Rogue Villain-Chapter 283: Again?! III

Ackster’s body filled to the brim with enough power to expel Mazar’s curses and restore it to its peak. Without giving Mazar any time to react, Ackster started punching the shield he clung to like a leech. Or maybe Mazar hadn’t needed to react.

Ackster’s strikes didn’t cause the shield any tremors, even when infused with the full brunt of his vitality, mana, or martial arts. Mazar’s strength was the greatest of anyone Ackster had ever encountered. Not even Trana would be this unbothered if Ackster went all out.

A cramped grin of stress, fear, and excitement found its way onto Ackster’s face as he met Mazar’s calm eyes, seething with composed rage.

The lone Breath he had shot out was still enough to compete with Trana’s full power. But it looked like Trana was finally outlasting it, so Mazar glanced in her direction.

’Good, look away like the cocky piss-drinker you are.’

With Mazar’s attention elsewhere, Ackster retrieved the broken trident handle from his inventory and stabbed through the shield.

Time seemed to slow down, and Ackster realized he might not have made as much use of this broken trident as he could have. It cut through the shields that didn’t react even when he punched with full force.

Mazar’s eyes lit up with a sense of danger and flicked toward Ackster, the source of that danger. Mazar’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks as he saw the weapon in Ackster’s hand before lashing out and sending Ackster flying, filled with enough curses to take down a hydra.

Ackster was so out of it, and the curses had distorted his senses so much that it took a couple of moments for him to realize that he didn’t have the broken trident anymore. He had been worried it would happen, so he had made sure to lock his hand around the handle like it was his own life. However, Mazar had still grabbed it when he knocked Ackster away.

But it was still in his hand.

"Seriously?! My fucking arm?! AGAIN?!"

Ackster’s grip was powerful enough that when Mazar grabbed the broken trident, it wasn’t his hand that let go. It was his shoulder. Ackster was once again fighting with one arm. He didn’t like it, and due to the curses, his mood was worse and more easily affected than usual.

The rage Ackster had been trying to provoke in Mazar instead came from himself, and his eyes burned with fury.

One of Ackster’s new skills, Berserk, took full effect. Ackster’s wrath became another source of power for him, and he leaped through the air like a cannonball of fury. Rage, mana, vitality, Will, and his sheer physical strength, boosted by his various skills, turned Ackster into a powerhouse impossible to guess the limits of.

Ackster crashed into Mazar’s shield again since he had no intention of avoiding Ackster.

After all, he needed something to test out the might of the broken trident. Just like Trana, he had identified the material as soon as he laid eyes on it.

But it was his first time holding something made with Heavenly Iron. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Supposedly, it’s impossible to steal Heavenly Iron. Decreed by the Heavens who bestowed us with it or some bullshit like that."

Mazar stopped admiring the broken trident and looked at Ackster with a fierce smile of no-longer-suppressed rage. He ignored the arm attached to the other end. He had tried to peel it off, but it only came away one finger at a time. And he could get rid of the filth on his new tool after dealing with its previous owner.

Mazar thrust out with the broken trident toward Ackster’s forehead.

Through his rage-induced frenzy, Ackster felt a tingle of danger crawl up and down his spine before centering on his forehead. Clear Mind reduced the effects of Berserk enough for Ackster to realize that he maybe shouldn’t take a strike from Heavenly Iron head-on when wielded by a powerful curse dragon.

However, he was mid-air and in no position to dodge, not to mention the fact that he was slower than Mazar, even with his doped-up stats.

The broken trident of Heavenly Iron would pierce Ackster’s glabella unhindered.

However, right before it punctured Ackster’s skull, it stopped.

Both Ackster and Mazar looked at the unmoving broken trident in surprise.

"...Is that fairytale true?"

"Haha! Not even dismemberment can stop me, you fucking bitch!"

Ackster realized what happened and wrested his broken trident and arm out of Mazar’s grip using his shock. He laughed. Laughed at the temporary clarity that made him realize the absurdity of the situation. He was fighting with an arm no longer attached to his body against a dragon with a stupid face. He was wielding a broken stick of otherworldly metal and using it to poke and prod the stupid dragon who had borrowed strength, that too from an otherworldly source.

Before his transmigration, Ackster had never thought he would ever do something like this in the future. He thought...—

’What did I think I was going to do in the future?’

"NARHFG!"

Ackster clutched his head and fell to the ground, unable to cling to Mazar’s shield. The broken trident fell to the ground next to him.

Mazar wiped the blood from a thin scratch on his chin, also wiping away any trace of the injury Ackster had inflicted on him at the last moment when his power suddenly spiked. He glanced at the broken trident.

He had noticed Ackster control it with his detached arm, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Heavenly Iron had a strong connection with its fated owner. He could investigate after dealing with Trana.

So, Mazar turned to Trana, who had finally gotten rid of the remaining flickers of his Breath, and whipped her powers into an electric frenzy. Lightning bolts crashed into Trana like an endless baptism of pure energy from the skies. Barring special conditions, this was likely the most powerful state Trana could enter.

"What. Have. YOU. DONE?!"