I Have 10,000 SSS Rank Villains In My System Space - Chapter 407: Nancy’s Pov

Chapter 407: Nancy’s Pov

Nancy’s Pov~

Nancy’s breath came out in uneven, broken gasps as she struggled to keep herself upright against the jagged surface of the rock behind her. Her back pressed into the cold stone, its rough edges digging into her already battered skin, but she barely reacted to the pain anymore. Compared to everything she had endured, it felt almost insignificant. Still her lips trembled as she forced out her voice, weak and hoarse, barely carrying any strength. “Ughh… just… why are you doing this…?” she whispered, her throat dry and burning as if every word scraped against it. “Please… just let me go… what have I even done to you…? Why are you torturing me…?” Her eyes, heavy and bloodshot, slowly lifted to look at Riven in front.

He sat several meters away, suspended in mid-air as if gravity itself had no claim over him. His posture was calm.. too calm. His legs were crossed, his hands loosely clasped together, and his entire presence radiated an unnatural stillness that contrasted violently with the chaos Nancy had lived through. Around him, faint strands of divine energy shimmered, thin and almost fragile, yet carrying an unmistakable weight. It wasn’t overwhelming in quantity, but its quality felt… absolute. And in front of him, floating silently, was that thing.. the strange, marble-sized sphere of cosmic darkness or something.. It looked like an eye, yet not quite. Its surface was pitch black, but within it tiny specks of light flickered like distant stars trapped inside a void. It rotated slowly, as if observing everything while revealing nothing. Riven’s attention was completely fixed on it, his consciousness seemingly linked to that object, as though the two were communicating in a language beyond sound.

He didn’t answer her.

Not even opening his eyes.

Nancy stared at him for a few seconds longer, her vision blurring slightly before she lowered her head again, her strength failing her once more. Her body felt like it no longer belonged to her. The once powerful draconian physique she had been so proud of… was now nothing more than a fragile, broken shell. Her limbs trembled uncontrollably, her breathing shallow, her entire body covered in wounds cuts, bruises, deep gashes, and marks from battles she could barely even remember clearly anymore. Her skin, once resilient, now looked pale and worn, stretched thin over a body that had been pushed far beyond its limits. Even her natural regeneration seemed to have slowed down, as if it too had given up trying to keep up with the damage.

She looked nothing like the person she had been a month ago.

Not even close.

The strength she once carried, the confidence she once walked with.. it all felt like a distant memory now.

Because what she had gone through… was beyond anything she could have imagined.

It had started the moment she stepped into that portal.

From that point onward, everything had only gotten worse.

At first, there had been Togi.. the man who should have been dead. Someone who had once tried to do something unforgivable to her… and failed. Somehow he had returned from death.. rose again perhaps to finish what he had failed to do before.

Anyway or.. Somehow, she managed to escape him.. She had run. She had fought. She had used every skill she possessed just to escape him. And she had succeeded… though the process left her deeply wounded..The injuries she sustained during that encounter had already weakened her significantly. And inside a portal filled with unknown dangers, being weak was the worst possible condition.

She had tried to hide after that.

Moving from place to place.

Using the snowy terrain to conceal herself.

Holding her breath, suppressing her presence, doing everything she could to survive.

And for a while… she had managed.

But then the monsters came.

One after another.

Relentless.

As if the entire world inside that portal had decided to hunt her down.

Even in her weakened state, she had no choice but to fight or run. Sometimes she won. Sometimes she barely escaped. But every encounter left new wounds behind. Cuts that never fully healed. Bruises layered over older bruises. Her strength slowly draining with each passing day. And when it wasn’t monsters… it was the environment itself.

The cold.

That unbearable, merciless cold.

At one point she had been caught in a snowstorm that lasted nearly two days.

Two days of relentless wind and ice slicing against her skin like blades. Even with her natural affinity for ice, even with her draconic resistance, it had been too much. Her body had gone numb, her movements sluggish, her thoughts clouded. She had felt herself slipping closer and closer to unconsciousness, unsure if she would even wake up again.

Then there were the falls.

Twice, the ground beneath her feet had collapsed without warning, sending her plunging deep into layers of snow. Fifty meters down or so.. Buried. Suffocating. The memory alone made her chest tighten. The darkness. The pressure. The absolute terror of not being able to breathe. She had clawed her way out both times, her fingers bleeding, her body shaking uncontrollably, each movement filled with the fear that one wrong step would bring the entire mass of snow crashing down on her again.

And then the cliffs.

Four times she had fallen.

Yeah.. Four times she had failed to see the edge in time.

Each fall breaking something inside her.. bones cracking, muscles tearing, pain exploding through her body as she hit the ground below.

And as if that wasn’t enough… the snakes.

Dozens of them..

Venomous

Hidden beneath the snow, striking without warning.

Their bites had left her body filled with poison different types, each one bringing its own torment. Nausea. Dizziness. Burning pain beneath her skin. Her vision blurring. Her strength weakening even further. Somehow… none of it had killed her. And honestly, that almost felt crueler. Because instead of ending her suffering, it only prolonged it.

Hunger gnawed at her constantly.

Her stomach twisted painfully, empty for days at a time.

Her head spun.

Her thoughts slowed.

Her body screamed for rest she couldn’t afford.

Everything about that place… felt like it was designed to break her.

To push her beyond her limits.

To show her the absolute worst that existence could offer.

And no matter how hard she tried…

She couldn’t escape.

No matter how far she ran.

No matter how carefully she hid.

It was like the portal itself refused to let her leave.

Like it had chosen her.

Like it wanted to see just how much she could endure before she finally collapsed for good.

So much worse had happened to her in this span of time that.. there were even moments.. many moments actually where she had genuinely believed she was going to die. Not in some distant, abstract way, but right there, in that exact second, with no way out. The experiences she had gone through weren’t just difficult… they were the kind that broke people. Over and over again, she had reached the edge of her limits, only to be dragged a little further beyond them. And the worst part wasn’t even the pain itself.. it was the complete absence of help. No rescue. No signal. No response.

She had tried everything she could think of. Every method she possessed to contact the outside world had failed. It was as if she had been completely cut off from existence itself. Even food had become something unreachable. For some reason she couldn’t explain, anything that appeared in front of her.. whether it was a monster or even a plant was deadly. Nothing in that place existed to sustain life. Everything existed to take it. The only reason she was still alive at all was because of her extraordinary draconic physique. A normal human would have died dozens of times over in her place. Even with her resilience, she knew she was surviving by a thread.

And there had been one moment in particular… the moment she truly accepted her death.

It had been around half a month ago.

She still remembered it clearly.

A pack of B-ranked snow wolves had surrounded her. Not one or two.. but a group large enough that even at her full strength it would have been a difficult fight. But she hadn’t been at her full strength. Not to say she had been injured, exhausted, poisoned and hardly starving… her body barely able to move. She had tried to fight anyway. Tried to force herself to stand, to push through the pain, to resist. But her body simply refused to respond. Her limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. Her vision blurred. Her breathing turned shallow. And in that moment… she understood something very clearly.

She couldn’t win.

No matter how much she wanted to survive… it was impossible.

So she had stopped.

Not physically.. but mentally.

She had accepted it.

Accepted that this was where she would die.

And strangely… that acceptance had felt quiet.

Almost peaceful as it was about to happen

Riven appeared out of nowhere as rescued her

As if he had been watching the entire time.. As if he had always been there.

It definitely wasn’t coincidence.

None of it was.

Everything that had happened to her… had been seen.

Maybe even controlled.

And then he had brought her here.

This place.

A space that felt disconnected from everything else.

Just an endless stretch of flat stone ground, broken occasionally by large, scattered rock formations. It felt empty. Too empty. Like a stage waiting for something to happen but nothing ever did. And from the moment she had been brought here, nothing had changed. Riven hadn’t explained anything.. Nor restricted her about anything.

He had simply… let her exist.

At first, she had tried to leave.

Of course she had.

She had walked in one direction for what felt like hours.

Then days.

Then she had run.

Changed directions.

Tested every possible path.

But it didn’t matter.

Every time.. without fail she ended up back in the same place.

The same rock.

The same empty expanse.

And every time she returned, she was more exhausted than before.

Like the place itself was draining her.

Like it didn’t want her to leave.

Then she had tried attacking him too.

Desperation had driven her to it.

But her attacks never even reached him.

It was like hitting an immovable wall.

Or worse like her power simply ceased to exist the moment it approached him.

He didn’t block, dodged or even reacted.

Her attacks just… failed.

As if hurting him wasn’t even an option.

And dying?

Even that had been denied to her.

Whenever her condition reached the brink.. when her body finally gave in, when her consciousness began fading he would intervene. Not to help her recover fully. Not to heal her properly. Just enough to keep her alive. To pull her back from death. As though he didn’t want her gone but had no interest in easing her suffering either. He simply wanted her alive… and in pain.

The kind of pain that didn’t stay confined to flesh. It spread.. deep, invasive into her thoughts, her sense of self, her will to keep enduring. Physical agony tore at her nerves, but the psychological torment hollowed her out far more ruthlessly. She had been pushed far beyond her limits past exhaustion, past fear, past anything she had ever imagined herself capable of withstanding. She was barely holding on now, reduced to the last fragile threads of her consciousness, each breath feeling like an effort she had to justify.

Because at the end of it all… she was just sixteen.

A girl who had never been forged through hardship. A girl raised in comfort, in a family that had everything.. wealth, security, protection. A life where inconvenience was rare, where suffering was something distant, theoretical. And then, without warning, without preparation, everything had been ripped away. Thrown into something brutal, relentless something that even a seasoned, hardened person might have gone broken under. Not to say she wasn’t even close to that..

And yet she was still here.

It didn’t look like survival anymore. It looked like torture.

That was the simplest, most honest word for it.

Nancy wasn’t naïve.. she never truly had been. Even now, in this broken state, her mind still worked, still tried to connect the fragments, still searched for meaning in what was being done to her. Even if her body lay weak, nearly lifeless against the cold stone, her thoughts refused to fully surrender.

A faint, dry breath left her lips as she forced her eyes to focus, dragging them toward him with what little strength she had left. Her body felt heavy, unresponsive, like something no longer fully hers. Her voice, when it came, was thin, strained yet laced with a sharp, deliberate sarcasm that hadn’t been crushed out of her.

“So…” she said slowly, her voice dry and laced with sarcasm despite how weak it sounded. “Is this the punishment I’m getting… for not letting myself get raped… and for not killing myself… like you said I should?” Her eyes lifted toward him again, dull but still carrying a flicker of defiance. “These are the consequences… right?”

As if she already knew the answer or rather, knew there wouldn’t be one..

He had never answered her before afterall. Not really. Days had passed.. if it even was days and he had remained the same. Watching. Waiting. Intervening only when necessary. As if her suffering was still incomplete. As if she hadn’t broken enough yet. Hadn’t thought deeply enough. Hadn’t reached that point of absolute desperation he seemed to be expecting.

Or maybe… he was waiting for something else entirely.

As if her suffering wasn’t complete yet.

As if she hadn’t reached whatever point he wanted her to reach.

She didn’t really know.

And maybe that was the worst part.

Then..

“I can sense a lot of hate towards me from you.”

The voice came softly.

Calmly.

Riven slowly opened his eyes, the movement unhurried, almost gentle.. as though nothing around him was out of place. As though the scene before him wasn’t one of quiet devastation. He turned his head toward her with that same measured ease, his expression unchanged, untouched.

And there it was again.. that smile.

Light.. Calm. And almost… kind.

A smile that didn’t belong here.

There was no guilt in it. No discomfort. No trace of remorse or conflict. His eyes held no sadness, no hesitation nothing that acknowledged the state she was in, the condition she had been reduced to. Instead, he looked at her with a strange, unwavering gentleness, as if he were observing something entirely friendly scene

Nancy saw him finally look at her.. truly look at her and the way he did it sent something cold crawling down her spine. That calmness… that gentle, almost kind expression on his face… it didn’t soothe her. It made everything worse. It felt wrong. Completely wrong.

As if the person who had orchestrated every moment of her suffering was now looking at her like a concerned observer, like someone innocent, like someone who had done nothing at all. Her back instinctively pressed harder into the rock behind her, her body shrinking slightly as if trying to distance itself from him even though she physically couldn’t move.

For a few seconds, she said nothing. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, her breath shallow, her mind struggling to even process the contradiction standing in front of her. And then, slowly, her lips tightened, trembling.. not with weakness this time, but with something much darker. Hate. Pure, unfiltered hate.

Her expression twisted, her eyes narrowing as they locked onto him with a burning intensity that her broken body could no longer physically act upon. “Hate?” she whispered at first, her voice low and strained, before it sharpened, gaining force despite her condition. “If I could… I would eat your flesh and bones…” Her jaw clenched as her breathing grew heavier, her entire being pouring into those words.

“You are the worst human being I have ever seen… or will ever meet. You’re not human… you’re a monster.” Her voice cracked slightly at the end, but the venom in it remained intact.

“You did all of this… didn’t you…? To make me do what you want?” she continued, her gaze unwavering, almost feral despite her frailty.

“But just wait… just wait… my mother will come for me… and when she does…” Her lips curled into something almost resembling a broken, desperate smile. “I swear… you’ll beg to be killed.” There was no hesitation in her eyes. No doubt. Only raw killing intent.. intense, violent, suffocating. If her body had even a fraction of its former strength, she would have already thrown herself at him, consequences be damned. But she couldn’t even lift her arm. And that helplessness only made the hatred burn deeper.

Riven, however, didn’t react the way anyone normal would. He didn’t get angry. Didn’t get defensive. Didn’t even look slightly offended.

His expression remained exactly the same.. soft, calm, and disturbingly gentle. As if he had expected this. As if he understood it completely. As if her hatred wasn’t something directed at him, but merely a natural outcome of her current state. His eyes held no hostility, only quiet acknowledgment.

“Then I would say…” he began, his voice as composed and smooth as ever, “you are wasting your emotions on the wrong person.” He tilted his head slightly, still looking at her with that same unwavering calmness.

“You are misunderstanding me and everything.. Completely.” His tone wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t defensive. It was simply… matter-of-fact. “Yes,” he continued softly, “you have every right to hate me. And you may. I will not stop you.” There was no sarcasm in his words. No hidden mockery. Just a quiet acceptance that somehow made it feel heavier.

“But I think…” he added, his gaze steady, “you should also understand the reason for your situation… and everything you have gone through.” A brief pause followed, almost as if he was giving her time to absorb it.

“I am not the reason for that. You are.”

The words landed like a slow, crushing weight.

“And I have tried to help you,” he continued, as though explaining something simple, something obvious. “It is my duty. As I am doing.. for the balance of everything within it. Just as you are part of it.” His tone remained patient, almost instructive. “To guide you… to tell you what must be understood… that is what I did.”

Nancy’s chest tightened, but he didn’t stop.

“I informed you. Many times. I even tried to show you what would happen if you chose to fight it.” His expression grew slightly more serious, though the gentleness never left. “I even gave you an example. Look at Razeal. He chose the same path. And what is he now? Suffering. Empty. He lost everything.. even the meaning to continue living.”

His gaze sharpened.. not harsh, but firm.

“I told you the path you were choosing was not the right one. You are trying to fight destiny… fate… reality itself. And reality runs on order. You cannot oppose that order.” His voice lowered slightly, carrying a quiet inevitability. “I told you.. it is inevitable. You cannot change it. And if you try… the only one who will suffer is you. The result will remain the same. Only the pain will increase.”

“Why didn’t you understand?” he asked softly.

“So yes,” he went on, “this is your fault. If anyone is responsible for what happened to you… it is you.” His smile returned, calm and unwavering. “Hating me, directing your anger at me… it is meaningless.”

“I would still advise you,” he added gently, “to perform your duty as it should be. The cosmos rewards those who align with it. But if you refuse…” His voice dipped, quieter now, but heavier. “Your suffering will become something beyond anything you can imagine. And in the end… your fight, your resistance… it will accomplish nothing. Only pain. Only suffering. For yourself.”

“Because at the end.. It is just Inevitable.”

He paused, then spoke again, softer than before.

“This is how reality functions,” he finished softly. “No one controls it. Not you. Not me.” A brief pause followed. “You have already seen that yourself.”

And that was the moment something inside her finally gave way not completely, not enough to break her entirely, but enough for cracks to spread through the foundation she had been desperately holding onto. The hatred was still there, burning just as fiercely.. but now it was mixed with fear… with doubt… with something dangerously close to despair.

“Just… why…” she whispered, her voice trembling now, losing that sharp edge it had carried before. “Why are you doing this…? Why me…?” Her eyes glistened faintly, her strength fading even in her voice. “I never did anything wrong… I didn’t…” Her words broke apart, her breath hitching painfully. “Please… just let me go… let me go back to my family…”

And despite everything.. despite her defiance, her anger, her hatred this was the truth beneath it all.

It wasn’t the pain that had broken her.

It wasn’t the injuries, the cold, the poison, or the hunger.

It was the helplessness.

The realization that no matter what she did… nothing changed.

That the world itself seemed to bend around her… forcing things to happen no matter whatever or how much she tried.

And now, hearing it spoken out loud hearing it confirmed something inside her began to collapse under that weight.

Because in reality…

She was just a young girl after all.. not yet fully formed, not yet hardened by the kind of reality that demanded you break or bend just to survive. No matter how strong she had been, no matter how gifted or proud, there was still a limit to what a human mind could endure. And right now, Nancy had gone far beyond that limit. It wasn’t just pain that had brought her here. It wasn’t the injuries, the cold, the poison, or even the constant threat of death. It was the feeling that the world itself had turned against her.. that no matter what she chose, no matter what she tried, everything twisted back into suffering. That there was no correct path left for her, only different forms of loss. And this kind of reality wasn’t something she could process. It wasn’t something she was built to accept.

Riven watched her quietly, his expression unchanged still that same gentle, calm smile resting on his face, as if nothing in this situation disturbed him. There was no impatience in his eyes, no irritation, no sign that her resistance frustrated him. If anything, he looked… understanding. Patient. Like someone who had already seen this countless times before.

“Well you know?.. I can tell you the reason,” he began softly, his voice smooth and steady, almost comforting despite the weight of his words. “The reason why your duty is important… what it truly means… and why all of this is happening and should happen.” His gaze remained fixed on her, not intense, not forceful.. just present. “But…” he paused slightly, tilting his head just enough to show a subtle shift in tone, “…would you consider changing your mind?”

Nancy didn’t respond immediately. Her breathing remained uneven, her chest rising slowly as she struggled to keep herself conscious, let alone focused.

Riven continued, his voice still calm, still gentle. “I understand your reasoning. I truly do. You listened to his words… you accepted his perspective… and you chose your path based on that.” There was no accusation in his tone, only acknowledgment. “But would you at least give me the chance to explain?” he asked quietly. “To show you the other side of this situation… to help you understand what is actually happening?”

His eyes softened slightly. “Because I believe… if you hear both sides… you will understand why the world is acting this way… and why this is necessary.” A faint pause followed. “It may even answer all of your questions.”

His voice lowered just slightly, almost as if he were asking for something simple, something reasonable.

“Can I?”

“And would you… listen?”

Nancy stared at him.

Her mind was too exhausted to maintain that intensity anymore. The anger was still there, buried beneath everything.. but it no longer had the strength to dominate her expression. What remained instead was something far more fragile.

Reluctance.

Confusion.

And a quiet, stubborn resistance.

Her body felt like it weighed a thousand times more than it should. Even lifting her head felt like a task beyond her strength. Her thoughts were slow, dragging through her mind as if each one required effort to form.

“Nothing…” she whispered, her voice weak, almost breaking apart as it left her lips. “Nothing in this world…” Her breath hitched slightly. “…nothing will ever convince me… to let that happen.” Her eyes trembled faintly, her gaze still fixed on him, though her vision wavered. “…to get raped… and… kill myself…”

The words felt heavy even as she said them, like speaking them out loud made them more real than she wanted them to be.

“No matter what it is…” she continued faintly, her strength fading even as she spoke, “…just… why are you…” Her voice softened, losing its sharpness entirely now, replaced with something that sounded almost like a plea now..

Her eyes shimmered faintly.

She wasn’t crying.

Not yet.

But she was close.

Riven watched her silently for a moment.

Then, without any change in his calm demeanor, he spoke again.

“May I?” he asked once more, his tone unchanged, still gentle, still patient.

Even now.. when she was clearly worn down, clearly not in a state to argue or think he didn’t force the conversation forward. He didn’t overpower her will.

He asked.

Again.

Nancy’s expression remained strained, her eyes showing that same reluctance, that same resistance that refused to fully give in.

Riven observed it quietly.

Then, slowly, he shook his head.. not in disappointment, not in frustration, but as if acknowledging something inevitable.

And yet…

His calm smile didn’t fade.

“Well…” he said softly.

“What if I told you… that everything you’ve gone through so far… all the suffering… all the pain…”

He paused.

“…was because of your brother?”

The words landed like a sudden crack in still water.

“Areon Dragonwevr.”

He spoke the name clearly.

Deliberately.

“And if that’s the case…” Riven continued calmly, his gaze steady on her, “…would you be willing to listen then?”

The moment the name left his lips..

Nancy’s pupils trembled.

It wasn’t subtle.

Even in her exhausted state, even with her body barely functioning, something inside her reacted instantly.

Confusion?

Shock?

Disbelief?

Her breathing hitched sharply as her body tried against its limits to respond.

And seeing the reaction finally..

“I… can’t lie,” Riven said softly, looking down at her, his tone carrying that same quiet certainty as before. “You know that right?”

“…My brother…?”

—-