Chapter 80: The Roar of the Awakening Formation Array

Shen Yan’s hand was still clutching the stone slab engraved with characters, his fingertips burning hot. The moment the spiritual patterns lit up on the plaza’s floor tiles, the entire ground began to tremble, as if someone had thrown a grenade into a server room.

“Whose code left debug mode on?” He nearly stumbled from the shaking, his knee hitting the edge of the altar, making him gasp in pain.

Luo Li grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him back from the fissure that was about to split open. “Didn’t you say it was just a school motto?”

“How was I supposed to know he secretly added a start command?” Shen Yan stared at the small line of text on the back of the stone slab, his temples throbbing. “‘When I wrote this code, I had already decided to become the first developer’—what kind of programming philosophy is this? Who taught him that?”

Before he could finish speaking, the altar beneath their feet suddenly sank, its surface cracking with spiderweb-like light patterns. Streams of cyan-purple spiritual energy surged out along the fissures, resembling the electric sparks from a short-circuited motherboard.

A terminal interface exploded before his eyes:

【Warning: Unauthorized system wake-up detected】

【Source protocol match: 78%】

【Recommend immediately taking over control; otherwise, thirty-six ancient killing formations will autonomously determine threat targets】

“So it’s booting up in auto-start mode?” Shen Yan gritted his teeth, his fingers swiftly moving through the air as he called up the core module of the maze generation algorithm. “Want to be a wild developer? You’ll have to get past me, the administrator, first.”

He took a deep breath and pressed the stone slab hard into the central fissure of the altar.

Click—it sounded like a USB drive being plugged into an old interface.

The demon power ripples on the stone slab instantly resonated with the altar’s underlying protocol, spreading out in concentric circles. The previously intermittent spiritual patterns lit up again, like a monitor that had been crashed for a long time finally loading the desktop.

“Success!” He had just breathed a sigh of relief when the terminal popped up a new notice:

【Memory overflow warning】

【Recursion level exceeds safety threshold】

【Estimated completion time: Unknown】

“Are you playing an infinite loop with me?” Shen Yan broke out in a cold sweat, his head buzzing as if thousands of threads were simultaneously maxing out the CPU. “Break it down! Three layers of nesting, release them level by level!”

He closed his eyes and focused, forcibly refactoring the incomplete code in his consciousness sea. The first layer was terrain generation, the second was trap distribution, and the third was the true logic of the killing formation. With each layer he unraveled, the source code spiritual root within him trembled violently, as if running in overclock mode.

Luo Li sensed something was wrong and reached out to steady his shoulder. “Can you still hold on?”

“I have to, even if I can’t.” He grinned, but a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “If this system blows up, the entire Western Wastes will become the Cultivation Realm’s biggest fireworks show.”

As he spoke, the final line of code was confirmed for execution.

Boom—!

The entire mountain range trembled violently, the ground splitting open into countless ravines. Walls constructed from spiritual power rose from the earth, crisscrossing and overlapping, transforming in the blink of an eye into a three-dimensional maze floating in the air. Ancient runes flowed along the maze’s outer walls, while shifting light and shadows flickered inside, faintly revealing blades, arrow storms, and poisonous mist weaving through it.

“Maze mode, online.” Shen Yan gasped for breath, his phone screen flickering a few times before finally displaying a line of green text:

【Formation array group activated, awaiting permission authentication】

But before he could rejoice for even two seconds, the terminal suddenly turned red:

【System alert: Foreign code implant detected】

【Clearing Program Initiated】

Thirty-six killing arrays simultaneously turned, locking onto a single point at the center—himself.

“Wait? I’m the developer, aren’t I? How did I become the virus!” Shen Yan stared in disbelief.

Luo Li’s expression changed: “You didn’t register your identity?”

“The Ancestral Spirit Database isn’t something I can just enter at will!” He quickly pulled up the log and found the permission verification stuck at the final step. “I need to bind a soul signature… Whatever, what’s the Chinese term? Soul signature, right?”

Without another word, he bit his fingertip, letting a drop of blood fall, and drew a string of binary contract code in the air.

“Highest Permission Account, bind to the Source Code Spiritual Root! Command line input: Force override the original authentication protocol!”

Blood-red light intertwined with code. The system was on the verge of recognizing him as its master, but the final link refused to close.

“Almost there… just a little more!” He gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead.

At that moment, a warm hand covered the back of his hand.

Luo Li stepped in front of him, her palm pressed against his blood-stained fingertip, her Demon Power flowing into him like a warm current.

“Co-Covenant Partner authentication. I’ll accompany you through this step.”

A dual-source resonance erupted instantly. Blood-colored code and purple Demon Marks coiled and surged upward, shooting straight toward the core of the maze. After a moment of silence, all the killing arrays slowly retracted their sharp edges, and the runes on the spiritual walls shifted to a soft blue glow.

【Permission Authentication Passed】

【System Entering Standby Mode】

Shen Yan’s legs gave way, nearly sending him to his knees, but Luo Li caught him in one swift motion.

“Don’t act like you’re on death’s door here,” she whispered. “If you collapse, who’s going to manage these newly awakened killing array ‘gentlemen’?”

He tried to grin, but a metallic taste rose in his throat.

His phone screen flickered intermittently, the battery icon reduced to a thin red line, the Terminal Interface frozen on a loading animation.

“Time to wrap things up, I guess,” he leaned against her shoulder, squinting at the floating maze. “At least we didn’t let the cafeteria explode a second time.”

Luo Li was about to reply when her ears twitched.

Silence.

Even the wind had stopped.

In the next instant, a voice rang out without warning, cold as ice water poured into their ears:

“The game should end now.”

Shen Yan stiffened all over.

It was Ye Shi’er’s voice.

Not coming from the phone, nor an illusion—it was real, echoing throughout the entire maze space, as if he had been lurking within every inch of the Spiritual Patterns.

The ground suddenly cracked open.

Twelve Dark Shadows burst from the earth, carrying corrupted Spiritual Energy, forming a semicircle to steadily surround them. Each figure held a twisted weapon, their bodies flickering with faint Data Stream remnants, like puppets meticulously modified by some program.

“Are these… the demonized forms of the Shadow Erosion Organization?” Shen Yan’s pupils contracted. He tried to summon a counterattack script, but his phone screen showed only static.

His mental energy was severely depleted, his Source Code Spiritual Root nearly stalled, unable to even compile the most basic Fireball Spell.

The Dark Shadows slowly closed in, their blades aimed at his back.

At the critical moment, Luo Li let out a low shout. Nine Fox Tails unfurled violently, and blazing Demonic Flames enveloped Shen Yan like a curtain wall. The flames surged, casting her eyes in a crimson glow as her aura exploded around her.

“Want to touch him?” she said, word by word, her voice filled with fury that could incinerate everything. “Step over my corpse first.”

Flames and Dark Shadows stood in confrontation, while a grating metallic sound echoed from deep within the maze.

The twelve enemies raised their hands simultaneously, their weapon tips gathering faint, eerie green spiritual energy points.

Shen Yan leaned against her back, his fingers trembling as they reached for the phone in his pocket.

The screen finally flickered to life, flashing half a line of text:

“Loading… Countermeasure Program”

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(End of Chapter)