Role Playing the Dark Horse Character

Chapter 93: Vicious Dog

This was an illusion.

It was obviously an illusion.

Lin Ruye knew this.

His opponent was an illusionist, and he had seen Lin Ran’s corpse just before dawn.

He had seen that face, stained with blood, only hours ago.

“How long has it been since we last met?” But the orange-haired woman looked at him, speaking calmly, in a tone that felt cold to him, yet one he hadn’t heard in so long.

He hadn’t heard her voice in ages.

This was an illusion, he told himself.

Yet he couldn’t help lowering his head, staring at the floor.

Just like when he was a child.

“Four years,” he said softly.

It had been four years since he last went to the attic where Lin Ran stayed, to see his mother.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” the illusion of the orange-haired woman asked.

Lin Ruye bit his lip, tearing at it fiercely, filling his mouth with the taste of rust.

He knew it was an illusion, but in this moment, he couldn’t break free from this cursed scene.

His ability was called Curse of Voodoo, and this was the curse he bore.

“Because…” He recalled four years ago, that day.

He still remembered that night, the candlelight faint, trembling like his unsettled heart.

But thinking back, he felt happy—happy enough to cry.

“You didn’t want to see me.” He slowly raised his head, his tone steadying, looking at the phantom, or perhaps speaking through the illusion to his long-dead mother. “Because I stabbed you here, sealed your power, and destroyed your Capital of Order.”

“Created Eternal Night.”

That was the only time he felt Lin Ran truly saw him as her son.

Lin Ran, whose ability let her observe everything around her, only realized what Lin Ruye intended when he approached and drove a dagger through her waist.

As blood sprayed, gu insects burrowed into the body of this SS-rank ability user, draining her power under the ability’s effect.

Lin Ran had merely widened her eyes, looking at him with confusion and bewilderment.

She hadn’t guarded against him.

She treated him differently.

In that moment, Lin Ruye’s heart felt full, as if a bottomless void had been filled.

“I saw you lose everything—money, power, status. The more you wanted something, the less you could have it. The tighter you tried to hold on, the further it slipped away.”

Six years ago, in the afternoon, a man with pale golden hair spoke unhurriedly.

He was called a prophet, a fraud in Lin Ran’s eyes, a high-risk ability user she was wary of.

Yet, as a prisoner, he looked at the half-grown boy outside the cell and smiled.

“You followed your mother’s orders, only to be discarded by her, becoming an insignificant corpse in her order.”

“And after your death, she treated the one who killed you as her son,” the man chuckled softly, “completely letting go of you.”

If that was true, then what was he?

“Why not resist her?” he said softly.

Six years ago, the orange-haired boy had loudly refuted the man’s words.

Days later, the man was beheaded, Ranmu City was established, and Lin Ran killed over ten thousand people in three days.

Cold and ruthless.

Now, he looked at the illusion crafted by the illusionist, at the phantom of a mother who no longer existed and could not speak. He said, “You called that man a fraud, but what he said was clearly true.”

His mother saw no difference between him and commoners.

She truly would abandon him.

So he harmed his mother, using gu insects to weaken her power, leaving her no strength to handle matters beyond Ranmu City, unable even to fully protect Ranmu City itself.

Lin Ran wanted order, so he created chaos.

He let everyone indulge their desires, reaffirming class divides, shattering her order into fragments.

To prove she was wrong, to prove her abandonment was baseless.

“As long as Eternal Night exists, you cannot forget my existence.” He laughed again. “My only regret is not killing you myself, so the last thing you saw before death was me.”

As his words fell, the insect tide rose like black liquid defying gravity, filling the small room.

Amid it, the phantom’s expression remained vacant.

Then, in the insect tide, it shattered, turning to dust and drifting away with the wind.

As the phantom broke, Lin Ruye uncontrollably reached out, as if trying to hold onto something.

But he quickly curled his fingers, finding his reaction laughable.

The illusory room faded, revealing the original darkness and ruins.

Above it, Lin Ruye withdrew his hand, scanning his surroundings.

“My subordinates have been stopped,” he said, somewhat surprised.

The next second, glints of blade tips flickered in the sky, a dozen long blades rushing toward him.

The insect tide surged, forming a shield to swallow the blades, but the moment they met, the illusion vanished, striking nothing.

“Because I have a capable helper too.”

The black-haired girl with squinted eyes had her long skirt billowing in the wind, her high heels stepping through the air above the insect tide.

Her movements were seamless, swift as lightning.

She gripped the blade handle backward, and in an instant, the blade tip plunged into Lin Ruye’s back.

Then her figure vanished.

The long blade fell vertically, its tip gnawed away by insects, landing and being consumed entirely by the swarm.

It was as if she had merged herself with her ability.

This was an S-rank ability user, one who had grown by absorbing the nutrients of an SS-rank ability user.

Lin Ruye still hadn’t reached SS-rank.

He was untouchable, unharmable, with physical attacks dealing near-zero damage.

Ability rank suppression made him a highly troublesome foe.

But.

An illusion cloaked the sky again.

Behind the illusion, Li Li sat suspended in the air, one crimson eye slightly open, glancing at Dan, whom she held up beside her.

She wouldn’t take on a burden for nothing.

With an ability of the same rank affecting him, plus the damage from his prior self-destruction, Dan’s face was pale, trembling uncontrollably, occasionally letting out whimpers.

“Does it hurt?” Li Li asked.

“It hurts,” Dan said softly.

Similar to the limitations of Li Li’s ability, his ability required the target to feel remorse when used on someone of equal or higher rank, and the same applied when used on himself.

He couldn’t directly remove the gu insects Lin Ruye had planted in him, only resisting control when Lin Ruye wasn’t fully focused on him.

So Li Li raised her hand.

The blade handle lifted Dan’s black skirt, turning him to face her.

Li Li reached out, hooking Dan’s chin, making him look up at her.

The white-haired boy no longer resembled his initial self—calm, impeccably dressed.

Now, his white hair was stained with blood, clinging to his cheeks with sweat.

He furrowed his brow, breathing rapidly.

“Remember what I said?” She tilted her face, opening both eyes, her calm crimson pupils meeting Dan’s heterochromatic ones.

His gold and blue pupils contracted slightly.

“Don’t think about anything, don’t ponder anything, just follow my words.” Li Li spoke unhurriedly, her smile as constant as ever.

Dan trembled, widening his pupils, as if drawing in the warmth that could fill his entire heart.

Her crimson eyes reflected the white-haired boy’s face.

She said, “Your body recovers, all your pain vanishes, you’re no longer under the enemy’s control, your state returns to its peak.”

The ability Illusory Reality turned lies and falsehoods into truth.

For high-rank targets, the condition was that the target must wholeheartedly believe for it to succeed.

And now, beneath this dark sky, the trembling heterochromatic pupils of this S-rank white-haired boy seemed to ignite with red firelight.

A fierce wind rose.

Cracks like shattered porcelain faded from his body, the wound on his waist visibly healed, and his soiled white hair renewed, soft and clean as cotton.

The ability activated successfully, erasing all of Dan’s negative effects.

The wounds from self-destruction, the injuries from Lin Ruye’s two uncles, and Lin Ruye’s gu insects and control—all were eliminated.

Dan believed Li Li’s words, even without basis!

“Now, go tear the enemy apart.”

Li Li lowered her gaze, looking at Dan, her smile deepening.

“My vicious dog,” she said softly.

Instantly, the long blade vanished, and Dan plummeted from the air.

He turned, letting the wind whip his skirt loudly.

“I will do it.”

The white-haired boy clutched his rabbit plushie tightly.

Lin Ruye, breaking free of one layer of illusion, turned and saw the white-haired boy he envied.

“You?” He was taken aback.

The boy, who should have been in a wretched state, now seemed as if all his injuries had vanished.

This boy in a puffed-sleeve black dress raised his eyes, his pure gold and blue pupils looking at Lin Ruye.

“Correction, no insects should survive here,” he said.

In an instant, with his small leather shoes as the center, a fierce wind spread, clearing a space amid the dense insect tide.

It expanded, revealing broken walls and ruins, as well as scorched, withered grass burned by fire.

“Dan, you’re as detestable as ever,” Lin Ruye said, his face darkening.

“Correction, the ground beneath the orange-haired person should be a chasm,” Dan said calmly.

A massive rumble came from beneath the earth, cracks appearing on the surface, splitting open under Lin Ruye’s feet with a sharp crack, revealing a pitch-black, endless abyss.

His puppets were intercepted outside, and the gu insects in Dan, which he should have been able to use, were cleansed.

In an instant, he was at a complete disadvantage.

“Tch.”

The orange-haired youth plummeted downward, but as he raised his head, the insect tide spread upward from the abyss’s depths, forming a bridge beneath his feet.

He exploited a loophole in Dan’s ability—his gu insects could still move below the surface.

At the same time, insects burrowed out from the ground, only to be erased by Dan’s ability the moment they appeared.

But the next second, insects surged upward from beneath Dan’s shoes, devouring.

The white-haired boy flinched in pain, retracting his foot.

While Lin Ruye’s ability wasn’t active, Dan amplified his voice.

“Correction! The orange-haired guy should be dead right now!”

The ability Error Correction activated.

But because Lin Ruye felt no remorse at that moment, the ability failed to take effect!

“I don’t know how the illusionist cleared my gu insects, but can he keep doing it?” The insect tide supported Lin Ruye’s shoes, gradually bringing him back to the surface.

Dan stared at Lin Ruye.

At that moment, an illusion surged between them again.

In the darkness, a candle flame flickered faintly.

Behind the candlelight, the orange-haired woman tilted her head slightly, looking at Lin Ruye with a vacant gaze.

“Ruye,” the illusion said. “I never blamed you. I only thought you were swayed by the prophet.”

Lin Ruye’s movements paused slightly.

Even the second time, he couldn’t avoid having his heart shaken.

“Fake. She would only hate me,” Lin Ruye murmured.

He remembered how Lin Ran had been furious for the first time after Eternal Night appeared, and he knew how deeply she despised his actions.

She only didn’t kill him because she couldn’t stop him.

“I always thought you were a good child,” the illusion coaxed him.

Lin Ran would never say such things to him, Lin Ruye knew.

It was fake.

He knew it was fake, but his heart desperately yearned for it to be real.

Just then.

A blade tip emerged from behind the phantom, as if piercing through the illusion’s neck.

It was as if his mother was being killed before his eyes once again.

Lin Ruye instinctively reached out.

Too late.

The illusion dissipated, and several long blades struck instantly, piercing Lin Ruye’s skin and penetrating his chest.

Only then, through the pain of the piercing wounds, did he realize why he had reacted this way.

He had always said he wanted Lin Ran dead, wanted to seize her Ranmu City, wanted to utterly destroy her Capital of Order.

But…

“If she’s dead, who am I doing all this for…?”

The long blades relentlessly struck the ground, dust billowing upward, gradually dispersing the phantom.

The candle flame, and the person behind it, vanished.

He didn’t want to lose his mother at all.

The sound of the wind seemed to slow in his ears, then sped up the moment he noticed.

Lin Ruye collapsed to the ground.

His body was in agony, but he felt nothing.

It was as if, through the dust, he saw someone floating in the air, smiling down at him.

As he looked, that person’s form shifted.

The red-winged eye corners turned into a silver-white mask, the hair lengthened, and the face became sharp and bold.

The black long skirt that fell to the ankles became a black trench coat.

Those crimson pupils looked at him, the smile on their lips unchanged.

The illusionist, Heige.

Blood spread behind him, and Lin Ruye’s voice grew weak, ethereal.

“You’re so much like that man,” he said.

So much like the man he had seen in the prison six years ago.

A few words had stirred his emotions, then lured him down a path he never should have taken.

“Is that so?” the illusionist replied vaguely.