Transmigrate Early! Imprison the Empress, Kill the Protagonist, and Drain the Players!

[Decisive and ruthless + A true villain + A hypocrite + System-driven + NPC rise to power + Player energy absorber + Why are you blocking my blade with your head? + Court politics + Real power plays + Transmigrated ahead of time + Not the Fourth Calamity] Also known as: [How Is This Beginner NPC Still Here in Version 8.0?] [Where Did My Essence Go!] [Want to succeed? Find Lord Shen. His demonic arts pack a punch, no need to say more!] [Empress: I was made a puppet from the start. Guys, can I survive this?] [The main story is extremely serious!] My name is Shen Yan. I am the Great Dragon Head of the Azure Dragon Hall, a name that makes martial artists across the jianghu tremble. I am the most formidable Left Commissioner in Huanglong City, who crushed the Enchantress Bodhisattva with an iron fist. I am the Chief Director of the Demon Suppression Bureau, the most feared man in the land of demons. I am the Embroidered Uniform Guard's Commander, someone the court's upright officials are desperate to avoid. I am an Earthly Immortal, an exiled immortal who descended to the world and broke through the void with martial arts. I am the Great Wu State's Imperial Tutor, appointed when the Empress founded the Qianyuan era. I am the demonic patriarch whom players both love and hate: the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. I am the Empress's favored courtier, the players' beginner mentor, the founder of the Holy Sect, and the destroyer of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. I am the one the female sword immortal loves but cannot have, the one the demonic cult's enchantress can't bear to leave, and the one the demon clan's saintess spends her life obsessing over. Let me state this again: every one of these titles was given to me by the players! Not a single one is exaggerated! But at the very beginning of the story, I was just a beginner-village NPC who had only just transmigrated here, supposedly insulted the Empress, and been killed by the players again and again. Just a tiny little Shen Yan! Looking at the Empress, bound hand and foot in front of me, and the laborer protagonist beside her, Shen Yan, reborn as the beginner village boss, wondered... "What if I just... killed the Empress?"