Ackster flicked his hand a couple of times to shake away the pain of punching a solid brick wall with all his might. He thought he had gotten used to pain, especially considering how many times he had punched monsters and beasts on his way to Ilto. But that was apparently false confidence.

However, even if it wasn’t as comfortable as he would have liked, Ackster didn’t have a choice.

The only way Ackster could attack the rock lizard was by using his body. And since he might accidentally break the bones in his feet if he kicked the stupidly robust overgrown gecko, which would make it difficult for him to avoid getting bit or clawed at, his only real choice was to use his fists, or, at least his upper body. He could use his elbows as well, but getting close enough to do that would make it easier for the rock lizard to take a bite of succulent Ackster meat.

The only one Ackster was willing to share his blood and flesh with like that, at least at the moment – who knew what the future held? – was Mio.

“Mio’s a lot cuter than you!”

Ackster took advantage of the slight angle his uppercut had forced onto the rock lizard’s head and struck out with his other hand. His fist might have hurt a little after striking the lizard’s rock-solid jaw, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t endure. He just had to grit his teeth and overwrite the pain with more pain.

Before the rock lizard could react, Ackster punched again and again without caring about the damage to the skin on his fists. He didn’t even flinch when he heard a crack loud enough to serve as an alarm.

If his opponent had been anything other than the rock lizard, he might have hoped that it was his opponent. But Ackster knew that the crack had come from him. He had broken a bone, possibly more than one, in one of his hands or wrists.

But since breaking a bone was a lot better than dying, Ackster continued striking the rock lizard’s head and forcing its head up and back.

He wanted to continue pressing the attack.

Alas, despite punching hard enough to break his own bones, Ackster’s attacks didn’t do any real damage. He might have broken off a few of the weaker scales on the rock lizard’s lower jaw, but that was it. It was far from enough to prevent the lizard from retaliating.

And if he didn’t want to be turned into a pile of meat that had once housed his soul, Ackster had to step back before the rock lizard’s front legs could reach him and its claws could show him what a real weaponized body was.

But that wasn’t the only thing Ackter could do.

Right when he was about to step back, outside the rock lizard’s immediate striking range, he noticed that its other leg was the only thing holding up the entire weight of the rock lizard’s heavy body.

The corresponding part of a human’s upper body rested on that one rock-clad, muscular leg. It would only be for a moment since the rock lizard’s other leg would return to the ground after sweeping out in an attempt to rend apart Ackster. But it would be enough.

Ackster didn’t even think.

After seeing a possibility, his impulsive instincts took over, and he leaned back. He bent the leg still attached to the ground just enough to avoid the front leg that aimed for his upper body.

Ackster twisted his body while avoiding the sweep. His toes tensed and dug into the ground as his heel shifted to the side. His ankle followed his heel’s movement, and his entire leg began twisting. His hips turned and propelled his kicking leg forward.

The twisting motion continued up his body. He turned his torso to the side and swam through the air with his arms to gather even more force. Then, as his head leaned around and he could freely look at the ground, Ackster’s kick completed.

Ackster’s leg crashed into the rock lizard’s only front leg connecting it to the ground like an axe crashing into a solid oak tree. The area right between Ackster’s foot and shin collided with the knee-like joint on the rock lizard’s leg.

It was the place with the thickest armor on the leg, but if there was one part Ackster could possibly break, thanks to using all the force his body could muster, it was the joint. He had no hopes of breaking the bone that carried the incredible weight of the rock lizard’s armor at all times, even while running at speeds Ackster had only seen on world-class sprinters on Earth.

And trying to kick the leg out from under it when the rock lizard’s entire weight kept it pinned to the ground would be just as futile.

But, when there was too large a discrepancy in the quality of the axe and the sturdiness of the wood, only the axe would suffer, at least if its wielder was strong enough.

And in this case, Ackster was just barely strong enough to break both his leg and force the rock lizard’s knee to buckle.

A sharp, crumbling pain spread up Ackster’s body and lit up his brain as he smashed his ankle into the rock lizard’s solid armor.

However, he didn’t let himself be distracted by the pain. Ackster clearly noticed how, while his kick hadn’t broken the rock lizard’s knee, it had still been enough to dislocate or bend it in some weird way.

The beaten leg was incapable of supporting the rock lizard’s full weight, and it faltered.

Ackster couldn’t celebrate.

The rock lizard’s other leg slammed into the ground like a boulder right before it could fall flat.

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Ackster didn’t even think about his next move. Before he knew it, he was already sitting on the rock lizard’s neck.

He didn’t even need to compare the damage to his leg and to the rock lizard’s leg to know that he had sealed his own opportunity to retreat with that reckless strike.

He didn’t care.

Ackster straddled the rock lizard’s hard, robust, and impenetrable neck as he leaned down.

He had broken his fists and one foot. Why not continue like that?

He slammed his elbow into the center of the rock lizard’s stony forehead with all he had. He didn’t pause for a single second before raising it above his head and ramming it down again.

As hard as Ackster’s elbow was, it couldn’t compete with the mana-filled rock lizard’s armor, and it didn’t take long before his elbow cracked. After another strike, it shattered almost completely, and a feverish pain blasted into Ackster’s brain and almost made him lose his grip on the rock lizard’s neck.

But he still held on. He gritted his teeth hard enough to make his gums bleed until he felt most of his vision stop swimming like he was caught in a vortex of darkness.

One of his arms dangled limply by his side. He could shrug his shoulder with it, but not with enormous bouts of pain shooting through it. It was useless now.

But that was only one arm. Ackster still had one left.

Ackster had stepped up his self-harm game after he left Degrest in a desperate attempt to strengthen Strong Body and make his recovery rate even quicker. However, he had mostly been cutting bits and pieces of himself. He also hadn’t been able to confirm any definite progress aside from how he could easily eat a lot more now, even without injuring himself.

However, now that he had broken his fists, one ankle, and one elbow, Ackstre realized a relatively serious problem with his explosive growth.

Thanks to Strong Body and his stat growth, his muscular strength had skyrocketed when compared to how it was his first day after transmigration. And while his Fortitude had also risen, it had only risen to the same level as his Strength stat. It didn’t make up for the increase in muscles Strong Body had given Ackster.

But, while Ackster’s muscles had grown, and he was happy that he was stronger than he was before, they had grown too quickly. He had left the rest of his body behind.

As long as he kept moving and using his skeleton, it would gradually acclimatize to his strength, but only if his strength didn’t continue increasing at a similarly disproportionate pace to his skeleton’s growth.

In short, his bones were too weak.

Long before his muscles were fatigued and too weary for him to move, the pain of his broken bones stopped Ackster from fully utilizing his body.

Sure, he might be up against an opponent that made that difficult, regardless of the difference in strength between his muscles and skeleton, but that didn’t really matter. Ackster’s weak skeleton limited how hard he could attack and how hard he could be attacked.

While ramming his, so far still intact elbow into the same spot on the rock lizard’s forehead as before, Ackster made a mental note to begin conditioning his skeleton so that it could keep up with his muscles. And when he was at it, he should also do something with his tendons, ligaments, and stuff.

It was just that he didn’t know how to do that.

Unfortunately, due to the pressure of his current situation, Ackster wasn’t in a position to start thinking about solutions to that problem just yet. He had to get rid of the rock lizard first before he could start thinking about nonsense like growing stronger.

He had one last thought before he managed to break his other elbow.

‘The strength from Strong Body is separate from the stat.’

The discrepancy between his muscular strength and the tensile strength of his skeleton, while disconcerting, also told Ackster that his only source of strength wasn’t the Strength stat.

But before he could think about it anymore, the pain from breaking his second elbow washed over him and stopped his mind from picking that train of thought back up.

Ackster had hoped that he would have grown numb to the pain by now or that his Pain Tolerance would have surpassed the threshold and reached D-rank. Well, considering he didn’t lose consciousness despite multiple breaks and fractures in three of his limbs, his Pain Tolerance might actually have ranked up.

However, even if he was awake, there wasn’t much Ackster could do.

He couldn’t run away due to his foot, and he couldn’t attack the rock lizard since both his arms were broken and unusable. Even if he gritted his teeth and endured the pain of moving his arms, he wouldn’t be able to muster enough force to make the soft elbows deal any damage.

And while his fists were showing signs of recovery already, they would break again before doing any real damage.

And if he let go of the rock lizard’s neck with his only intact limb, he would fall to the ground and get eaten by the rock lizard in a matter of seconds.

‘Fucking shit.’

He had sacrificed an ankle and both arms, and he had managed to crack several scales in the center of the rock lizard’s forehead. He had also gotten deep enough to draw blood. If he had a third elbow, it might be enough to get to the skull and crack the rock lizard’s skull open.

Ackster didn’t often think it was a shame that he was an ordinary human since he liked being one. Not that he had any experience benign anything else. But now was one of those moments where being a monster or any creature with a stack of arms would be nice.

The fact that he only wanted more arms to be able to use them as disposable tools and that he didn’t even think about being stronger or something didn’t cross Ackster’s mind.

What did cross Ackster’s mind however, aside from how he would never give up, was the realization that he still had a body part that was hard enough to use as a weapon.

Before he could hesitate and realize that it was a bad idea, Ackster had already bent his body forward and rammed his forehead against the stony, slightly bloody rock lizard’s head.

Unlike his elbows, Ackster couldn’t treat his skull as a disposable weapon. If it broke, he would most likely die. Considering how Strong Body hadn’t any trouble healing and helping his body recover without disinfectants or any aid like that, it might not be impossible for Strong Body to recover brain damage as well. He hadn’t even needed to use a splint or anything when he broke his arm against the poison goblin.

But that was one risk Ackster didn’t want to take.

Fortunately, with the fine touch of his forehead, Ackster could sense that his elbows had done a great deal of damage to the rock lizard’s head. The fact that it was bucking wildly like a raging bull was also an indication of Ackster doing something the rock lizard didn’t like.

However, the rock lizard wasn’t as good as a bull at jumping and trying to throw off any possible riders, so Ackster managed to hold on despite the hard, sharp scales digging into his flesh through the layer of clothes. If anything, the scales and the resistance they offered made it easier for Ackster to stay on the rock lizard’s neck, at least as long as he ignored the pain.

Thankfully, the pain and ringing in his head each time he headbutted the rock lizard helped him ignore the pain in the rest of his body.

Ackster continued smashing his head against the rock lizard’s in the hopes that he would be the one with the hardest bone until he lost consciousness.