Chapter 94: The Night of the Blood Pact’s Onset

Shen Yan stared at the string of flickering unknown characters on his phone screen when a sudden searing pain shot through his palm, as if someone were carving words into his skin with a red-hot needle. He looked down to see the Demon Clan Ancient Script Symbol glowing with a dark red light, its temperature alarmingly high.

“Something’s wrong.” He snapped his phone shut and looked up at the sky—a full moon hung above the treetops, its silver radiance spilling down, making the entire ancient forest look as if it were submerged in liquid metal.

Just then, Luo Li staggered, bracing herself against a nearby tree trunk, her breathing growing ragged. “My head… it’s burning… the Code is running wild…”

Shen Yan’s heart tightened. He immediately pulled up the Terminal, intending to initiate the anomaly capture module, but as soon as he input the command, the System directly popped up a warning: 【Core Protocol overridden. Insufficient Permission】.

“Damn it, now of all times?” He gritted his teeth, shutting down all Background processes, attempting to forcibly take over the Blood Pact Process. Yet the Interface instantly went black, and when it lit up again, it had transformed into a flowing expanse of crimson Runes, as if some ancient Program were automatically loading.

Luo Li’s pupils began to change color, shifting from amber gold to scarlet. Her nine tails unfurled uncontrollably, lashing wildly through the air like whips. Trembling, she stumbled backward, her voice quivering. “Don’t… come near me… I’m losing control…”

Instead of retreating, Shen Yan rushed forward and wrapped his arms around her. Her body temperature was absurdly high, and her breath against his neck felt like tongues of fire licking his nerves.

“Are you insane!” she snarled. “I’ll bite you to death right now!”

“Then bite.” He tightened his grip around her waist, his hand stroking the trembling line of her spine. “I’ve got plenty of blood, and I recover fast.”

Before his words fully faded, she abruptly lifted her head, her sharp fangs sinking deeply into his shoulder. As excruciating pain surged through him, countless Data Streams exploded before Shen Yan’s eyes—Binary Runes erupted from the ground, rapidly spreading outward from them to form a massive circular Formation Diagram, each stroke resembling Code written in blood.

“So that’s it…” He broke into a sweat from the pain, yet he was still smiling. “This isn’t backlash; it’s a forced installation of an upgrade package.”

The Formation Diagram spun faster, absorbing the essence, blood, and Spiritual Power of both of them. In the air, a hazy, ancient, and solemn Star Map projection materialized, as if summoned from a thousand years ago.

Luo Li’s consciousness had already blurred, and she mechanically repeated her biting. Shen Yan knew that if this continued, she would drain him dry. Enduring the pain, he raised his other hand and swiftly traced patterns in the air, silently activating the Log recording mode, caching all the perceived Energy Frequencies and Rune Sequences into his mind.

“Once this wave passes, we really need to modify our configuration files,” he muttered breathlessly. “Who designs a Blood Pact to auto-update on a full moon? Do they think Cultivation is a free cloud service?”

But he knew this wasn’t a Bug; it was a preset function. Like a Hidden Protocol buried within the System, it only triggered under specific conditions.

To prevent the ritual from being interrupted and causing even more severe backlash, he simply drew the short blade he carried, slashed his wrist, and let more blood flow into the center of the Formation Eye.

The moment the blood dripped, the entire Formation Diagram blazed with a brilliant light. The Star Map projection suddenly sharpened, revealing a previously unseen path coordinate—pointing directly to the entrance of a hidden passage deep within the Western Wastes.

“Remember this… we’ll investigate later…” he murmured, his consciousness already beginning to drift.

Just as the Formation Diagram slowly faded and its light gradually dimmed, the storage ring in his embrace suddenly trembled violently, and a dark shadow tumbled to the ground—that shabby toy bear, with the character “dream” on the inner side of its right ear glowing eerily under the moonlight.

Immediately after, one of its eyes lit up with a red light, intermittently emitting laughter: “The timing… is just right… hahaha…”

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted, and his fingers swiftly traced three firewall barriers in the air, confining the toy bear within a transparent data cage. Forcing himself to stay alert, he scanned the signal frequency bands with the terminal and indeed captured an encrypted command stream, its source pointing to the underground archives.

“You really know how to pick your moment,” he said coldly. “Once I finish dealing with the important matters, I’ll dismantle your broken server.”

He quickly resealed the toy bear and stuffed it back into the storage ring, then felt a wave of dizziness. Excessive blood loss made his legs weak, and he could only slide down slowly, leaning against the Sacred Tree.

Luo Li had long since fallen into a deep sleep, her nine tails unconsciously curling around the two of them like a living barrier. Beads of sweat still clung to her temples, and her earrings flickered faintly, clearly indicating the lingering turmoil within her.

Shen Yan reached out and pulled her closer into his embrace, letting her lean more steadily against him. The night wind rustled through the forest, leaves whispering softly, while the distant call of an owl echoed through the air.

He gazed into the dark gaps between the trees, his eyes gradually darkening.

What had just happened was too coincidental. The timing and intensity of the Blood Pact’s activation were all too precise to be accidental. Especially that string of unknown characters—it was clearly guiding something.

He took out his phone. The screen had already returned to normal, but just as he was about to restart the analysis, his fingertip suddenly paused.

—The Contract Symbol on his palm was heating up again.

Not the searing pain kind, but a gentle warmth, as if someone were lightly rubbing it through his skin. He looked down and saw the symbol faintly pulsating, like a heartbeat.

At the same time, Luo Li’s eyelashes trembled slightly, her lips parting as she uttered two almost inaudible words:

“Brother…”

Shen Yan froze completely.

This wasn’t how she usually addressed him. Ever since signing the Blood Pact, she had always called him “programmer,” “code maniac,” “human compiler,” or at most added the prefix “idiot.”

But this “brother” felt both unfamiliar and familiar, carrying an intimacy that seemed to transcend spacetime.

Before he could ponder further, his phone suddenly vibrated, and the terminal automatically displayed a new notice: 【Deep Emotional Resonance detected. Enable ‘Symbiotic Cache Synchronization’?】

Before he could even see the options clearly, the screen flashed and automatically confirmed “Yes.”

In the next moment, a warm current spread from the Contract Symbol throughout his body, and his fatigue actually lessened slightly. Meanwhile, Luo Li’s breathing steadied, and a hint of color returned to her cheeks.

Shen Yan was momentarily stunned before muttering under his breath, “Who told you to act on your own?”

The System didn’t respond, but a small icon quietly popped up in the corner of the interface—a half-open flower, with the words below it: “Cache Activated.”

As he looked at the flower, he suddenly remembered the binary characters that had appeared on the petals when the ancient tree bloomed earlier.

Back then, he had thought it was just a program-rendered special effect.

Now, it occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t the product of code at all.

But… the projection of some kind of memory.

He closed his eyes, leaning against the tree trunk, one hand still protecting the back of Luo Li’s head, the other gripping his phone tightly.

The forest was eerily quiet. Moonlight slanted through the trees, casting the toy bear’s shadow on the ground—short and stubby, like a crouching child.

Shen Yan stared at that shadow until his eyelids grew too heavy to lift.

Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, the storage ring vibrated once more.

No sound, no red light.

Only a faint line of ink appeared on the surface of the ring, as if someone had gently brushed it with a calligraphy brush:

“Experimental Subject No. 7, welcome home.”

(End of Chapter)