Rogue Villain-Chapter 362: Seeing A Lot

Since Ackster possessing blood, which let Shanshi recover and maintain his peak strength, was the problem in this battle of attrition, Ackster just had to stop having blood.

Surprisingly enough, Ackster came up with two ideas for how he could make that happen.

The first one was a derivation of his martial arts. He could treat others as water and imagine them as water instead of flesh and blood. Why couldn’t he do the same to himself? If his blood weren’t blood but water instead, it would be useless to Shanshi. What kind of vampire drinks water?

The other idea Ackster had was to drain his body of blood and control Stubborn Well-Being so it didn’t regenerate his blood. Doing that would limit his combat ability and wear his body down even quicker. But it would at least stop Shanshi from drinking his blood.

However, unlike with transforming himself to water, Ackster at least had an idea for how to remove his blood from his body.

Ackster wanted to experiment, but now wasn’t the time for that. After beating the shit out of Shanshi and turning him into a servant, Ackster could just spar with him whenever he wanted.

With his mind made up, Ackster closed his eyes and let his Overhuman Senses take charge of keeping track of Shanshi while he split his consciousness to also concentrate on all the lush red blood flowing through his veins.

Ackster’s heart pounded like a war drum in sync with the blows being exchanged by Ackster and Shanshi.

With his mind grasping the blood in his veins, Ackster bit his tongue. He then proceeded to suck the blood out of his body from that wound and swallow it. He drank his blood to put it into Smelting Furnace. Otherwise, Shanshi would just get his hands on more blood. He also didn’t have the leeway to put it into his Inventory.

Ackster’s blood fizzled in the raging heat of Smelting Furnace’s flames before evaporating and being refined back into his body.

Ackster strangled his body’s regeneration to stop himself from producing more blood.

Ackster’s pale and sunken cheeks and eyesockets made his grin appear all the more ghastly as his body entered a state of dehydration similar to what Shanshi had been in before receiving Ackster’s blood.

"What the fuck...?"

Shanshi furrowed his brow as he paused for a moment to stare at Ackster in disbelief, confusion, and apprehension. But he quickly shook his head to clear it. He already knew his human-like opponent was strange. It would be best if he didn’t get too hung up on what Ackster did.

Besides...—

*Fool! I have already consumed enough blood to sustain me for centuries! Your little trick is far too little, far too late.*

Ackster met Shanshi’s sneer with a grin.

*They do say pain makes time fly.*

Ackster might have lost part of his physical strength by draining his body of blood and forcing his muscles to work without any oxygen. But that was what he had Unstoppable and Limit Breaker for. His body would maintain its peak functionality as long as he willed it, regardless of the state it was in.

It was difficult to do that when he didn’t have a body. But as long as it did and it was in a somewhat decent usable condition, Ackster was truly unstoppable.

Limit Breaker more than made up for the physical strength he had lost, even if he didn’t take it all the way. Besides, after destroying his body with Limit Breaker and letting it recover, his body had grown stronger and slightly more accustomed to handling the seemingly limitless power of the Ex-rank Limit Breaker.

It wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t enough to satisfy Ackster, so he would continue erasing his body with the overuse of Limit Breaker. But now, it was the exact amount of strength he needed to stay toe-to-toe with Shanshi.

But Ackster didn’t only use Limit Breaker on his body. He also let it flood into Diamond Body, the center of his physical talent, and his Overhuman Senses, the skill that would let his talents flourish.

Shanshi was undoubtedly talented as well. Otherwise, he would have never been so good at combat, even if he was unbelievably strong due to being the first vampire. However, Shanshi had used countless years to hone his strength.

Ackster had reached a level that was good enough to challenge him in less than a decade. There was no way to compare their talent.

Ackster had one other advantage.

His opponent was better than him. Shanshi’s technical ability surpassed his own. Shanshi moved and read Ackster’s moves like it was all he had done for the last century.

Ackster, on the other hand, had a long way to go.

But that meant Ackster could learn from Shanshi. Shanshi had nothing Ackster could teach him.

Ackster could improve and grow stronger—strong enough to win. Shanshi didn’t have the same option.

And growing during combat with an opponent that could kill him was what Ackster excelled at.

Ackster’s Overhuman Senses read Shanshi’s moves, both in the present and, after a while, even in the future. He became good enough to use the remnants of Battlesight that had lived on in his sensory skill.

Ackster hadn’t used Battlesight much after it fused into his other skills because he needed to manually read his opponent’s move and the surroundings to predict what would happen. When the skill didn’t do it automatically for him, it required a tremendous understanding of consequences, his opponent, and combat.

Ackster had managed to do it a few times since he lost Battlesight. But nothing like now.

With Limit Breaker bringing Overhuman Senses beyond their limits to the full extent of what the Ex-rank skill could do, Ackster felt like he saw everything—past, present, and future. His senses overloaded his brain to the point where he couldn’t even think.

Thankfully, Ackster’s muscle memory had combat ingrained to the bone, and his instincts were part of his senses. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Ackster turned into an unstoppable fighting machine that relentlessly hounded Shanshi with explosive attacks that shattered the air before blasting Shanshi’s body to bloody pieces.

The toll Limit Breaker took on Ackster’s body and brain would render him incapable of thinking or moving when the combat ended, but only if he didn’t die. Stubborn Well-Being was doing its best to run through all the energy Ackster had stored up by eating the other gatekeepers.

Fortunately, the gatekeepers were stronger than the beasts from the primeval miniature world, and Ackster had enough stocked up.

His senseless assault by using rippling strikes that were more reflex than effort by now finally wore down Shanshi.

The vampire’s regeneration and transformation slowed down. His weapons and defenses lost their strength and durability. His body lost muscles and height as he returned to the state where he was a haggard and frail main that would snap like a twig if Ackster so much as looked at him the wrong way.

Finally, there wasn’t a doubt left in the world that Ackster had defeated Shanshi, even if the latter stubbornly refused to die.

As soon as his senses felt the Covenant take effect, Ackster lost consciousness and passed out.