Chapter 222: Weakness Attack: Team Coordination

Shen Yan’s phone screen went black, and he swayed, nearly collapsing. He leaned against the broken wall, his fingers still twitching, his ears buzzing as if thousands of computers had simultaneously blue screened.

But he didn’t fall.

He knew he couldn’t fall now.

The command he had just sent out had stalled the monster for 0.3 seconds. This time wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either—just enough for a sword to thrust in, a fireball to explode, and a talisman to seal off retreat.

He raised his hand, his voice raspy like sandpaper grinding against iron: “Ye Zhao, three o’clock direction, three inches below the rift, pierce the main loop node.”

Ye Zhao didn’t ask why or hesitate. With a flick of her wrist, her lifebound sword transformed into a silver streak, aiming directly at the spot where the black mist was densest. Before the sword arrived, its sword qi tore through the air, precisely slicing into the gap in the data stream.

As she struck, Shen Yan continued shouting: “Pei Yue, spiritual veins resonance! Everyone!”

Pei Yue immediately raised her hand, three silver needles hovering and trembling lightly, green light rippling from the tip of her finger, sweeping across the battlefield like waves. The spiritual pressure on all four surged instantly, and the flow of spiritual energy accelerated by nearly thirty percent.

“Luo Li, throw fire into it! Same coordinates!”

Luo Li’s pupils contracted, her vertical pupils glowing, demon power surging. Purple-red flames spun in her palm, condensing into a spiral fire pillar that roared along Ye Zhao’s sword qi trajectory, pouring deep into the rift.

“Yu Xiaotang, stagnation talisman array! Nine Palace Lockdown, don’t let it dodge!”

Yu Xiaotang bit her fingertip, a drop of blood falling, nine talisman papers soaring into the air, arranging into a ring. The talisman papers ignited spontaneously, golden light weaving into a net, firmly pinning the space around the monster.

Five forces converged at one point.

At that moment, like a program triggering a breakpoint, the entire battlefield abruptly quieted.

The monster convulsed violently, black mist wildly swirling, unable to break free. Its body began to twist, as if code running errors caused the model to collapse, cracks densely appearing on its surface.

“Done.” Shen Yan gasped, a smile tugging at his lips, blood flowing down.

But before he could relax, the monster suddenly emitted a piercing screech—not a sound, but a high-frequency vibration directly assaulting spiritual consciousness. Ground rubble exploded, residual black mist rapidly retracted, forming a high-speed rotating vortex core, clearly preparing to self-destruct.

Shen Yan’s eyes turned cold.

He had seen this routine many times—before a low-level program crashes, it always triggers the final safety protocol, clearing all data and blowing up intruders along with it.

He couldn’t let this thing explode.

He forced himself to stand upright, pulling his phone from his pocket. The screen went black then lit up, displaying only one line: “System standby, awaiting command input.”

He stared at that line, already composing the final piece of code in his mind.

Terminate process, force shutdown.

Not attack, not overwrite, but directly pull the plug.

He closed his eyes, his source code spiritual root vibrating, an invisible command flowing through his nerves to the tip of his finger. He whispered: “Execute, shutdown.”

As the words fell, an unseen data stream shot straight into the monster’s core.

The next moment, boom!

The dark shadow exploded, but not like an explosion—more like…deleting files.

No shockwave, no flames, only countless fragments of black code drifting like ashes, vanishing with the wind. Even residual spiritual power fluctuations were cleared completely, as if it had never existed.

The battlefield was quiet.

Shen Yan’s legs gave out, and he slowly slid down against the wall to sit on the ground. His phone clattered to the floor, its screen completely dark.

He tilted his head back, gasping for air, his chest feeling as if it had been run over by a truck. Every breath he took carried the metallic taste of blood. His vision blurred, his ears still bleeding, yet he smiled.

They had won.

This time, it wasn’t through recklessness or luck.

He had seen through the vulnerability, and they had understood his command.

The five of them, like five function modules, had been pieced together by him with a segment of minimalist code, executing a perfect combo.

This was true teamwork.

Not one person taking a hit for another, nor anyone charging into danger alone. It was everyone doing the right thing at the right time.

As he was thinking this, Ye Zhao sheathed her sword and turned to walk over. She stood before him, glanced down at him, and gave a slight nod.

Just one gesture, no words, but the meaning was clear: mission accomplished, you did well.

Shen Yan grinned. “Thanks, First Executor.”

Ye Zhao’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t refute it.

Pei Yue immediately crouched down to check his condition. She reached out to feel his pulse, her frown deepening. “Nerve damage, spiritual energy backlash. If you do this one more time, your brain will fry.”

“It’s fine,” Shen Yan waved a hand. “I have a backup.”

“Where would you get a backup? Do you think you’re a USB drive?” Pei Yue glared at him.

“I’m a programmer,” Shen Yan laughed. “All the code I write is synced to the cloud.”

Pei Yue let out an exasperated laugh, raising her hand as if to knock him on the head, but halfway there, she stopped and instead gently pressed it on his shoulder.

“Don’t do this again next time,” she said, her voice softening.

Shen Yan didn’t reply, only smiled at her.

Luo Li walked over, her cat ears twitching as she scanned the surroundings. “Gone? Really dead?”

“Dead,” Shen Yan said. “The ‘delete database and flee’ kind of dead.”

“Hmph,” Luo Li crossed her arms. “I wish it had held on a bit longer. My demonic fire didn’t even get warmed up.”

“You were warming up?” Yu Xiaotang bounced over, holding a half-melted candied hawthorn in her hand. “I was almost dried out in the sun! Can’t we fight faster? The sugar’s all melted into water, dripping all sticky on my hand.”

“You could still spare attention to eat candy?” Shen Yan sighed helplessly.

“Of course,” Yu Xiaotang said matter-of-factly. “If I don’t eat something sweet when I’m nervous, my hands shake and I draw the talisman wrong.”

Shen Yan shook his head. “Your mindset is steadier than the code I write.”

Yu Xiaotang proudly lifted her little face, about to speak, when she suddenly paused and looked at the ground beside Shen Yan.

“Hey, your phone…”

Shen Yan looked down.

The phone that had fallen to the ground earlier had somehow lit up again.

There was no interface, no notice—only a string of slowly scrolling Chinese characters:

“Detected illegal tampering record

Restoring original log…

Loading complete footage from the day the ‘Star-Shattering Token’ was lost”

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted.

The others also sensed something was wrong and gathered around.

Ye Zhao’s hand rested on her sword hilt, Pei Yue took half a step back to shield Shen Yan, Luo Li’s demonic fire reignited, and Yu Xiaotang quickly pulled out three talisman papers, clutching them in her hand.

Shen Yan stared at the screen, his breathing growing shallow.

He knew this wasn’t the system running automatically.

Someone was using his device to send a message.

Or… evidence.

The phone screen continued to scroll:

“Celestial Clan Calendar, Year 327, Seventh Month, Ninth Day

Xu Hour, Third Quarter

Token-Keeping Elder Bai Guizhen… fled with the token”

Shen Yan’s fingers clenched tightly.

Bai Guizhen?

He remembered that name.

It had appeared once in the fragments of his past life memories.

That was the last person who spoke to him on the day he was expelled from the Celestial Clan.

The phone continued to scroll:

“Witness: Shen Yan, the Forsaken

Record Sealing Level: Celestial Secret, Top Classified

Decryption Condition: Bloodline Authentication Passed by Source Code Spiritual Root Holder”

Shen Yan’s throat went dry.

He slowly reached out, the tip of his finger touching the screen.

A green code stream crawled up his arm to his shoulder and burrowed into his brain.

In an instant, his vision went dark.

It wasn’t a loss of consciousness.

It was his memories being forcibly opened.

(End of Chapter)