Chapter One Hundred and Twenty: The Imperial Rank

“Bandits, they are nothing but bandits!”
“Lawless to the extreme, utterly lawless!”
“How can this be called a human rank? He’s clearly a notorious bandit—no, a ruthless outlaw, the most feared outlaw on the planet!”
“To the leaders of Dragon Continent, it was you who insisted on ranking him as first-class. Now this so-called ‘light of humanity’ has become a ruthless outlaw. What do you have to say about that?”
“...”

This was a federation conference.
Leaders from continents around the world gathered via video to discuss the ruthless outlaw Gu Sha.
The topic was naturally about how to deal with Gu Sha, who is now recognized by the global forum as the most notorious outlaw in history.
However, the tone of the meeting was strange—more like a session of complaints, with leaders venting their frustration and helpless rage.

The First Elder of Dragon Continent rubbed his temples in frustration.
Lately, the biggest global issue wasn’t a natural disaster or a beast invasion, but rather Gu Sha’s latest rampage on some continent.
So far, more than ten top continents have been extorted by Gu Sha—brazenly, wielding a nuclear warhead and flying combat jets right into their central strongholds, his attitude brazen as he robbed corpse cores and alien bones.

The only slight relief was that, aside from a few continents like Grain Continent and Asan Continent—both of which had their leaders dealt with by Gu Sha—most continents only issued condemnations without suffering further reprisals.

At this meeting today, the leaders tearfully condemned Gu Sha’s violent acts. Since Gu Sha was from Dragon Continent, and it was Dragon Continent that had originally pushed to classify him as first-class, the Dragon Continent leaders faced particular scrutiny.

The First Elder sighed helplessly and spoke slowly: “Friends, I deeply sympathize and apologize for the heavy damage Gu Sha has caused to all continents. I fully support your efforts to sanction him. Rest assured, Dragon Continent will raise no objections if you take action against him.”

With those words, the meeting essentially ended.
The leaders exchanged glances filled with despair—if they had the power to punish Gu Sha, would they be here venting their helpless rage?

The meeting transformed into a session of grievances, ending with the leaders feeling deeply insulted by the Elder’s words.

After the video call ended, the First Elder watched the other Dragon Continent officials in the room and sighed again. “Still no way to reach Gu Sha?”
The officials shook their heads.

The Honorary President of the Supernatural Association, Han Ze, suddenly said, “Leaders, there’s no need to keep trying to contact Mr. Gu. You all know his nature—he won’t listen to reason.
Besides, apart from Ghost Isle Continent and Grain Continent, he hasn’t been launching destructive attacks on other continents recently. His actions are mostly just... robbery, which is problematic, but since we can’t stop him, perhaps we should just watch and wait.

In some ways, this isn’t entirely bad. At least it’s made humanity worldwide realize the power of the supernatural. The craze for cultivation has surged, with the number of supernatural beings growing rapidly and improving swiftly.”

The First Elder shook his head slightly. “I used to hope we could shape a positive image of Gu Sha through official channels. Now I see that was far too idealistic. This young man’s divine nature is too strong—his existence is both a blessing and a curse, impossible to gauge!”

The officials fell silent.

Just then, Han Ze checked his phone and raised an eyebrow, saying, “Gu Sha has contacted us voluntarily.”
All eyes turned to Han Ze.

Han Ze explained, “He sent a few messages asking the officials to help find an expert who can recognize this type of script. The reward is that Dragon Continent can request one free favor from him in the future, within his capabilities.”

The First Elder chuckled softly. “He’s issuing a bounty task to us in reverse.”

“Do we accept it?” an official asked.

The First Elder replied, “Is that even a question? Gu Sha lacks humanity but has a strong divine nature. He gets along with us because of a natural advantage—he’s from Dragon Continent. Yet in his heart, he’s a completely independent individual, separate from human society.

For such a person, deepening cooperative ties is the best choice. Though his actions are terrible, in this apocalyptic world, do we really want to push him away and let his scarce humanity fully turn into divinity?”

He looked to Han Ze. “Accept his offer. And from now on, regarding Gu Sha’s requests, the rule remains the same: as long as they don’t cross a red line and are controllable, do your best to agree.”

...

At this moment, Gu Sha sat cross-legged in a secret chamber at the core stronghold of Red Grain Continent.
Surrounded by countless corpse cores, he was absorbing their source energy relentlessly into his body.

A fierce light blazed from him, lifting him into the air as terrifying energy roared and surged within him. Golden streaks flickered faintly across his body.

Inside his inner genetic lock,
all nine runes were fully illuminated.
The terrifying power of the runes flooded his flesh like a breaking dam, continuously reshaping his body’s essence as if remolding a new physical form.

After a long while,
the turbulent source energy dissipated.

Gu Sha slowly opened his eyes, muttering, “Emperor rank!”

This realm marked a clear advancement beyond the King rank. While the King rank allowed only a partial comprehension of the laws of heaven and earth, the Emperor rank enabled the clear manipulation and communication with certain natural laws. The most direct example: previously, he could only borrow the wind briefly to fly, but now, he could truly walk on air.

“No wonder...”

Light shimmered in Gu Sha’s eyes as he clearly perceived the flow of source energy around him.

He finally understood why Tian She said that the legendary spells were really based on scientific principles—if one didn’t study properly, the energy simply couldn’t be harnessed.

“But...”

Gu Sha activated his inner vision to examine the genetic locks.
Nine blood-red genetic locks crackled like lightning, each inscribed with runes that connected and regulated his body’s qi, blood, bones, hair, and tendons.

Just as he broke through to the Emperor rank,
he suddenly had a revelation, an instinctive awareness born from reaching a certain depth of genetic development and life elevation:

The endpoint of gene development
is the peak of the Emperor rank.

And according to legend, the domain lords above the Emperor rank
do not achieve their level through genetic development!

(End of chapter)