Chapter 93: The Vulnerability in the Demon Clan’s Script

Shen Yan stood before the bronze door on the third floor of the library, still clutching the golden tome that had just reverted to its original form. The four gilded characters on the cover, “Contract Compendium,” glowed faintly, reminiscent of a flashing notice box triggered by an accidental popup. Luo Li crouched beside his feet, picking up a fallen talisman paper with her fingertips and frowning. “This isn’t research—it’s system demolition.”

“I didn’t touch the underlying protocol,” Shen Yan muttered, pressing his phone against the golden tome to continue scanning. “At most, I ran a visualization function. Who knew this shoddy formation couldn’t even handle recursion?”

Before his words faded, a low hum echoed overhead. The spiritual pattern tiles across the entire library began to gray, flickering like a router losing connection. Fragments of formation runes peeled from the cracks in the walls, shattering crisply on the floor.

Luo Li glanced up at the fine cracks spreading across the dome and sneered. “You’re quite good at shifting blame.”

She had seen it clearly moments ago—to demonstrate the logical vulnerability in the Demon Clan’s script, Shen Yan had drawn a spiral-shaped data stream tunnel in the air. As soon as it took shape, the entire restricted section’s guardian formation acted as if fed corrupted code, blue-screening and restarting immediately. Following that, the spiritual energy of the shelves of classics went into turbulence, and the “Primordial Inscription Manuscript” awakened on the spot, transforming into a dragon shape that soared skyward.

If he hadn’t reacted quickly, riding it to become a “code dragon tamer,” the entire sacred ground would likely have been scorched to ashes by now.

“Didn’t I fix it?” Shen Yan retorted, stuffing his phone into his pocket with righteous indignation. “Look, it’s obediently turned back into a book, hasn’t it? And it landed automatically in the designated area, with an error margin under three centimeters—peak precision.”

“Before landing, it breathed fire and melted two guards’ blades,” Luo Li stood up, dusting off her skirt. “One of them was my uncle.”

“That was a triggered defense mechanism,” Shen Yan adjusted his glasses. “The system detected hostile targets and automatically initiated the countermeasure program. It’s legitimate self-defense.”

“Then explain why its flames were mixed with characters like ‘while(true)’?”

“Uh… maybe it’s a rendering effect?”

Luo Li stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly poked his chest. “Next time you write messy code, I’ll throw you into the pile of ancient texts and let the ‘Hundred Demons Chronicle’ compile your life automatically.”

Shen Yan grinned. “You’d have to teach the ancient texts to recognize people first.”

As they spoke, they reached the stone steps outside the library. The setting sun cast their shadows long across the ground. Shen Yan plopped down on the steps and pulled out his phone again, pressing it against the golden tome. The interface flashed, displaying a new notice: 【Undefined variable reference chain detected. Suggest enabling ‘Anomaly Capture Module’.】

“Interesting,” he narrowed his eyes. “These ancient scripts look like incantations on the surface, but they’re actually a complete runtime environment. The key functions lack initialization declarations, relying entirely on hard-coded jumps during calls. Execute them slightly, and you fall into an infinite loop.”

“So you’re saying… the script our ancestors left behind is unfinished?” Luo Li raised an eyebrow.

“Not just unfinished.” Shen Yan scrolled through the screen. “It’s more like someone intentionally left a Backdoor. Look at this ‘Oath of Opening’—the first half has strict syntax, but the second half suddenly inserts an unparsable symbol sequence, like a Patch forcibly crammed in.”

As soon as he finished speaking, his phone vibrated violently, and an Image popped up with a Warning: 【Detected deep Nesting calls, Stack Overflow risk present】.

Almost simultaneously, the golden book’s cover glowed faintly again, characters floating as if about to take flight once more.

“No, no, no!” Shen Yan quickly pressed down on the spine. “I just calmed you down, don’t get worked up again!”

He swiftly pulled up the Terminal, created a Sandbox environment in his mind, imported the suspicious inscription into the simulator, and added a breakpoint for Debugging. After the Data Stream scrolled a few cycles, he finally pinpointed the source of the problem—a seemingly ordinary pictographic character that was actually a Pointer pointing to a Null Address. Once activated, it would continuously call itself, forming an Infinite Loop.

“Found it.” He let out a sigh of relief. “As long as I redirect this Variable to a safe exit, I can cut off the Recursion chain.”

With that, he lightly tapped the Tip of his Finger and entered a line of Command.

In an instant, the golden book shook violently, its light surging. Not just this one—all the Classics on the third floor of the entire library began to Resonate, bookshelves humming, spiritual pressure surging like tides.

“What did you do?” Luo Li grabbed his wrist.

“I just changed a return value…” Shen Yan’s expression also shifted. “Why does it feel like a full System hot update?”

Before he could finish, a loud crash sounded overhead. The glazed tiles at the highest point of the library exploded, and a golden light dragon composed of Runes soared into the sky once more, even more ferocious than before. It circled once, then its dragon head suddenly turned outward, poised to charge.

“It’s trying to escape!” Shen Yan flipped up, grabbing a nearby broom handle. “We can’t let it fly away with the original inscription!”

In the next moment, he had already darted several zhang away, tapping a pillar with his toes to propel himself into midair. Sensing movement behind it, the light dragon swung its tail, stirring up a thousand layers of fierce wind. Shen Yan clung tightly to the broom as if gripping a makeshift flight controller, twisting in the gale until he actually managed to leap onto the dragon’s back.

“Hang on tight!” he roared, raising his phone overhead and activating the remote Debugging Interface. “I’m going to give you a hotfix Patch today!”

The light dragon roared in fury, diving sharply and skimming past the edge of the square. Two patrolling Demon Clan guards had just drawn their weapons when they were licked by the Code flames swept up by the dragon’s tail. Their metal weapons instantly softened and dripped, as if struck by a high-temperature welding torch.

“Shen Yan—!” Luo Li chased after him on the ground, her voice filled with anger and urgency. “If you let it breathe fire again, I’ll write you into the ‘Demon Clan Annals of Disasters’ as a cautionary tale!”

“This isn’t out of control! This is stress testing!” He was jostled dizzy on the dragon’s back, but his fingers kept tapping the Virtual Keyboard. “Almost there… just need to inject a self-reflection Program to make it realize it’s just a text-driven virtual entity… Got it!”

He pressed Enter.

The light dragon abruptly halted, the Runes on its body flickering as if engaged in an intense internal debate. After a few breaths, it slowly lowered its head, and a wave of confusion seemed to flash in its dragon eyes.

Then, its form shrank, transforming back into that golden book, which quietly fell to the ground.

Shen Yan spread his arms to catch it, the momentum knocking him down as he tumbled several times before coming to a stop. Lying on his back, chest heaving, he still clutched the book tightly, yet a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“It worked… at least it didn’t crash the server.”

Luo Li rushed over in a few strides, glaring down at him from above. “Do you have any idea the energy readings in the entire restricted section just spiked off the charts? The elders thought the Devil Clan had broken in!”

“But I retrieved the critical data.” Shen Yan waved his phone. “Now we can confirm that the Demon Clan script does indeed contain designed vulnerabilities, and they were likely artificially implanted. This isn’t just about the Western Wasteland Gate—it might even be connected to the truth behind the Ancestor’s disappearance all those years ago.”

Luo Li fell silent for a moment before finally sighing and reaching out to pull him up. “Could you stop exploring the truth with a ‘let’s see if it explodes’ approach every single time?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He patted the dust off his clothes as he stood, grinning openly. “Besides, haven’t I fixed it every time so far?”

She didn’t reply, only quietly helped him gather the scattered Talisman Paper notes, her movements gentle. In the distance, the clock tower chimed a melodious hour. Dusk deepened, and a mountain breeze rustled through the treetops, carrying a hint of coolness.

“The moon is full tonight,” she suddenly murmured softly. “Don’t stay up too late.”

Shen Yan was already looking down, scrolling through the analysis report on his phone, and replied offhandedly, “Don’t worry, I’ll just run a couple more simulations at most. I promise I won’t pull an all-nighter.”

He didn’t notice the trace of concern hidden in her gaze as she watched him, nor did he sense the Demon Clan Ancient Script Symbol on his palm quietly growing warm under the moonlight.

And deep within the newly generated analysis chart on his phone screen, a string of never-before-seen characters flickered slowly, like a forgotten wake-up command, silently awaiting execution.

(End of Chapter)