I Have 10,000 SSS Rank Villains In My System Space

Chapter 479: Empress~ Surprise?

”I am very calm, Merisa,” Nerrisa said with a smile as she looked at her. Her smile was beautiful as always clean, elegant, almost gentle but somehow that made it stranger. There was nothing excessive in her expression. No widened eyes. No excitement on the surface.

Just a soft smile and calm eyes. Yet somehow that calmness felt more unsettling than excitement would have. Her platinum eyes stayed on Merisa for a few seconds before she tilted her head slightly.

”Do you really think anything can overwhelm me?” she asked softly. Then her gaze slowly drifted back toward the battlefield below. ”You misunderstood. I’m not overwhelmed.” Her lips curved slightly more.

”I’m just... extremely pleased with what I’m seeing.” She said it naturally. Too naturally. As if watching someone absorb another person’s blood, inherit their law, and immediately use it was merely interesting instead of impossible.

Merisa looked at her silently and did not answer. Honestly, she did not even have the energy to answer. Her mind already felt crowded. Her chest already felt heavy. Too many things had happened. Too many old emotions she kept buried had surfaced ever since she came here.

Even coming itself she had forced herself to do it. She was not in a state to move. Not in a state to fight. Not in a state to stand here or anywhere actually . But she still shecame. Because she wanted to protect her son. Because she wanted, at least once, to do something for him. Something she had not done in a very very long time. That was all. That was the only reason she forced herself here. And now that the danger was gone... now that he survived... now that she no longer had to hold herself together... she suddenly felt tired.

Not physically. Deeply tired. She wanted to go home. Sit somewhere quietly. Think. Remember. Regret. Maybe cry. Maybe not. She doesn’t not know anymore. She simply felt empty.

Nerrisa watched her quietly for several seconds before her smile slowly faded. She clicked her tongue softly and looked away.

”Alright. Be over with that face of yours.” Her voice sounded mildly annoyed. ”You ruined my mood.” The words sounded cold but strangely weren’t cruel. She genuinely disliked seeing Merisa like this. Someone she remembered standing impossibly high. Someone she never imagined looking exhausted. Someone she associated with strength now looking... worn down. Merisa quietly let out a deep sigh and again said nothing.

The two simply floated there in silence. A strange atmosphere stayed between them. Not hostile. Not comfortable either. Just heavy. Then suddenly both of them paused at the exact same time. Their expressions changed slightly as they sensed something below. Without speaking, both turned their heads back toward the battlefield.

And both became still. Because in the middle of the battlefield, Razeal stood there with one hand raised.

And blood thousands of streams of blood was rising toward him.

From every direction.

From everywhere.

The battlefield itself seemed to be moving.

Blood from fallen soldiers. Blood from bodies destroyed in the meteor shower. Blood trapped under shattered land. Blood hidden beneath broken stone and debris. Blood mixed into lava. Blood soaked into dirt. Tiny droplets slowly seeped upward through cracks before floating into the air. Then they gathered. Broken corpses scattered everywhere mangled remains, crushed bodies, torn pieces buried beneath debris all slowly released streams of blood. Thin red lines crossed the battlefield from every direction, gathering and flowing toward one place.

Toward Razeal.

From far away, the sight looked strangely beautiful. And deeply wrong.

Razeal stood in the center quietly.

Absorbing it.

The streams entered directly into his palm.

Notifications continuously appeared before his eyes.

Ding!!

[Blood absorbed.]

Ding!!

[Strength increased.]

Ding!!

[Lifespan absorbed.]

Ding!!

[Agility enhanced.]

[Regeneration increased.]

[Vitality expanded.]

[Blood essence stored.]

Ding!!

Ding!!

Ding!!

Again and again

The notifications kept ringing endlessly while he simultaneously absorbed the blood of thousands.

As almost everyone on the battlefield had already died, sadly for him there were fewer living people in the attacking army than Golems. So not much blood to absorb.

Most of the battlefield had been occupied by shattered golems, destroyed constructs, collapsed formations, burning debris, and remains left by the meteor shower rather than living soldiers. Still, the tens of thousands of people whose blood he was currently absorbing were far from ordinary. These were not civilians or weak recruits. They were trained soldiers. Talented soldiers. Veterans. Many carried high ranks and years of experience. Among them alone there had been ten Great Saints, dozens of Saint Kings, hundreds of Saints, and the majority of the remaining forces had consisted of S-ranked elites, while the rest were mostly experienced A and B rank combatants. Their blood naturally carried far greater vitality, stronger bodies, denser life force, and far more accumulated strength than normal people. For Razeal, this was not something he could casually ignore. Leaving all of this behind would simply be wasteful. At least in his eyes.

The battlefield itself had become deeply unsettling to look at. Thousands of thin streams of blood floated upward from the ruined land. They emerged from cracks in the earth, seeped out from beneath collapsed stone, flowed from beneath debris, escaped from corpses buried under lava and dust, then slowly rose into the sky before intertwining together.

Countless thin red streams crossed one another in the air and finally connected themselves into Razeal’s raised palm. The scene looked unnatural. Quiet. Almost ceremonial. The smell of blood had completely filled the battlefield. Even the wind seemed slower as those crimson streams moved through the air. Razeal simply stood in the center absorbing them one after another without expression, while notifications silently continued appearing before his eyes.

People watching had all kinds of reactions. Some frowned deeply. Some looked uncomfortable. Some looked disgusted. Others simply stared silently without understanding what they were seeing. They could not tell what Razeal was actually doing.

They did not know whether he was gaining power, performing some ritual, or simply destroying evidence. But one thing everyone understood immediately.. That it was blood. Blood coming directly out of fallen bodies. Blood leaving the dead. And to many of them, even enemies deserved some degree of respect after death. Watching someone gather blood from thousands of corpses felt strange. Uncomfortable.

Yet nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Nobody tried to stop him. Not because they agreed. Not because they approved. But because nobody believed they could stop him anymore. After what they had already witnessed today, their opinions remained only inside their own heads.

The same was true for the lords. Lord Kael, Lord Kharvek, Lady Veyra, and the others remained silent. They were confused. Surprised. Unable to understand what exactly Razeal was doing. But nobody interrupted. Nobody questioned him. They simply stood there and waited for it to end.

”And people say Imperials are greedy...” Far away in the sky, Nerrisa looked down at the scene below and finally spoke aloud. Her lips twitched slightly while watching the rivers of blood moving toward one person.

”But I can assure you...” Her eyes remained fixed on Razeal.

”...No ancestor of mine, no matter how greedy or shameless they were, ever did something like this.”

Her voice carried faint disbelief.

And strangely.. a little admiration?

She had seen him absorb Zane’s blood.

Then moments later she had sensed him using the Law of Hardness. And not weakly either.

Razeal did not seem like someone testing a newly obtained concept from the beginning. The way he used it looked rough and casual but not unfamiliar. It did not feel like someone who had just touched the law. If she had to estimate, she would guess he had replicated perhaps fifty percent of Zane’s understanding.

Maybe.

But then there was another possibility. One she did not want to consider.

What if.. he copied all of it? Hundred percent?

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

No.

That sounded absurd.

Impossible actually.

She herself did not understand how such a thing could even happen.

Law was not mana.

Law was not technique.

Law was not stored inside flesh or even body itself.. Conceptual understanding was entirely different.

People spent decades comprehending concepts.

Bleeding for them.

Living for them.

Failing for them.

How could blood contain that? How could drinking blood allow inheritance of understanding? It did not make sense.

And yet.. she saw it happen.

As far as she observed.. Which as what exactly what happened.

He absorbed blood.

And afterward.. he gained some portion of Zane’s understanding.

No matter how impossible it sounded she had watched it with her own eyes.

Which made her far more interested than she wanted to admit.

But now he was absorbing the blood of thousands of people at the same time?

Was there really no limit?

She did not even know whether the only thing he could replicate was Law in the first place... and even that sounded absurd. Law was not some ordinary thing. It was superior, abstract something that should not even make sense to copy.

And yet...

When absorbing blood, there should be many other things one could gain.

Many advantages.

She had always been sure of that.

Still, what truly amazed her was Razeal. Where did he even find a skill like this? Or... did he create something like this himself?

She rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

Interesting.

To gain not only bloodlines, but talent, characteristics, traits, elemental attributes, aptitude, and potential through absorbing someone’s essence that was already possible for her bloodline.

But seeing him do this... Even she felt something she rarely experienced.

Not jealousy.

No.

It felt more like... enlightenment.

To replicate someone’s understanding of Laws as well? Why had she never thought about that?

What a brilliant idea.

She rubbed her chin more vigorously, her platinum eyes slowly brightening.

She already possessed talents tied to mind and soul attributes superior ones at that, among the greatest in the world. Extracting memories and making them her own was not difficult for her.

Learning skills had never truly been difficult. It was less learning and more... downloading them.

Though, to be fair, that capability had originally been copied by her family from the Virelans as they were capable of replicating and sharing memories of combat, experience, skills, and nearly everything else instantly due to their superior mental fortitude.

But she was certain of one thing.

No one in the world had ever thought that something like Law comprehension could be copied as well.

And now

Now it felt like a completely new path had opened before her. As if something in her understanding had shifted.

And with that realization came even more ideas.

Hmm...? Seems like my Imperial Bloodline isn’t really as perfect as I always thought. Seems like... I can upgrade it much more.

She thought silently to herself.

She remained quiet, her platinum eyes growing brighter with every passing second.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield

Razeal finally closed his palm after absorbing the last droplets of blood.

The battlefield gradually became clean again.

Silent.

Not even a single drop of blood remained.

Now

Razeal opened and closed his fist slowly, as if checking the effects of everything he had absorbed.

Yupp.. His strength had only increased slightly compared to before.

All his stats still remained essentially the same.

Though honestly, that was not because absorbing all that blood gave little strength. It was simply because he was already overwhelmingly powerful.

At that level, even noticeable increases stopped creating obvious differences.

Still it was good.

But when comparing how much strength tens of thousands of people’s blood had given him... to the time he had absorbed only Zane’s blood

A Supreme.. the result was surprising.

All the blood of those thousands of people combined... was not even enough to provide a fraction of the enhancement he had received from the blood of a Supreme.

Though perhaps it should not have been surprising.

After all that was the difference a Supreme represented.

Even if those thousands were all high-ranking individuals their combined blood still could not compare. As for the memories and everything else that came with the absorption

Razeal simply dismissed them.

They were automatically sorted and stored away in Archive.

As for law comprehension detected... he did not receive any notification this time. Razeal quietly looked through the system messages again just to make sure. Yeah nothing appeared. No concept resonance. No inheritance. No extraction. It seemed there were conditions behind it.

Maybe a person had to at least reach Supreme rank before their understanding became complete enough to leave behind something that could actually be inherited. Or perhaps laws simply did not exist properly below that level. He did not know.

Still, that itself was useful information. His eyes remained calm while reading. But honestly, all this blood absorption made him realize something else entirely. He did not know what he was doing.

Or more accurately he knew how to use it, but not how to use it properly. Ever since he started absorbing blood, a strange feeling had remained inside him. Not dissatisfaction because results were poor. Not failure. Something different. It felt clumsy. Awkward. Like using fingers to eat soup. Like holding a sword backwards. It worked. Yet felt wrong.

Unnatural. His body itself seemed dissatisfied with him. As if something deep inside instinctively understood that this was not how this ability was meant to function. He could not explain it. But the feeling remained. Like he was missing steps. Missing details. Missing possibilities. Like opening a massive book and only reading the first page.

There was definitely more to being a Vampire Progenitor than this. More than absorbing blood and receiving stat increases. More than simply storing memories. He could feel it. Something deeper existed there. But for now he left that thought aside.

Slowly, Razeal raised his head and looked upward toward a certain direction. His crimson eyes sharpened slightly. His vision pierced through the distance, cutting through clouds and wind. At that range, ordinary people would not even notice another person standing there. They would appear smaller than dust itself. Yet he saw them clearly. Or more accurately he sensed them. Did they really think I wouldn’t notice? he thought silently. His gaze rested far above. Merisa. And Nerrisa.

As for how he sensed them? That part was obvious. Merisa was a vampire now.. she was connected to him. Presence. Instinct. Something inside him naturally recognized her existence. Thousands of kilometers would not matter, much less this distance.

So after finishing everything below, he simply looked toward where she was standing he was little dissatisfied aswell.

But weirdly the moment his gaze landed there he frowned.

”Huh?” His eyes narrowed. Merisa was there. Floating quietly. But Nerrisa... was gone?

His gaze sharpened immediately. He focused harder. Looked again. Nothing. Only Merisa remained. His brows slowly pulled together. Strange. He had sensed both of them. Then..

”What are you looking at, nephew?”

Razeal froze. His body did not move. His eyes slowly shifted sideways.

Nerrisa stood there. Right beside him.

Her one arm loosely resting across his shoulder as if she had always been there. Her posture was relaxed. Comfortable. Like she belonged there. She was following his last gaze forward as lazily raising another hand above her forehead and tilting her head slightly, pretending to focus into the distance as if trying to zoom in. Looking exactly toward the direction he had been staring at before. Then she blinked once and hummed thoughtfully.

”Haa...” Her expression became mildly confused.

”That’s weird.” She narrowed her eyes dramatically.

Then looked around.

”I can’t see anything.”

Her voice carried obvious sarcasm. Her lips curved upward.

——