Diabolic bloodline blood magic: What does "a target" mean?

The description for the Diabolic bloodline's blood magic states:

Hellfire scorches a target or fills your tongue with lies. Either a target takes 1 fire damage per spell level (if the spell already deals initial fire damage, combine this with the spell’s initial damage before determining weaknesses and resistances), or you gain a +1 status bonus to Deception checks for 1 round.

I think the bolded part refers to the target of the spell you are casting, while one of my players reads it as "pick a target". He thinks that you should be able to choose a target to receive the bonus damage separately of the actual spell's target, because otherwise the ability would not make sense for many Granted Spells or Bloodline Spells, like diabolic edict or charm. I think it should not be a separate target, because it just does not seem to make sense to me that you would tell a willing target to go do something and someone else goes "ouch" (in the case of diabolic edict).

I think the language is ambiguous here, so I wonder what other people's opinion on this is. What do you think? Same target or different target of choice? If different target, what range should be used? No save?

Definitely a target of the spell.

To be a bit more iron-clad.

Reading a Bloodline rules are reasonably clear.

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect. If the blood magic offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast.

Only you the caster, or the target of the spell could be affected by the Blood Magic effect - and the target of the spell only if the dice result is in the caster's favor.

It says "a target" because multiple Diabolic spells have the potential to hit more than a single target. This allows you to pick a target that was hit by an AoE. This doesn't mean you can hit a target completely unaffected by the spell, a target that rolled a success on its save, or a target that you failed an attack roll against.

All of the bloodline effects either do something to a target or something beneficial for the Sorcerer themself.

You can always grant yourself the second benefit in the event you have a friendly bloodline benefit and are casting an offensive spell or vice versa.
I think there are some bloodlines that have an issue where they have a friendly/offensive benefit but mostly offensive/friendly spells, but there's always the self-buff as an alternative.