Chapter 9: Teleportation Array Activated: The Unexpected Rescue of the Demon Clan Princess

The moment the blue light exploded, Shen Yan felt as if he had been stuffed into an overloaded microwave.

Crackling sounds echoed from within his bones, his mind was filled with garbled code, and what flashed before his eyes wasn’t Data Streams but a jumble of incomprehensible Demon Script symbols—as if someone had thrown an ancient tome directly into his neural pathways, forcing a compile. His phone terminal frantically popped up windows: 【System Overload! Recommend immediate disconnection!】

His teeth chattered, but his fingers remained firmly pressed against the screen. Biting the tip of his tongue to stay conscious, he shakily input the command:

“Initiate… emergency cooling… program!”

As soon as the Code was entered, a wave of icy cold shot up his spine, as if someone had poured half a bucket of snow over the crown of his head. The frenzied Data Stream finally slowed, no longer spewing fire and smoke. Leaning against the wall, he gasped for breath, his ears ringing as if a hundred thousand Bluetooth devices had simultaneously connected to his brain.

When his vision refocused, he was no longer in the sewer.

Above him was the inner wall of a tree trunk, its rough wooden texture carved with broken Runes. Pale blue light dust drifted across the ground, resembling the fluorescent powder scattered in nightclubs. The Black Tortoise Armor on his chest continued to vibrate, its frequency perfectly synchronized with the blue patterns on the ground, as if two people were dancing to the same beat in a square dance.

His phone screen flashed:

【Detected ancient Demon Clan Teleportation Array (damaged)】

【Energy matching source: Host’s Spiritual Root】

【Recommended action: Repair or escape】

“So I’m a living USB Drive?” Shen Yan muttered under his breath. “And the plug-and-play kind, at that.”

Just as he tried to stand up, his right ear suddenly burned, as if someone had pressed a hot water bottle against it. Immediately afterward, the thing inside him called the “Source Code Spiritual Root” gave a violent jerk, nearly causing him to perform an impromptu Thomas spin on the spot.

At that moment, a soft sound came from the corner.

A silver bell swayed, its rhythm steady, unlike the sound of wind. Then, a figure emerged from the shadows. Her deep purple-red hair cascaded down to her waist, and between the strands, a pair of furry cat ears stood upright. Her eyes were vertical pupils, cold enough to freeze a bowl of hot dry noodles.

She stared at Shen Yan, a ball of flame igniting in her palm, its temperature high enough to bend an iron nail. “Mortal, how did you trigger the ‘Abyss Gate’?”

Shen Yan didn’t move.

He knew that in moments like this, he couldn’t panic. Panic would lead to writing the wrong Code. Last time, he wrote an invisibility spell and ended up turning himself transparent, so embarrassed he didn’t dare show his face for three days. He quietly slipped his phone into his sleeve, his fingertips still pressed against the screen, ready to call up a Defense Script at any moment.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “That broken array down there lit up on its own, and I… got sucked up here.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, examining him, her nostrils flaring slightly as if sniffing for something. She took a step forward, and the bell chimed again.

Shen Yan held his breath.

He knew he couldn’t reveal his trump card now—using a golden finger too early could easily blow up the furnace. But he also needed to figure out the other party’s identity—what if this was a new skin for the Shadow Erosion Organization? After all, the last fake Medical Cultivator had nearly sent him to his grave.

He secretly activated the “Racial Energy Spectrum Analysis” function in his terminal and was just about to scan when a sudden change occurred.

The star-shaped earring on the woman’s right ear began to glow faintly, as if charging.

The next second, the Source Code Spiritual Root inside Shen Yan resonated violently, and his phone automatically popped up a window:

【Detected resonance signal】

【Auto-executing: Repair teleportation array】

【Injecting energy: Source Code Spiritual Root (Beginner)】

Blue light streams surged from the screen, spreading along the ground cracks. Wherever they passed, the broken runes lit up one by one, like an old television slowly picking up a signal, the image restoring frame by frame.

The woman’s pupils contracted sharply, and she instinctively took half a step back.

“You… used the key to the Star-Shattering Token?”

“What token?” Shen Yan looked utterly confused. “I just clicked the ‘Repair’ button, and it ran on its own.”

The woman stared at him, her expression as complex as if she had opened eight hundred browser tabs. She glanced down at her earring, then back at him, lowering her voice: “This thing is a replica. Only those with Guardian bloodline can activate the resonance. How could a mortal like you possibly…”

Before she could finish, the center of the formation suddenly hummed.

A rotating star map emerged from the ground at the center, formed by three ancient stars connected into a triangular pattern. It slowly turned, casting an eerie blue glow. The moment Shen Yan saw the structure, his scalp tingled—this pattern was exactly the same as a certain seal formation buried deep in his memory, as if someone had dug up something he’d seen as a child and reset it.

The terminal finally displayed a line of text:

【Warning: Twin Spiritual Root resonance source detected, correlation rate 98.6%】

Shen Yan froze.

“Twin… Spiritual Root?” he murmured. “Related to me?”

The woman abruptly closed in, so fast it stirred a gust of wind, her nose almost touching his face. She took a deep breath, her gaze suddenly sharpening: “On you… there’s the scent of Ye Shi’er.”

Shen Yan stiffened.

“Who?”

“The Reaper of Shadow Erosion.” She sneered. “Kills like cutting grass, specifically targeting cultivators for sacrificial formations. Did he send you? Or… are you just working together?”

Demonic Fire erupted from her palm, a wave of heat rushing toward him. Shen Yan felt his bangs were about to curl from the heat.

He didn’t retreat.

Backing down now would be admitting he was guilty. He raised his head and met her eyes directly: “If I were really working with him, why would I bother repairing this broken formation earlier? Wouldn’t blowing it up be easier?”

The woman narrowed her eyes.

“Then explain, why can your Spiritual Root awaken the Star-Shattering Token? Why can you repair the Abyss Gate, lost for a thousand years? And—” she paused, her voice dropping even lower, “why does the aura on you resemble his so much?”

Shen Yan fell silent for two seconds, then smiled bitterly: “I’d like to know that too. Last week I was fixing bugs at the company, and today I’m being chased down, hearing about Source Code Spiritual Roots and Heavenly Dao programming. I haven’t even figured out who I am yet.”

He pulled out his phone; the screen still showed that warning: 【Twin Spiritual Root resonance source】.

“See, even I’m freaked out. If this thing could be faked, I’d have gone to take the civil service exam long ago.”

The woman stared at him, silent.

Her tail had quietly risen at some point, its fur slightly puffed—clearly, she still didn’t fully trust him. But the Demonic Fire in her palm had indeed diminished slightly.

The star map continued to rotate, its blue light flickering across their faces, bright then dim.

Shen Yan suddenly thought of something: “You said this formation is the ‘Abyss Gate’? Where does it lead?”

The woman replied coldly: “To the ruins of the Nine Heavens, the legendary place where the Celestial Clan fell. But no one has been able to activate it for a thousand years… until now.”

“So I’m a key?” Shen Yan scratched his head. “The kind with biometric recognition?”

The woman glanced at him. “You are not the Key. You are… the Initiator.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A Key can be replicated. An Initiator is unique.” She stared at the Star Map. “And it must be activated by Spiritual Power of the same origin. In other words—” She turned to him, her gaze sharp as a blade. “You and Ye Shi’er are either blood relatives, or… products of the same experiment.”

Shen Yan’s heart jolted.

“Experiment?”

“The Celestial Clan Outcast Project.” Her tone turned cold. “Seven hundred years ago, they attempted to create a Container capable of manipulating the Heavenly Dao. After failing, they discarded all test subjects into the Cycle of Reincarnation. The Spiritual Root within you… should never have existed.”

Shen Yan was stunned.

No wonder the System suddenly awakened the day of the car accident. No wonder writing spells felt like writing Code. No wonder the Mystic Gate pursued him, and Shadow Erosion targeted him… So he wasn’t Transmigrated, nor was he Reborn. He was… a test account secretly revived after being deleted?

He looked down at his phone. The Interface was still flashing that line of Warning.

Ninety-eight point six percent correlation. That missing fraction—was it a Bug, or humanity?

“So what do you plan to do now?” he asked. “Capture me for research? Or eliminate me directly?”

The woman didn’t answer.

She raised her hand, her fingertip tracing through the Star Map in the air. The connection lines between three ancient stars trembled slightly. After a moment, she withdrew her hand and said coldly, “Once the Abyss Gate is Initiated, someone must guard the formation. Otherwise, the Energy backlash will cause everything within a ten-mile radius to collapse.”

Shen Yan was taken aback. “You mean… I can’t leave?”

“Not that you can’t leave.” She turned, her back to him as she walked toward the cave entrance. “It’s that if you leave, this place will explode.”

“Wait!” he called out urgently. “What about you? Aren’t you leaving?”

She stopped, her cat ears giving a slight twitch.

“I am the Guardian,” she said. “And also an exiled Half-Demon. I have guarded this formation for three years.”

Shen Yan opened his mouth, then closed it, suddenly feeling the situation was utterly absurd.

Here he was, an office worker, debugging a Bug late at night only to be transported to the Demon Realm, then told he might be the clone-brother of some mysterious organization, and now he had to stay behind as a Server maintenance technician?

As he was thinking, the Terminal popped up a new Notice:

【Repair Progress: 67%】

【Estimated Completion Time: 2 hours, 34 minutes】

He sighed and tucked his phone back into his pocket.

“Fine. My battery’s still at seventeen percent anyway. Enough for me to write two more Scripts.”

“But let’s be clear—once the formation is fixed, you owe me a meal. Takeout is fine; I’m not picky.”

The woman turned her head. Her vertical pupils contracted slightly, as if she were truly looking at him for the first time.

Three seconds later, the corner of her mouth lifted ever so faintly, so quickly it might have been an illusion.

“The Demon Clan does not eat humans.”

“I know,” Shen Yan shrugged. “But I can order takeout.”

A silver bell chimed softly. She said nothing more, simply standing at the cave entrance, gazing out at the forest shrouded in thick fog.

And the Star Map continued to rotate slowly, blue light flowing, illuminating the distance between the two of them—not far, yet not close either.

Shen Yan touched his burning right ear and murmured to himself, “So… Ye Shi’er and I… which one of us copied the other’s Code?”

(End of Chapter)