect with your new powers and let them familiarise themselves with you."

"Yes, Silivia." 

He crossed his legs, straightened his spine, and closed his eyes.

His breathing slowed as he let the darkness consume him.

The shadows pooled in his chest, in his lungs, behind his eyelids. 

It wasn't empty, not like before. 

It pulsed now, like it was alive. 

The darkness thread wrapped around him before penetrating his heart, striking like a bullet. 

Asher coughed out black blood, his heart on fire, before slowly, the darkness retreated, leaving behind nothing but the black blood on his face.

He wiped the blood off using the back of his hand, and felt a weightless pressure within his body.

It was the space ability. 

The space around him folded with a soft, unnatural pressure, like reality itself was inhaling. 

The courtyard blurred. 

All sounds dulled. 

He was neither here nor there.

He was like a ghost caught between space and time.

The realm of space opened like a lotus behind his mind, petal after petal unfolding into void. 

It was beautiful in its stillness, endless and yet enclosed. 

Here, time didn't obey the rules. 

Seconds could stretch into hours. 

Whole minutes could be compressed into heartbeats.

He felt it now—the elasticity of it. 

Like he was standing on the surface of time itself, and if he pushed just a little, it would ripple.

It wasn't just a storage room.

It wasn't just a pocket dimension.

It was a field.

A battlefield.

A hidden dimension that could be manipulated, accelerated, collapsed, or distorted, depending on the strength of the user's core and their control.

Right now, at Rank 1, Asher could slow time within a radius of five meters for no longer than five seconds but those five seconds could change everything in a fight.

But the most intoxicating part?

He could reset a location.

Anchor it.

Rewind it only briefly.

Five seconds max but just enough to rewrite death.

The darkness inside him didn't fight the space.

Instead, it wrapped around it like a sheath.

Protective.

Quiet.

And patient.

Together, they didn't clash, they merged, like twin shadows casting across a mirror.

And with each breath, Asher learned to listen to them.

Not command—but negotiate.

The power wasn't something to be controlled with brute will, it was something to wield through understanding. 

Asher exhaled slowly, and his eyes snapped open.

The world slammed back into place.

The orchard trees solidified around him, rustling in the wind like they'd always been there.

The stone beneath him hummed faintly with residual charge.

His heart pounded like a drum inside his chest, not from fear, but power.

Pure, ringing, terrifying awareness.

He flexed right, feeling the electric charge building beneath his skin, lightning waiting to be unleashed. 

Then came the darkness erupting from his other hand, a slow-burning shadow curling at the edges of his vision, like a living fog he could pull close or push away before it disipated. 

With a breath, Asher unsheathed the Aether Fang.

The weapon responded instantly.

Lightning crackled along the blade's edge, kissing the air with blue fire.

A low hum pulsed from the core of the sword, a resonance, like it recognized him.

The training grounds were equipped with holographic drones, made to withstand an ability users power.

Asher gripped the hilt with both hands, stepping into a wide stance.

Then he moved.

The first strikes were slow, and measured, and an old rhythm reawakened in his muscles. 

He hadn't touched a blade since his rebirth, but his body remembered. 

In his past life, after awakening as an ability user, he'd trained with the sword out of desperation. 

His lightning had been unstable, his control pitiful and the blade had given him something grounding, something real to hold onto while the world around him burned.

"Step, pivot, cut..." He murmured under his breath, rotating into a low sweep, then flipping the blade upward in a clean, diagonal arc.

The air hissed as energy split it.

He inhaled, channeling lightning.

The charge rushed from his core down his arms, bursting from his fingers into the blade. 

Aether Fang drank it eagerly, no resistance and no pushback. 

The blade wasn't just a conductor; it was a partner.

The lightning wrapped along the fuller side of the sword, forming bright, jagged sigils that pulsed with life.

With each swing, electricity burst outward in sharp blue arcs, crackling against the air, sizzling over the ground.

Then, without warning, he stilled and closed his eyes to let the darkness rise.

It came like a whisper at first, cold, slick, familiar.

Not malevolent, but ancient.

It curled along his spine and pooled in his lungs like ink.

Asher breathed it in and welcomed it.

He lifted the sword again.

When he struck this time, the shadows followed.

They clung to his blade like a living smoke, warping the air around the steel.

Asher shifted his stance again, weaving between the dual forces of electric fury and obsidian void.

Each motion carved through the space around him, each step flowing with surgical precision.

He lunged forward, then twisted mid-air, disappearing into a blur, his form flickering through folds of shadow.

He reappeared behind one of the holographic sparring drones as it activated, slicing it down before it could register him.

The blade cut clean through the projection.

It fizzled, glitching, and exploded in a shower of sparks.

Asher exhaled.

More drones floated in from the edges of the field, sensing his rising energy.

Three. Then five. Then seven.

They circled him, moving fast, each one programmed to adapt to an ability user's pattern.

Perfect.

Asher rolled his neck, the tension bleeding away.

Then he moved.

Lightning burst from his heels as he shot forward, sword flashing with white-blue arcs.

He struck low, then spun upward, using the momentum to hurl himself into the air.

Aether Fang cleaved through one drone, then he twisted his wrist, redirecting the power through the blade into the second and third.

The air around him shimmered as he focused, folding space just slightly, warping distance.

One step turned into five.

He blurred again, appearing behind the largest drone before it could track him.

But this time, he didn't strike.

Instead, he anchored.

A quiet pulse spread out from the soles of his feet, through the stone, locking the environment in a moment of time.

Five seconds.

He let the drone attack.

It fired two plasma bolts at him fast.

They struck him.

His shoulder jerked back from the force, a hiss escaping his lips.

But he didn't panic.

Instead, he rewound.

The moment snapped backward like a rubber band, the plasma vanished, the drone returned to its idle position, unaware of what had just happened.

Asher was untouched.

"Good," Silvia's voice echoed from the edge of the training arena, watching from atop a raised pillar.

"You're adapting."

He didn't respond.

His breath was sharp, eyes gleaming with red hues.

The power pulsed beneath his skin.

He shealth his sword before turning towards Silvia.

It was time to leave the safety of the space and face the world outside. 

The world that would soon start to unravel.

He paused, breathing deep, feeling the storm of lightning, shadow, and space swirling inside him. 

He was ready.

"I'll take my leave. I'll be back."

"Remember," She said softly, "The war is not just against the infected. Trust no one blindly: not even those who claim to be your allies."

Asher nodded, before reaching in towards the familiar feeling of the space power and willed himself to return to the real world, the weight of the weapon and his new power settling comfortably against his side.

Today, he would confront James and Kieran.

Not with blind anger, but with the sharp edge of suspicion sharpened by hard-earned wisdom.

And he will find out the truth.