Dungeons Invade, and My Nemesis and I Rewrite the Rules

[When Instances Invade, My Rival and I Rewrite the Rules]

The day the System bound itself to him, Jiang Yi gripped a red cap embroidered with the number “7” and heard a cold mechanical voice announce: “Those who break the rules will be eliminated.”

Blood-red seats in a movie theater, a white-haired ghost in a waiting room, a bizarre reflection in a bathroom mirror... While everyone else trembles under the rules, he strokes his red cap and smiles. This System has more loopholes than rules.

In the mirrored bathroom, he deliberately leaves one mirror unwiped, watching the ghost scream as the rules collapse. In the clock shop, he turns the tables by altering the rule “return the hands to their proper positions,” reducing the black-robed monster's scheme to dust.

Until he meets Shen Lie.

This military man has a gaze sharper than a dagger. He presses a military knife to Jiang Yi's throat as soon as they meet. “If you want to break the sevenfold lock, you do as I say.”

Jiang Yi raises an eyebrow, and the golden thread on his red cap suddenly lights up. “And you are?”

From facing off to defusing bombs back-to-back, from scheming against each other to protecting their teammates in perfect sync, the two gradually learn to work together. As the secrets of the sevenfold lock are revealed one layer at a time, they discover that the ghosts imitating them and the monsters plotting against them are nothing but pawns of “It.”

The red cap is both a key and a shackle; the rules are both a trap and a weapon.

Jiang Yi strokes his now-hot red cap and smiles. “Want to rewrite the rules?”

Shen Lie spins his military knife, a sharp glint in his eyes. “First, let's tear this damn sevenfold lock apart.”

When two madmen decide to join forces, the world of rules-based horror finally understands:

The most terrifying thing isn't the monsters. It's these two men who play with the rules like toys.