Chapter 205: Shen Yan Strikes Back: The Courage of Obsession

The green barrier cracked with a sharp sound.

Shen Yan’s knees slammed into the scorched earth, his phone screen reduced to a single flickering line. Blood dripped from between his fingers, pooling into a small puddle on the ground. He could feel the wind behind him turning cold—the auras of the four women were dissipating bit by bit, like sand in an hourglass, impossible to hold onto.

The demon general raised his broken sword, black mist coiling around the blade and condensing into a giant weapon three times larger than before. He sneered, “You won’t last another second.”

Shen Yan didn’t look up. Instead, he pressed the phone against his chest, letting the fading program pulse with each heartbeat. He knew this wasn’t about writing code anymore—it was about pouring his life into it. The System had long stopped giving notices, not even bothering with warnings, because he had already pushed himself far beyond his limits.

But he was still alive.

“You say I’m an outsider?” he gasped, his voice hoarse and inhuman. “Then tell me, who wrote this broken program? Can’t you just install a patch?”

The demon general didn’t answer, swinging his sword down in a fierce slash.

The wind pressure cut into his face. Shen Yan abruptly raised his hand, slapping the last half-line of code into the air. Green light exploded and then contracted, forming an arc-shaped wall that barely withstood the blow. But the impact sent him flying backward, his back crashing into a pile of rubble as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The blood fell onto his phone, seeping through the cracks.

Something strange happened.

That drop of blood seemed to activate something deep within the Terminal—a low hum echoed, not an electronic sound but more like the tolling of an ancient bell. Suddenly, a flood of images surged into Shen Yan’s mind: the flames from the fire in his childhood, the sight of Luo Li igniting Demonic Fire before him for the first time, Yu Xiaotang laughing as she jumped up while using Talisman Paper to fry chicken, the graceful arc of Ye Zhao’s sword under the moonlight, and the soft hum of Pei Yue’s song as she brewed medicine before the medicine furnace…

These seemingly unrelated pieces of data were now seized, packaged, compressed, and named by his consciousness.

【Heart Flame.exe】.

“You want to delete them?” He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, fingers tapping in the air. “Fine. I’ll reinstall the System.”

He no longer invoked ready-made spells or followed standard interfaces. Instead, he turned himself into a compiler, using neural signals to drive the reorganization of Spiritual Energy. With each character he typed, the tip of his finger split open, droplets of blood splattering and briefly forming symbols in the air.

The ground began to tremble.

A crimson-gold flame erupted from the cracks—not ordinary fire, but one composed of countless flowing streams of data, coiling and rising into the sky like a dragon. At the center of the flames, four faint outlines could be glimpsed—the figures of the four women.

The demon general’s expression changed.

“This isn’t a spell… This is a brand?!”

“That’s right.” Shen Yan grinned, his teeth stained with blood. “You deleted the records. I engraved the memories. As long as I remember them, you can’t erase them.”

The flames dove downward, charging straight at the demon general.

The black mist giant blade met the attack but was bitten off by the flames in one swift motion. The broken sword fell to the ground with a dull thud. The demon general retreated hastily, gathering the power of time in his hands, attempting to rewind the flames back to their unformed state.

But this fire defied logic.

It was not bound by the rules of time, because it was a buggy program violently pieced together with emotion—the more it was corrected, the stronger it grew.

Shen Yan sat cross-legged, his hands continuing to type frantically in the air. He could no longer feel his hands, only knowing that he had to keep writing. Every line of code was his affirmation of the four women’s existence; every variable was the reality of the time they had spent with him.

The flames suddenly split, transforming into four small vortices that swirled around the four women. This was not an attack but a declaration—their names had already been written into the Low-Level Code of this battlefield.

The demon general tried to flee, but his ankles tightened.

The flames turned into chains, wrapping around him.

“Impossible!” he roared. “You mere mortals, how dare you rewrite the rules of the Divine War!”

“Because I refuse to accept it,” Shen Yan stared at him, the whites of his eyes bloodshot. “What do Programmers hate most? Being told ‘this cannot be changed.’ Today, I’ll show you—I’m going to change it anyway.”

He pressed his palms together, then abruptly spread them apart.

【Heart Flame.exe】 erupted in full force.

Flames surged toward the demon general like a tide, engulfing him entirely. Struggling within the fire, he released the remnants of time energy within him, attempting to detonate a localized Spacetime to create a collapsing black hole and take everyone down with him.

Shen Yan knew the consequences of this move.

If not interrupted, the entire area would fall into an infinite Loop, trapping everyone forever.

He closed his eyes, constructing the final Command in his mind.

It wasn’t a complex Algorithm or a High-Level Protocol—just the simplest judgment:

If existence is true, delete the enemy; otherwise, create existence.

He pressed Enter.

The flames instantly contracted, forming a closed-loop chain that completely sealed the demon general. A piercing shriek tore through the battlefield as the black mist churned violently, eventually reduced to ashes and scattered by the wind.

Shen Yan fell backward.

His phone went completely dark, its casing shattered, parts scattered everywhere. His arm hung limply on the ground, his clothes charred in multiple places, his face covered in blood and ash. His breathing was faint but still there.

He had won.

Not by strength, not by background, but by an obstinacy no one could stop.

He knew how perilous the battle had been. If he had been half a second slower, if his resolve had wavered even slightly, more than just him would be lying here now. But he hadn’t retreated. Even as the System crashed and his body broke down, he had to keep them in this world.

In the distance, the four women still lay translucent, their breaths faint but no longer fading away. Their existence had been re-anchored. Though they hadn’t regained their physical forms, they could no longer be easily erased.

The wind stopped.

Only scorched earth and wreckage remained on the battlefield.

Shen Yan lay where he was, his eyes slightly open, gazing at the gray sky. He tried to move but found he couldn’t even lift a finger. He was too exhausted, so tired that even the sensation of pain had numbed.

Yet the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

“So noisy… don’t just delete people so casually in the future,” he murmured. “Annoying.”

As his words faded, his eyelashes trembled and slowly closed.

At that very moment, a flash of silver light streaked across the horizon.

A figure slowly materialized, clad in snow-white robes, holding a long sword, standing atop the shattered Altar. His gaze swept across the battlefield before finally settling on Shen Yan.

“To think someone could forcibly rewrite the rules of existence on the seventh day of the Divine War…” the man spoke softly, his voice flowing like icy spring water. “Under whose tutelage are you?”

He walked forward step by step, leaving no trace beneath his feet.

Shen Yan remained unconscious, only the faint rise and fall of his chest betraying any sign of life.

The man crouched down, reaching out to check his pulse.

Just as the Tip of the Finger was about to touch his skin—

Shen Yan’s finger suddenly twitched.

(End of Chapter)