Rogue Villain-Chapter 340: Breaking The Rules

Ackster dragged out enough power from Limit Breaker to stand on equal footing with the headless, gorilla-shaped walking armor. His recovery overpowered the force driving apart his wrist and arm, so his arm healed, and Ackster pushed back against the gorilla.

However, the gorilla hadn’t read the rules for the competition in strength, and when it noticed Ackster pushing back, it quickly made use of its size and reach advantage to quickly sweep out with its other arm and knock Ackster to the ground again, at least, that was the gorilla’s intention.

Ackster raised his other arm and blocked while changing his stance. Bo’s teachings helped him shift part of the force of the blow through his body and into the ground.

’Bastard. If that’s how you want to play...’

The gorilla noticed Ackster could block its sweeps instead of just accepting them and flying to the side. But that didn’t mean it was going to stop. It retracted its arm and was about to try again since Ackster was still stuck beneath its other arm.

However, things didn’t quite go according to the gorilla’s plan.

In the first place, it wasn’t Ackster that was stuck below the gorilla’s palm. It was the gorilla that was stuck with Ackster.

So, when the gorilla removed its other arm from the equation, albeit temporarily, Ackster grabbed the first arm with both hands. He had to tap into more of Limit Breaker’s power for this, but Ackster didn’t mind. If he didn’t even have to do something like that, the gorilla wouldn’t be a worthy opponent.

With a grunt that almost transformed into a roar, Ackster turned around and tugged on the gorilla’s arm until he managed to yank it off the ground and slam it down.

’Heavy bastard.’ 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The gorilla’s armor and dense muscles weren’t for nothing. It weighed a lot more than anything Ackster had ever fought. It even felt like it weighed more than a dragon despite being the size of a dragon’s paw.

The gorilla grunted in surprise. It wasn’t used to being picked up like that.

But Ackster didn’t care and started attacking the gorilla with all he had, forcing it to stay on the ground.

While attacking it, Ackster focused on his attacks. He hit the gorilla with rippling strikes. But he didn’t imagine the gorilla as water, even after acknowledging that his punches weren’t doing much. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to. It was because he wasn’t sure what it would look like.

Ackster had a feeling that punching water wasn’t as simple as cutting it with a sword. When he attacked water with a sword, of course, it was going to split in the sword’s path. But if it was the same with a fist, why bother making the martial art act differently for different kinds of weapons? There was also the fact that the first thing Ackster understood about his martial arts was the rippling strikes.

It didn’t align with simply parting the water in his fist’s path. But, then again, it also didn’t make sense for the same stage that let him cut through impenetrable materials with his weapons to do nothing for his usage of fists and blunt force.

As he treated the gorilla like a punching bag, Ackster tried to imagine what would happen if he actually punched water with his fist. How would it react? It had been a while since he last interacted with a body of water, and his mind had been preoccupied with other things than bathing.

But Ackster’s affinity and understanding for water, especially after learning the Unimportant Whatever Arts and training the Sea God Manual, were enough. They were more than enough. Water was an old friend of Ackster’s, and he understood it with ease.

When he punched water or struck it with a blunt object that couldn’t just slice right through it, two things would happen. The object would plunge through the surface, but it would lose a lot of speed and power to the water due to the water’s thickness and viscosity when compared to air.

But the lost speed and power wouldn’t disappear. No, they were transferred into the water. The lost force of the strike would transform into ripples that spread on the water’s surface like growing rings.

Ackster found his answer.

It wasn’t one or the other of what he had assumed it might be. It was both.

With that newfound enlightenment solidifying his understanding of the Unimportant Whatever Arts, Ackster closed his eyes, letting his Overhuman Senses form an image of the world around him inside his mind.

His senses perfectly replicated the world around him to the tiniest detail. With senses that surpassed a human’s, Ackster saw everything around him, whether it was the strands of grass dancing in the shockwaves of his strikes or the bird-like beasts in the trees watching the fight.

Naturally, he also saw the gorilla and himself. Ackster focused on that part.

Ackster had enough power of delusion to make himself think he could save the world, and he had enough willpower and drive to make that delusion come true. That willpower had given birth to his Will. He used that Will to reshape his mental image.

The gorilla was no longer a mass of solid flesh, unknown armor, and bones. It was a gorilla-shaped lump of sentient water. Ackster changed his perception of reality to accommodate his martial arts.

A gorilla made of water was a lot less resilient than a heavily armored one.

Ackster punched it.

Ackster blew away its shoulder. The same strike also destroyed most of the nearby tissue. The wetness that soaked Ackster’s hand only confirmed that the gorilla was made of water. It was a little warmer than water usually found in nature. But it was also in the shape of a gorilla. What did its temperature matter?

The gorilla roared. It wasn’t going to go down that easy. It also had a card up its sleeve, and it was about to retrieve it now that it had realized Ackster possessed lethal force.

’Whoops.’

However, it was too late. Ackster had already blown it apart.