Chapter 123: The True Purpose of the Automatic Combat Program

Shen Yan’s finger still hovered over the terminal interface. The folder labeled “Home” lay quietly in the corner, like a freshly unearthed ore yet to be analyzed. His mental power was nearly depleted, and his consciousness sea buzzed incessantly. Just then, the screen suddenly trembled, automatically switching to log playback mode.

“Who activated this?” he cursed under his breath, trying to force an exit, only to find the permissions locked.

The screen went black, then displayed a familiar scene—the moment in the hotel after the roller coaster malfunction that night, when he had initiated the automatic combat program. Code cascaded like a waterfall, a giant of light and shadow rose from the ground, and three Mystic Gate disciples were blasted away before they could even react.

But this wasn’t a recording; it was a system auto-playback.

Even more bizarrely, small pop-up windows continuously appeared above the image: 【Data collection complete｜Spell structure archived｜Reaction latency modeling in progress｜Energy fluctuation synchronization rate 97.3%】

“This thing… was actually taking notes back then?” Shen Yan’s eyes widened.

He suddenly realized something was off. That night, Yu Xiaotang had knocked over a potato chip can, causing a short circuit that triggered the system’s rampage—but the playback now showed that 0.8 seconds before the short circuit, a hidden protocol had already quietly activated, named 【Stealth Combat Data Capture】.

He hadn’t written this.

At least… he didn’t remember writing it.

“Could it be… something I wrote unconsciously while I was unconscious?” he muttered to himself, cold sweat trickling down his temple. “All I had in my mind back then was ‘kill them all’!”

As he pondered, the terminal suddenly vibrated. A faint green light seeped from the residual spiritual energy of the jade hairpin Pei Yue had left behind, emerging from his sleeve and crawling along his wrist to the tip of his finger, stabilizing his nearly collapsing consciousness sea.

Low-power mode initiated.

Underlying logs unlocked.

Rows of encrypted records surfaced: it turned out the automatic combat program that night had never truly gone out of control. While fighting, it had secretly packaged and uploaded the combat parameters of every enemy, storing them in the private cloud space of the Source Code Spiritual Root.

Not only that, but this data was also self-reorganizing, forming the rudiments of some kind of array. Its structure bore a striking resemblance to the sealing runes commonly used by the Shadow Erosion Organization.

“It… predicted future enemies?” Shen Yan’s throat tightened. “So it wasn’t fighting; it was training?”

Before his words faded, the air at the edge of the altar twisted, and three semi-transparent figures slowly coalesced—the data remnants of Ye Shi’er, attempting to fuse and achieve rebirth.

Luo Li immediately stepped in front of him, her fox tail bristling. Though her demon power hadn’t recovered, her imposing aura remained undiminished. “They’re back.”

Yu Xiaotang leaned against the stone tablet, panting, her face pale. Hearing the commotion, she barely managed to lift her head. “This time… don’t let it escape.”

Shen Yan wanted to summon Sword Qi, but the spiritual energy within him felt like a drained pipe, not a drop could be squeezed out. Gritting his teeth, he opened the data analysis module, preparing to manually deploy the countermeasure program. But the terminal beat him to it, popping up a notice:

【Multiple hostile signals detected. Initiating historical combat simulation countermeasures】

A fine crack split the sky.

Golden code flow poured down like rain.

In an instant, countless chains formed from pure data interweaved and descended from the void, each engraved with the names and combat codes of different enemies, precisely entangling the three remnants. Those Mystic Gate disciples, puppet assassins, Shadow Erosion scouts… who had once been defeated by the light-shadow giant—their combat memories now transformed into shackles, binding Ye Shi’er’s fragmented form layer by layer, compressing it into a floating sphere of light.

The wind ceased.

The sphere of light hovered quietly, intermittent whispers emanating from within: “Brother… don’t go down… that’s not the end…”

Shen Yan stared at it, his heartbeat skipping a beat.

“It’s not out of control,” he said, his voice trembling. “It’s… accumulating resources.”

Luo Li looked up at the golden chains, her tail swaying gently. “This isn’t magic. It’s its memories fighting for you.”

“Yeah,” Shen Yan smiled bitterly. “I curse it every day as a bug generator, but turns out it’s the one who truly understands ‘learning from mistakes.'”

He reached out to touch the sphere of light. As his fingertip just touched the surface, the Devil Blood mark on his collarbone suddenly burned hot.

Yu Xiaotang abruptly opened her eyes, staggering to stand up, murmuring an ancient phrase no one could understand. The next second, the rune on her collarbone detached from her skin, transforming into liquid purple flames, slowly coalescing into a key-shaped energy entity in the air.

“It recognizes me,” she whispered, her voice carrying a strange resonance. “It came for me.”

Shen Yan froze. “You mean… this thing was originally prepared for you?”

Yu Xiaotang didn’t answer, only raised her hand, slowly inserting the key formed from her Devil Blood into the center of the sphere of light.

Boom—

Purple ripples exploded, the ground violently shaking. The center of the altar cracked open into spiral stairs, bottomless, cold air mixed with the metallic rust scent of data noise rushing toward them.

Shen Yan’s phone buzzed once, the terminal refreshing the final notice:

【Automatic combat program has completed its mission, entering hibernation. New task generated: access path /Shadow Erosion/root directory】

He looked down at that line of text, then toward the entrance to the abyss, suddenly laughing. “So this is where you’ve always wanted to take me.”

Luo Li walked to his side, the contract mark on her right arm faintly flickering, cautiously staring deep into the stairs. “Are you sure you want to go down? That earlier phrase didn’t sound like a warning, more like a plea for help.”

“I think so too,” Shen Yan nodded. “The problem is, I don’t know who to save—my brother, or myself.”

Yu Xiaotang gasped for breath, leaning against a stone pillar, her hair tie already broken, twin ponytails loosely hanging down. She suddenly reached out and grabbed Shen Yan’s wrist, her palm scorching hot. “Something awaits you below… but it also fears you.”

“Fears me?” Shen Yan raised an eyebrow. “I’d be glad if it fears me, otherwise how could I fight it?”

After saying this, he gripped his phone tightly and strode toward the stair entrance.

Luo Li closely followed behind, her tail unconsciously wrapping around his arm, whispering a reminder. “Don’t walk too fast, I don’t want to carry you back up again.”

“Last time, who insisted ‘I can fly’ and ended up falling into the toxic swamp?” Shen Yan turned back to tease her.

“That was tactical retreat!” Luo Li’s ears flushed slightly red. “And you stole my demon fruit!”

“That was replenishing energy!” Shen Yan justified himself. “Besides, you also took my Fire Protection Talisman!”

While the two bickered, Yu Xiaotang trailed behind, her steps unsteady yet refusing any support. Watching the backs of the two ahead, the corners of her lips lifted slightly as she discreetly wiped away a trace of blood from the edge of her mouth.

At the entrance to the staircase, wind surged from the depths below, rustling the hems of their clothes.

Shen Yan halted, glancing down at his phone screen. The icon of the dormant auto-combat program lay quietly, now accompanied by a small red mark shaped remarkably like an ancient coin.

His heart skipped a beat.

That was the totem Yu Xiaotang used to draw talismans with as a child.

“How do you have this?” he turned and asked.

Yu Xiaotang paused, then shook her head. “I don’t know… but it seems… to recognize me.”

As Shen Yan was about to press further, his phone suddenly vibrated, and the Terminal silently refreshed with a new line of text:

【Detected Bloodline Key synchronization complete. Permission escalated to administrator level. Overwrite original core Command?】

Only two options were given: Yes, No.

His finger hovered over the virtual button, hesitating.

Luo Li noticed something amiss and leaned in to look, frowning. “This Interface… it looks like it wants to Format you?”

“Pretty much,” Shen Yan replied with a bitter smile. “It’s asking me to choose—whether to remain a Programmer or become the System itself.”

Yu Xiaotang stumbled forward a step, placing her hand over the back of his. Her voice was soft. “If you become the System, who’s going to buy me milk tea?”

Shen Yan was taken aback, then chuckled. “With that fall you just took, you owe me at least three cups.”

He took a deep breath and pressed “No.”

The Screen went black for a moment before returning to normal.

The auto-combat Program fell completely dormant.

Yet the staircase leading underground remained as dark and deep as before.

Shen Yan took a step forward, setting foot on the first stair.

The stone brick beneath his feet glowed faintly, as if sensing something.

The entire passage suddenly resonated with a low-frequency hum, like some ancient Program awakening.

Luo Li grabbed the back of his collar. “Wait! Do you hear… someone singing?”

Shen Yan listened intently.

In the wind, indeed, drifted the melody of a Children’s Rhyme, fragmented, as if coming from the deepest depths.

“Shh,” he whispered. “Don’t speak.”

The three held their breaths, standing still.

At the end of the staircase, a faint, dark red glow could be seen slowly rotating, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Shen Yan tightened his grip on his phone, the tips of his fingers shimmering with a faint Code Flow.

His toes rested precisely on the edge of the first step.

(End of Chapter)