Chapter 206: Spacetime Dialogue: The Old Ancestor’s Revelation

Shen Yan’s finger twitched.

It was a light twitch, like grasping at something in a dream and failing to hold on. His eyelids were too heavy to lift, his ears buzzed, and his chest felt as if pressed by a red-hot iron. He knew he was still alive because the pain felt too real.

Yet his consciousness was already sinking. He felt himself falling into a bottomless well, the figures of the four women still flickering before his eyes, translucent like ice about to melt.

Just as he was about to completely black out, a streak of silver light sliced down.

It wasn’t lightning, nor was it Sword Qi—it was more like a Program suddenly Initiating, glowing with the kind of brightness that came with a startup sound. The light fell on the crack beside him, and the ground trembled faintly three times, like a Buffer during a System Restart.

Immediately after, a figure emerged from the light.

Dressed in white, with a long sword strapped to his back, his face was unclear, but his posture was exceptionally upright, as if automatically aligned after Code had Run smoothly. Shen Yan forced his eyes open, muttering inwardly: Who is this? An NPC respawned?

The figure didn’t look at him but raised a hand, sending a strand of Sword Intent directly into the ground fissure. At that moment, Shen Yan’s mind “dinged,” exactly like pressing F5 to refresh when he used to write Code.

The residual Data Stream of 【Heart Flame.exe】 trembled violently, rushing back against the tremor into his Consciousness Sea.

It hurt, but it cleared his mind.

“You have overstepped by using emotional obsession to alter the rules of existence.”

The voice wasn’t loud, nor was it cold—it was flat, like a voice broadcast.

“But do you know that this realm most detests ‘Destiny Defiers’?”

Shen Yan’s throat moved as he tried to speak, but all he managed was a cough that brought up bloody foam. He strained to lift his chin: “…Then you see, I don’t care.”

“It’s not that you don’t care—it’s that you don’t yet understand.”

The white-clad figure looked down at him, his gaze so penetrating that Shen Yan felt like a pile of Bugs being Debugged.

“Spacetime is not a wall but a web. You want to tear open a corner, unaware that pulling one thread affects the whole.”

As the words fell, a diagram woven from Light Strands suddenly appeared in the air—precisely the Data trajectory from when 【Heart Flame.exe】 had been Running. Each line of Code was Restored into flowing strands, entwining, branching, forming closed loops, as complex as a tangled mess of earphone wires.

“Every line you wrote has been correcting history while also creating new paradoxes.”

He pointed to one segment. “The four women could remain because you forcibly opened a Cache Space for them. But this space… won’t last long.”

Shen Yan gritted his teeth. He knew this wasn’t like permanent storage—at best, it was a Temporary Variable Mount. Once the System Detected an Anomaly, it would still trigger Garbage Collection.

“Is there a way… to permanently anchor their existence?” he asked.

The Old Ancestor shook his head. “There is no ready-made answer.”

After a pause, he added, “But I can tell you one truth—‘The Vulnerability lies not in the Program, but in what the person writing the Program cannot see.’”

Shen Yan frowned. “What does that mean?”

The Old Ancestor didn’t answer. His figure began to fade, like a webpage failing to load and slowly disappearing.

“Pay attention to the details.”

“Those moments overlooked by everyone are the true cracks in Spacetime.”

With the last word spoken, the Projection scattered into points of light, leaving only a Sword Shadow suspended in mid-air for three seconds before dissolving into dust and drifting away.

Shen Yan lay where he was, panting.

The previous conversation contained too much information, and his mind couldn’t process it. But he knew one thing—he couldn’t collapse. The four women were still floating there, at risk of being cleared by the system at any moment.

He closed his eyes, using the last bit of his Mental Power to inspect his Source Code Spiritual Root internally.

That thing now resembled a CPU about to burn out, glowing red-hot, its operational speed drastically slowed. The forced compilation of Heart Flame.exe earlier had overdrawn too much, even causing the Terminal Interface to freeze on the startup Image.

But he didn’t give up.

What do Programmers fear most? Not Error Reporting, but laziness in examining errors.

He meticulously sorted the remaining flow of Spiritual Energy within his body, reclassified the scattered Data Packets, shut down unnecessary Processes, and forcibly released Memory. This process was so painful his fingers cramped, but he stubbornly endured without uttering a sound.

Finally, the Interface flickered and restored basic operational Permission.

He opened his eyes, his gaze no longer fixed on the four women.

Instead, he began scanning the entire battlefield.

Broken banners, solidified blood stains, tilted weapon racks, a strip of cloth drifting in the wind… He no longer observed with his eyes but analyzed with Logic.

Where was something off?

Where did it defy common sense?

According to records from the seventh day of the Divine War, this should have been the frontline where the human and Devil Clan main forces engaged in decisive battle, so logically there shouldn’t be too many miscellaneous remnants. Yet the traces before him were too orderly, as if deliberately arranged by someone.

He then looked at a fallen Puppet wreckage.

That thing was originally a Devil Clan creation, but its joint structure… looked oddly familiar no matter how he examined it. He retrieved his Memory for comparison and found it highly similar to modern mechanical arm designs, especially the position of the transmission gears, almost identical.

“This craftsmanship…” he murmured, “shouldn’t exist a thousand years ago.”

He struggled to sit up, leaning against a piece of rubble. His body remained weak, but his mind was already spinning.

If this war had been tampered with?

If the so-called “history” itself was a piece of tampered Code?

Did Old Ancestor’s “places unseen by those who write Programs” refer precisely to these subtle, seemingly insignificant flaws?

He reached out and traced a line on the ground with his fingertip.

A faint green light flashed—a scanning Program simulated by his Source Code Spiritual Root. The range wasn’t large, covering only five meters, but it was sufficient.

Metal fragments buried beneath the ground, arranged irregularly yet forming the rudiments of a Signal array. He had seen this layout once at a black market auction—used to interfere with High-Level spell positioning.

Did such technology exist a thousand years ago?

Impossible.

Unless… someone had brought future items here ahead of time.

Just like him.

Thinking this, a chill ran down his spine.

If he was the “Key,” then what about others? Ye Shi’er was a Data Shadow, could there be more Anomalous Variables mixed into this history?

As he pondered, rustling sounds reached his ears.

The grass moved.

A small demon stumbled from afar, covered in wounds, dragging its right leg on the ground, trembling with each step. Seeing Shen Yan, it paused briefly, then suddenly rushed behind him, curling up, breathing rapidly.

Shen Yan didn’t move.

He knew this small demon wasn’t an enemy. An enemy’s aura wouldn’t be so weak, nor would it actively hide behind him.

He simply watched it quietly.

The small demon lifted its head, its moist eyes gazing at him, lips moving as if wanting to say something but afraid to speak.

Shen Yan didn’t ask either.

He currently lacked the strength to save anyone, nor did he have the heart to play the hero. He only wanted to figure out one thing—

Why did this little demon appear at this exact moment, in this specific location?

Moreover, on the tip of its left ear, there was a tiny carved mark.

Its shape resembled a symbol he was all too familiar with—

It was the Encryption identifier for a hidden folder in his phone.

(End of Chapter)