Chapter 120: The Truth of the Devil Clan Bloodline Revealed

The moment Shen Yan opened his eyes, his fingers moved before his consciousness could catch up.

At the tip of his finger, several afterimages traced through the air as strings of characters condensed from Spiritual Energy floated up, like Code hammered out from the void. His throat was dry, but his voice was steady, unlike someone who had just been pulled from a Data Torrent: “Coordinates calibrated… position confirmed—Devil Clan ancestral land, Abyss Altar.”

The instant his words fell, the surrounding air suddenly grew heavy. The stone bricks beneath their feet glowed with dark red patterns, like awakened blood vessels, pulsing slowly.

Blood was still seeping from the corner of Yu Xiaotang’s mouth, and the Devil Clan markings on her body were peeling off like melting wax. She tried to raise her hand to wipe it away but found her fingertips unresponsive, her whole body drifting weightlessly forward.

“Don’t move!” Luo Li shouted sharply, her Fox Tail sweeping out to pull Yu Xiaotang back into her arms. At the same time, she extended her Demon Power, and upon touching the crystal stele standing at the center of the Altar, she felt a chilling Data Stream crawling up her Meridians. “This isn’t for recording! It’s an authentication device! It’s reading her blood!”

Shen Yan gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing the churning dizziness in his mind as the Terminal Interface unfolded before his eyes. The black-background, green-text command line flickered mockingly.

He quickly input the Command: “Decompilation mode Initiated, analyzing stele structure.”

The next second, the entire Altar blazed to life.

Three lines of massive glowing characters surfaced on the crystal stele, each character as if carved with molten lava:

“Shen Yan—Reincarnation vessel of the Demon Lord”

“Yu Xiaotang—First-generation royal guardian spirit”

“Ye Shi’er—Manifestation Program of the suppression will”

The Terminal simultaneously popped up a red Warning box: 【Detected original Memory awakening Protocol, allow activation?】

Countdown began: 60 seconds.

“Holy shit…” Shen Yan’s pupils contracted.

Yu Xiaotang knelt on the ground, her hands clawing desperately at the floor, her nails cracking but refusing to let go. Tears mixed with blood slid down her cheeks: “So I’m not human… I’m a Key… born just to lock you away… to prevent you from waking up…”

As she spoke, she struggled to crawl toward the crystal stele, wanting to smear the three lines of characters with her own blood.

But the closer she got, the more uncontrollably her blood flew out of her body, transforming into fine threads that injected into the stele’s surface. The Data Stream’s speed suddenly accelerated, and the Countdown ticked faster.

“Stop!” Shen Yan shouted sharply, but the System simply ignored his interrupt Command.

Luo Li suddenly tore open her sleeves, revealing skin covered in Contract patterns. Those patterns were now flickering violently, as if sensing some ancient Resonance.

“I’ll use the Bloodline of the Demon Clan Princess to rewrite the verification Logic!” She bit her fingertip, a drop of dark blue Demon Power blood gathering at the tip of her finger. “My Bloodline can neutralize the Devil Clan’s contamination, at least enough to stall this damned stele!”

Just as she was about to step forward, a cold gleam pressed against her neck.

Ye Zhao’s Frost Soul Sword was pressed against her throat.

“You’re not trying to save him,” Ye Zhao’s gaze was as cold as ice. “You’re trying to seize the chance to plant a Demon Clan Contract, turning him into your ‘shared lord.'”

Luo Li glared at her: “What are you saying?”

“You think I can’t see it?” Ye Zhao’s sword tip pressed slightly harder. “Those patterns on you aren’t ordinary Contracts; they’re a variant of the ‘Heart-Returning Contract.’ Once your blood merges with the stele, Shen Yan will be forced to accept a Demon Clan Bloodline binding, never able to escape your set of rules.”

“Then what do you plan to do?” Luo Li asked, her anger turning into a bitter laugh. “Watch as he’s devoured by the Demon Lord’s personality? Wait for him to wake up and slaughter the entire human race as his first act?”

“Then let him choose for himself.” Ye Zhao turned her gaze to Shen Yan. “No one can touch that stele now—unless he says ‘no’.”

Shen Yan remained silent.

He closed his eyes.

Deep within his consciousness, two voices were frantically pulling him in opposite directions.

One was deep and authoritative, echoing with the weight of millennia: “Return. This is your destiny. The power belongs to you—why resist?”

The other was his own voice, wearing a grid shirt and sitting at his workstation, headphones playing “The Code Farmer’s Song,” muttering under his breath: “This line of code should run…”

He took a deep breath and constructed a virtual sandbox environment in his mind, isolating the consciousness stream claiming to be the “Demon Lord” and labeling it as 【Module Pending Review】.

Then, he called up the permission management interface, deleted the default inheritance option, and manually entered a new instruction:

【Inherit Permissions ≠ Inherit Will】

When he opened his eyes, his gaze was terrifyingly calm.

“I don’t deny that this body flows with the blood of the Devil Clan.” He stared at the crystal stele. “But if this is my fate, then today I’m going to reinstall the operating system for this broken system.”

With that, he lightly tapped the terminal, pushing that line of code into the core layer.

A miracle happened.

The light from the crystal stele suddenly faltered, and the rapidly ticking countdown froze at 5 seconds.

【Protocol Conflict: Underlying Logic Modified】

【Original Memory Awakening Process Paused】

Yu Xiaotang slumped to the ground, looking up at him, her lips trembling. “You… you can really do it?”

“I have to, even if I can’t.” Shen Yan gave a bitter smile. “Otherwise, do you think all the bugs I’ve written over the years were for nothing? Every furnace explosion was trial and error. Now, it’s just replacing ‘infinite loop’ with ‘autonomous choice.'”

Luo Li looked at the frozen countdown and suddenly laughed. “So, you’re now… debugging with your life?”

“Pretty much.” Shen Yan rubbed his temple. “It’s just that the error message this time is a bit terrifying.”

Ye Zhao sheathed her sword but remained vigilant. She stared at the crystal stele, her brow furrowed. “The inscription says Ye Shi’er is a ‘suppression program,’ but he clearly has his own emotions, his own obsessions… Would a program have dimples?”

The atmosphere grew tense again at her words.

Shen Yan’s heart jolted.

Dimples… yes, when Ye Shi’er’s mask shattered, the smile he revealed was exactly the same as Shen Yan’s from childhood.

Could it be…

Before he could think further, Yu Xiaotang suddenly let out a muffled groan.

She looked down at her hand and saw the demonic patterns fading at a visible rate. Her skin became transparent as paper, faintly revealing flowing data chains beneath.

“No…” Her voice trembled. “I can’t hold on much longer… Once the Key fails, the Seal will automatically restart… by then… you… you’ll awaken completely…”

“Then don’t let it fail.” Shen Yan grabbed her wrist and projected the terminal interface onto her palm. “I’ll install an external patch for you—using the Source Code Spiritual Root to simulate Devil Clan bloodline output, temporarily replacing your ‘Guardian Spirit Body’ function.”

“Are you insane?” Yu Xiaotang widened her eyes. “That’s Demonic Energy. Can your body withstand it?”

“Can’t handle it? Still have to handle it.” Shen Yan grinned, “Who told me I’m a programmer? What I’m best at is—running while sick.”

His fingertips flew across the keys, streams of code flowing into Yu Xiaotang’s body. Her skin gradually regained its color; though the demonic patterns had not fully restored, the Data Stream was stabilizing.

Luo Li watched this scene and suddenly spoke: “If… if all this is truly fate, then why are we here? Why is it precisely the three of us who have accompanied you this far?”

Ye Zhao remained silent for a moment before softly saying, “Perhaps… even fate can be programmed.”

Shen Yan looked up, seeing their tired yet resolute faces one by one, and suddenly felt a warmth in his chest.

He said nothing, only quietly created a new folder in the Terminal, naming it: “Family First.”

Just then, the crystal stele trembled once more.

A new line of glowing text appeared:

【External emotional intervention detected】

【Initiating ultimate verification: Choose or Return】

Shen Yan’s finger hovered over the confirmation key, hesitating to press down.

He knew that once he pressed it, it might be the start of another life.

The contract patterns on Luo Li’s arms still flickered, Ye Zhao’s sword had not fully returned to its sheath, and Yu Xiaotang leaned against his shoulder, her breathing faint yet persistent.

The four of them stood at the center of the Altar, none moving.

Finally, Shen Yan spoke, his voice very soft:

“If I say, I don’t want to be the Demon Lord, nor do I want to be any savior… I just want to keep writing my Code, have someone help me cook tripe when eating hotpot, not walk home alone on rainy days… would that be okay?”

(End of Chapter)