Role Playing the Dark Horse Character

Chapter 100: Level Up Celebration! (Two-in-One)

The voice soon vanished into the illusion.

The next second, the giant sword’s blade became an afterimage, white arcs forming a hemisphere, as if enveloping Feng Jiuqu entirely.

Like a sealed net, the white arcs spread indiscriminately, encompassing everything around.

No doubt, Feng Jiuqu was getting serious.

An S-rank ability user, a high-rank’s power, was now on full display.

At the same time, I recalled what Lin Ruye had done.

Illusions spread beneath my feet, creating a massive crater, as if caused by a meteor.

This was below ground, outside Feng Jiuqu’s attack range.

The crater’s rumble blended with the destruction caused by the sword’s light.

Yu Xiao, still in midair after I threw him, happened to look down and see this.

Confirming he saw it, my figure appeared before him.

My face bore a warm smile, my lips curved kindly.

“Hide well,” I said.

Then, in midair, I flipped slightly, my boot hooking Yu Xiao’s waist.

With a forceful kick, I sent him hurtling into the crater.

Hard to say if there was any personal grudge involved.

“Huh?!” Yu Xiao.

In an instant, he plummeted into the crater like a straight line, kicking up dust.

The next moment, I appeared below the horizon.

As my boots landed beside Yu Xiao, sword light whistled overhead.

Illusions unfolded above us.

On the surface, the illusion continued its clash with Feng Jiuqu.

The already ravaged city crumbled under the S-rank ability user’s attacks.

Skyscrapers collapsed, and everything within Feng Jiuqu’s attack range—streetlights, roadside plants, even skyscraper debris—was flattened.

Sent flying by the sword light, they left a blank expanse and a ground scarred with sword marks.

The massive noise echoed in the air.

I guessed it wouldn’t take long for An Heyu and Dan to notice something was off.

But I wanted to handle this myself.

Beside me, Yu Xiao groped his way up, clutching his waist, tears teetering in his eyes.

“Kind person, could you be gentler next time?” The golden-haired youth blinked his round red eyes, looking utterly pitiful.

I felt satisfied, smiling brightly: “Mm-hm.”

A universal perfunctory tone.

I was thinking of ways to counter Feng Jiuqu’s ability.

No doubt, I couldn’t beat him in close combat—my usual assassination attempt had already failed.

Feng Jiuqu’s ability allowed omnidirectional, indiscriminate attacks.

While he hadn’t noticed the underground as his blind spot, this was a temporary refuge.

Lin Ruye and Dan’s fight had inspired me.

Unless the opponent could control earth, few would consider the underground as part of the attack range.

I planned to open a hole beneath Feng Jiuqu’s feet, but for safety, I’d need to stall for five minutes.

My gaze shifted to Yu Xiao, standing nearby.

Yu Xiao met my eyes, showing a puzzled expression.

Our red eyes locked for a moment, and I slowly curved my lips into a smile.

I had plenty of ways to stall, but how could someone slack off here?

Flipping Fish, time to stop slacking!

Yu Xiao: “Kind person, why does your expression look a bit scary…”

“There’s an easy task for you,” I said kindly, my tone firm and unyielding.

I counted the time.

In Yu Xiao’s increasingly confused expression, I raised my foot.

“Stall for time,” I said. “Good luck.”

...

On the surface, Feng Jiuqu’s giant sword was surrounded by glowing specks, fading and reappearing.

He kept chasing the black-haired youth’s figure emerging in the air, swinging his sword under that figure’s nonchalant gaze, only to shatter phantoms.

A minute passed, and in his relentless movements, Feng Jiuqu noticed something.

“All phantoms. You want to exhaust my strength?” He raised his hand, the sword’s arc meeting a phantom.

The fierce wind blew, and the phantom vanished.

Feng Jiuqu’s gaze darkened: “No, that’s not right. If it’s you, you wouldn’t just aim to tire me out—you should know that’s impossible. Waiting for reinforcements? But don’t illusionists act alone?”

He was guessing my intentions, the heavy-looking giant sword in his hand as nimble as a feather.

But at that moment, a boy’s voice suddenly rang out from the edge.

“Big dog-goose, what’s wrong? Wake up!”

It was Yu Xiao, the Yu Xiao I’d thrown out.

Tasked with stalling for time, I’d forcibly kicked him out of the crater to face Feng Jiuqu and his giant sword.

Now he knelt beside the big dog-goose, crushed by debris, his face showing genuine sorrow.

Feng Jiuqu’s attention was partly drawn: “You’re not dead?”

He thought his earlier clearing attack had already swept away this seemingly useless boy.

Yu Xiao ignored him, immersed in his grief: “Big dog-goose, though you bit me and chased me, our friendship from Zhusheng City to Ranmu City can’t be fake. I wanted to introduce you to Yiming. We’re missing a mascot, and I even picked a name for you—Dog-Goosey…”

Under the boulder, the big dog-goose’s wings flapped once, as if trying to rise and smack someone.

Yu Xiao pressed down on the slab: “Dog-Goosey, are you still alive? I saw you move!”

The pinned big dog-goose twitched once and went silent.

Feng Jiuqu, unable to stop watching, said: “You crushed it to death.”

As someone who considered himself normal, he felt his eyes opened by this bizarre behavior.

Even the black-haired youth’s phantom paused, turning to watch the ‘life-and-death parting’ over there.

“Dog-Goosey, you have to meet Yiming. You’d definitely have a lot in common…” Yu Xiao was lost in his fantasy world, then suddenly turned to the phantom, saying, “Right!”

I felt offended.

This fish, forced to stop slacking, was indirectly insulting me, wasn’t he? And dragging Little Corgi into it too.

I wasn’t in the crater anymore, floating in the air instead, as I didn’t quite trust Yu Xiao to do his job honestly.

I had a gut feeling he’d obstruct me.

At his words, I controlled the phantom, making it slowly reveal a smile: “I think it’s hungry and wants to eat fish. Why don’t you feed it, Dog-Goosey?”

Keep pretending. Who couldn’t pretend?

Our crimson eyes locked—one teary, one full of amusement.

We were both acting emperors.

Feng Jiuqu, swinging his giant sword, couldn’t insert himself into our conversation.

Yu Xiao’s antics dragged the time to three minutes.

Two minutes left until the five-minute countdown.

Feng Jiuqu didn’t quite understand the situation.

He froze, then swung his giant sword, preparing another clearing attack.

The second wind-up made Yu Xiao warily lower his head, seemingly looking for the crater to hide in.

Feng Jiuqu noticed his movement.

As expected, I thought.

I’d figured out Yu Xiao’s obstruction pattern—he played tit-for-tat.

I’d kicked him twice, so he had to obstruct me at least once.

But I was prepared.

“What are you looking at?” Feng Jiuqu muttered.

The next instant, he flipped his wrist, the giant sword striking the ground where Yu Xiao’s gaze lingered.

Humans always trusted their deduced conclusions.

Yu Xiao’s ‘unconscious’ glance made Feng Jiuqu certain something was there.

And so, he fell into the deceiver’s trap.

Under the illusion, the crater appeared.

As it did, sword marks slashed through, the giant sword’s damage giving the crater a vertical fissure running across it.

I silently counted the time, prepared.

One minute left.

“What kind of ability is this? To crack the earth and create such a deep pit without me noticing?” Feng Jiuqu murmured.

“You’re truly strong, illusionist!” Feng Jiuqu grew more excited.

Fluorescent light glowed on the giant sword’s blade as the ability user switched to a new stacked status.

A silver-white arc flashed, slashing fiercely toward Yu Xiao, still pinned under the big dog-goose.

He wanted to kill Yu Xiao to force me out!

Perfect opportunity!

I aimed a kick at the back of Yu Xiao, who was pretending to be stunned.

An opportunist never missed a chance for justified retaliation!

Yu Xiao, expecting to be grabbed by the collar, exclaimed: “Huh?!”

But at the same time, Feng Jiuqu locked onto my position, his next strike arriving almost instantly.

Forty seconds left.

I curved a smile, illusions instantly concealing my form, and appeared outside the attack range.

“Your real body is hard to pin down, but you’re definitely on the ground now!” Feng Jiuqu flipped his wrist, the giant sword exploding like fireworks, arcs enveloping his body.

The next moment, the arcs, like an extended giant sword, tore through the wind and shattered the earth.

This time, Feng Jiuqu’s new status was double speed.

His ability seemed to merge with his body—his wrists, his nimble fingers, all accelerated.

Like light filling a room the instant a lamp is turned on, the attack spread at light speed.

Thirty seconds left.

Too late? I thought.

No, there was still time.

Illusory Reality needed one final step to fully transform.

The process seemed to play out before my eyes, clearly showing the forming chasm beneath the ground, hidden behind the sword light.

In this life-or-death moment, I felt as if I touched a progress bar.

A progress bar that could accelerate the transformation.

Yu Xiao’s belief, Feng Jiuqu’s conviction—their mistaken perceptions of the illusion formed two segments of a progress bar.

Yu Xiao’s was longer, Feng Jiuqu’s half as long.

They were like a single progress bar, or a halo only I could see.

Before, Illusory Reality only required the target’s belief when used on high-rank ability users.

Others’ opinions couldn’t sway the target’s perception.

But now, the thoughts of the two people present seemed to complete the missing piece of the transformation process.

From a single person to multiple.

I reached out, as if loading this progress bar into the void transformation below.

The transformation completed instantly!

The white arcs, like light-speed rays, engulfed everything around the moment they appeared.

At the same time.

“Crack.”

Cracks spread across the ground, then suddenly vanished beneath Feng Jiuqu’s feet.

Feng Jiuqu, at the center of the sword light, stepped into nothing.

His hands were still attacking, but at that moment, metallic silver light reflected his face, surging upward from his feet.

Forced to stop, Feng Jiuqu swung his giant sword downward, slicing through the blades during his fall.

But what met his eyes was a massive pit, with sharp blade tips at the bottom.

Like an impenetrable net.

“Ah!” Feng Jiuqu roared, his giant sword’s strike instantly cutting through all the blades in the pit.

Vanishing and reappearing, his body was surrounded by sharp blade fragments, like glinting shards.

“Boom!”

He landed on the ground, finally looking up.

His range was confined to a small foothold at the pit’s bottom, while above him were countless long blades.

“Just child’s play!” Feng Jiuqu declared.

He swung his giant sword, the blades above falling like rain.

As he struck them down, he looked up and saw a massive mirror.

Behind the mirror was himself, swinging the giant sword, using his clearing move.

Himself? Feng Jiuqu froze.

“Replication?!” He finally sensed danger. “Is this how you made the pit?”

He roared, his legs pushing off like a cannonball, shooting upward.

His giant sword flew with his roar, as if to break the ability’s prelude and stop the mirror’s version of himself from activating.

The next instant, the same ability erupted from behind the mirror, enveloping Feng Jiuqu and his sword.

Double speed.

In midair, Feng Jiuqu swung his sword, as if to clash head-on with his own ability.

But suddenly, his giant sword vanished.

The illusion concealed the sword’s existence.

In this critical moment, Feng Jiuqu saw me beside the mirror, holding an identical giant sword.

I casually waved the sword, smiling faintly at him.

Teleportation? Feng Jiuqu thought.

In this dire moment, doubting his sword was taken, Illusory Reality took hold.

Feng Jiuqu had no time to deny it.

The next instant, sword light engulfed him.

...

In the massive mirror, sword light aimed at the pit’s bottom, like sunlight pouring from above, but carrying immense force.

“Boom!”

The entire Ranmu City felt the tremor, the ground shaking, the shockwave seemingly spreading beyond the city.

In the distance, a red-haired and a white-haired figure rushed toward the scene.

The nearest golden-haired youth dropped his docile expression, looking up at the black-haired youth in the sky, gazing down at his opponent.

When that person looked over, he reverted to the bewildered Yu Xiao.

He walked to the pit’s edge, approaching me as I landed leisurely, saying with slight excitement: “Kind person, to repay your life-saving grace, please let me follow you!”

I: “…?”

I gave a slightly disdainful look: “No need.”

Bring Flipping Fish to obstruct me?

If not for this slacking fish, I wouldn’t have had to clash head-on with Feng Jiuqu.

But…

I recalled the earlier sensation, pondering.

Had I reached high-rank?

Was that the further evolution of Illusory Reality?

Could I grow from deceiving one person to deceiving many?

As long as many in the same space believed my lies, could I accelerate Illusory Reality’s process?

Originally, Illusory Reality’s effect—whether on individuals touching illusory blades or those I targeted with abilities like ‘hypnosis’ on Dan—required high-rank targets to believe it.

Others’ opinions in the same space couldn’t affect the process.

This process was like Illusory Reality’s success rate.

Against high-ranks, a 5% realization chance was like the process reaching 5% and stalling, unable to proceed.

Now, I seemed able to draw progress bars from others in the same space who believed, filling that 5% to completion.

In other words, I was evolving into a master of widespread deception.

Was this high-rank? I thought.

A quantitative change had triggered a qualitative leap.

But the quantity varied.

Yu Xiao’s progress bar was noticeably longer than Feng Jiuqu’s.

Looking at the still-pretending golden-haired youth, I speculated about his identity.

Either he was a strong S-rank, like Lin Ruye, or he was SS-rank.

If he was SS-rank, he might be the one who killed Lin Ran.

An Heyu had said the only freely active SS-rank was dangerous, but Yu Xiao’s attitude toward me was clearly friendly.

Though we obstructed each other, it hadn’t caused serious consequences.

Thinking of Yu Xiao’s actions around Yiming, I even wondered for a moment if he was grooming me.

On reflection, it was similar to how I, under Heige’s persona, gave Yiming tasks to force him to level up.

I sensed this pattern in Yu Xiao’s behavior.

Unaware of my thoughts, Yu Xiao pointed at his face, still trying: “But I’m good-looking. Doesn’t looking at me make you happy?”

I fell silent for a moment.

I hadn’t expected his clumsy beauty persona to lead to such a line.

“You’re clumsy, always holding others back, completely useless.” I smiled faintly.

Yu Xiao: “…” He really couldn’t argue with that!

At that moment, An Heyu and Dan rushed over.

“Heige!” An Heyu looked over with slight worry.

I decisively pointed to the pit’s bottom, where nothing remained but air, and said: “Read his memories. Why did he show up here?”

Sensing the still-fresh life energy, An Heyu felt his worry was entirely unnecessary.

He hadn’t even seen what the troublemaker looked like, while I remained as relaxed and carefree as ever.

An Heyu nodded, about to agree, his mouth opening to utter a syllable.

But then Dan, who had been standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him, suddenly shivered, scurried to my side, and hid behind me, looking at An Heyu.

Like he’d been bullied.

I rubbed Dan’s fluffy head and asked: “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” An Heyu said, puzzled.

Dan said: “I don’t want to follow him. I want to follow you.”

An Heyu hadn’t done anything to him.

I just hadn’t brought Dan along, sending him to help An Heyu instead.

But as Dan spoke, clutching my sleeve and slightly raising his head, his one golden and one blue pupil were crystal clear.

Paired with his expression, he seemed full of grievance.

I couldn’t help recalling the first time I met Dan in Ranmu City.

He’d tried to kill me, yet I felt guilty.

Just like An Heyu now, who hadn’t done anything but started questioning if he had.

Seeing An Heyu’s self-doubting expression and Dan’s seemingly pitiful yet understated demeanor, I realized.

This was an unconscious tea.

“Good boy, follow Red Crane for now,” I said with a smile.

Go, Mother Hen, raise him well!

Touch Dan with your great brotherly radiance!

Dan pursed his lips, not upset with me, but glared at An Heyu.

An Heyu: As expected, the bad premonition was real.

After that, An Heyu read Feng Jiuqu’s memories, his expression growing serious.

“The Imperial Family is making moves,” he said. “Lin Ruye’s uncle reported to the Imperial Family the day Lin Ran died. The Imperial Family sent five S-rank ability users to protect the princess, and they’re heading to Ranmu City.”

I glanced at Yu Xiao when Lin Ran’s name was mentioned, but this master of expression management looked dazed, as if he didn’t understand what we were saying.

“Feng Jiuqu was one of those five. He arrived early,” An Heyu said, feeling the trouble didn’t end there. “And the Imperial Family issued a call to nobles in various cities, ordering them to cooperate with the princess’s actions.”

Meaning the princess might recruit nobles along the way.

“Protect the princess?” I was intrigued by the phrasing.

An Heyu continued smoothly: “Because the princess is a non-ability user.”

“The entire Imperial Family are non-ability users,” he added after a pause.

I was somewhat shocked.

In this ability-supremacist Empire, the Imperial Family were non-ability users?!

How did they make nobles with SS-rank abilities submit?

...

[Update target achievement detected.]

[Opening channel for you…]

[Welcome back to reality.]

Back in reality, I thought for a while.

About Lin Ran’s issue, Yu Xiao’s issue, and the Imperial Family.

The Imperial Family had the authority to command nobles, so I couldn’t understand why they lacked abilities.

How could ordinary people suppress prideful ability users?

Beyond that, I had another guess to verify.

The door was closed.

In the dark bedroom, I faintly heard the soft rustle of my mother turning over in the next room.

At that moment, I spoke to an intangible entity: “You’re there, right, system?”

A mechanical voice, bodiless and unplaceable, sounded by my ear.

[Yes.] It answered my question.

“Then,” I said, my tone sinking, “besides shuttling back and forth and the time-limited shop, will you provide me other help?”

Yu Xiao was a high-rank ability user.

When I first met him in Jiao Huang, I was unconscious, exhausted, and couldn’t possibly have remembered to use illusions to hide anything.

That meant there was a two-day blank period.

I didn’t believe two days weren’t enough for Yu Xiao to figure out if I was male or female.

Whether Yu Xiao knew or not, I could find excuses to cover it in the manga, but him not knowing was already crucial information.

It meant someone had helped me.

And at that time, only one ‘entity’ could have concealed things from Yu Xiao’s eyes.

The system.

Only the system, by my side from the start, could have hidden me from Yu Xiao in that isolated, helpless moment.

But why?

At my words, the system seemed to fall silent.

After a stifling pause, its emotionless voice sounded.

[Please explore on your own.]

The same answer as always, but I caught something unusual in that unnatural pause.

I slowly curved my lips.

From my first transmigration into the manga world until now, I’d finally caught the system’s little slip.

The system, seemingly just a transmission machine, had exposed its bias through that lapse.

‘It’ was no longer an untouchable machine.

It had become a ‘player in the game.’

...

Two days later, the manga updated.

Since the Zhusheng Arc and Ranmu Arc ended together, it now returned to single-arc serialization.

This arc was called the Dawn Arc.

Looking at the name, I felt it had to be related to Yu Xiao.

It seemed the manga could reveal more to her about Yu Xiao.

Li Li thought.

The latest chapter updated was the first chapter of the Dawn Arc.

When Li Li flipped through the manga, she assumed the title page would feature the golden-haired, crimson-eyed acting emperor, Yu Xiao.

But when she opened it, she found it wasn’t.

Though it was still an acting emperor, and still crimson-eyed, the title page featured Heige.

And it came with a bonus mini-version of Ahoge Li.

“It’s starting, huh,” she murmured.

The threads the manga artist had buried, her previous act.

Then she turned to the first page of the manga.