"Exactly."
Artoria: "Below Ultimate Skills, even Unique Skills can only injure me, not kill me."
"Injury?"
Frey found it ridiculous: "With our recovery capabilities, damage that cannot prevent your recovery is meaningless!"
The Sky Queen felt immense humiliation.
Not only did Artoria not use her full strength when fighting her just now.
What's more, the situation now was that the knight princess in front of her had forcibly abandoned her greatest advantage to protect others.
"You fellow..."
"There's a limit to looking down on people!"
Frey had never been so angry; she felt her dignity had been thrown to the ground and trampled by Artoria.
The magic essence, which was already somewhat difficult to control, became even more volatile.
"Do you think you can still defeat me even without absolute defense?"
"Yes!"
Artoria's answer was that straightforward.
The young woman held her Holy Sword, her aura not weakened in the slightest; instead, it seemed to grow even stronger.
"On the contrary, having discarded the scabbard, I can now display my full power."
"Arrogant!!"
Queen Frey could not tolerate Artoria's provocation and immediately rushed forward to fight her.
As if to prove something, Frey's fighting style became increasingly savage.
With every exchange, Frey traded blows, posing a significant threat to Artoria.
"Next, you will see Liya's strongest power."
The Snow Empress wanted to go forward and help, but Bai Luo stopped her with a thought message: "So, leave the battlefield to her with confidence."
"Strongest power?"
The Snow Empress didn't know what Bai Luo was talking about.
But, she looked forward to it, looking forward to Artoria displaying the supreme form that Bai Luo praised.
"Bang!"
"Bang bang bang!!"
The space of Great Nature was already unstable due to Frey's secret art.
Even with Avalon's reinforcement, this Inherent Barrier was still tottering in the battle between a Demon Lord Seed and a half-awakened Demon Lord Seed.
Perhaps it was because casting Avalon consumed too much of Artoria's magic essence.
Or perhaps it was because she no longer had absolute defense, so she had to consider more things when fighting.
For a time, their battle was evenly matched; neither could gain the upper hand.
"The situation is unfavorable for Liya..."
However, with the Snow Empress's eyesight, she could clearly see the scales of victory tipping towards Queen Frey.
There was no helping it; Queen Frey's nearly 800,000 magic essence was too great an advantage.
Artoria's magic essence was originally just over 100,000.
Before the battle, after receiving transfer and replenishment from Bai Luo, it reached 300,000, second only to the Snow Empress.
However, 300,000 versus 800,000.
It seemed like only a 2.6 times difference, but in reality, it was far more than that.
magic essence represents the efficiency and speed of magic recovery.
Just the magic essence Frey could recover per second was several times that of Artoria.
Indeed, Frey was fighting very awkwardly.
Not only was she slashed by Artoria until her clothes were tattered and her skin was covered in blood, but even her collarbones were broken several times.
But what did that matter?
They were all Demon Lords; who didn't have powerful regenerative abilities!
"You are very strong, truly very strong!"
Frey looked at the six Sabers surrounding her, each in a different form, and praised from the bottom of her heart: "But the difference in our magic essence means you can't fight a prolonged battle with me!"
Once Artoria couldn't defeat her in a short time.
Then Frey could, in turn, slowly wear down Artoria to death!
"Look!"
Frey watched the Holy Spirit Avatars gradually dissipate: "You can't even maintain these strange clones anymore!"
Artoria had used the Round Table Knights as sparingly as possible in terms of magic essence.
She only materialized the Holy Spirits at the moment of attack, rather than continuously consuming magic essence to maintain their existence.
However, the two had been in a stalemate for almost an hour.
To deal enough damage to instantly defeat Frey, Artoria even summoned six Holy Spirits simultaneously, having them attack together.
Unfortunately, it still couldn't fundamentally harm Frey, allowing her to recover once again.
"Is this your strongest move?"
Frey looked at the wounds on her body, which were continuously healing due to magic essence recovery: "Do you see? In front of my Transcendent, without decisive power, you cannot defeat me!"
What if she was at a disadvantage, what if she was suppressed and chased and slashed?!
Her Transcendent, in terms of recovery, was not at all weaker than Rimuru's or Pig Head Emperor's Self-Regeneration.
Of course, the same applied to Artoria.
The wounds she had exchanged for were long healed, leaving only her flawless skin.
It's hard to imagine that this was after Artoria had transformed most of her Unique Skill into a scabbard to stabilize the Inherent Barrier and Tengu Mountain.
If Artoria had charged in with such a turtle shell from the start, Frey shuddered at the thought!
"No…"
After such a long battle, Artoria was also a little tired.
She slightly relaxed her grip on the Holy Sword and then uttered a sentence that left Frey utterly bewildered: "257 I won this battle."
"What?!"
Queen Frey was stunned: "Are you crazy?"
She thought of Snow Empress, who still had the strength to fight, and Bai Luo, who had not yet made a move.
Frey admitted that she was not their opponent.
But she was Queen Frey, who ruled the sky.
If she wanted to escape, she was absolutely confident that Bai Luo couldn't keep her!
At most, it would just cost her something.
"You said I had no means of deciding victory or defeat?"
Artoria was extremely excited now because the Holy Sword in her hand was responding to her will!
"Then let me show you."
"The true power of this Star Holy Sword, forged to counter Outer Gods!"
"Star Holy Sword…"
Frey murmured the words, her heart growing more uneasy.
In the Cardinal World, nothing prefixed with 'Star' was simple.
"Buzz~~~"
"What?"
Looking at the Holy Sword, which was radiating golden light, Frey felt a chill shoot straight up her spine to her brain.
"This!"
"What in the world is this…?"
Frey used her hand to block the oncoming golden gale, and she found that her magic essence was in disarray, and this situation was only getting worse!!.