A horizontal slash of her sword exploded against the side of my head.
The blade tore through, smashing my skull as it passed, and the residual force shattered my entire head into fragments.
I immediately reassumed a physical form, using another Undead as my base body, and unleashed my magic from where I stood.
It was a Miasma-infused Lightning Strike.
She closed the distance while deflecting the bolt with her sword and drove her blade through my torso. From there, she transitioned into an upward slash that pulverized my entire upper body.
My vision distorted into a chaotic mess before snapping back to clarity.
"..."
Having switched to yet another body, I simply stood there.
Standing at a distance, she turned toward me with a quiet grace. She was perfectly composed; her expression betrayed no sign that she was currently locked in a fierce struggle.
The rain continued to intensify, and the ground was turning into mud in several places. However, her movements showed not even the slightest hint of instability. If anything, her form was becoming more refined with every passing moment.
(Truly, this is troubling.)
I had already been defeated dozens of times. Overwhelmed by her swordplay, I was forced to resurrect through another Undead Body time and time after.
Ever since I became the Demon King, I have seldom had reason to rely on this trait. This is simply because I rarely lose in combat. Some of the more formidable enemies I’ve faced possessed abilities designed to inhibit resurrection, which meant that I was unable to return in the very situations where I struggled the most.
As a result, being destroyed this many times was a first for me. Naturally, it was not a pleasant sensation. It was a feeling I would prefer to avoid if at all possible.
Lowering her sword, she spoke in a cold, instructional tone.
"Your movements are becoming predictable. Focus."
"..."
I gazed at her. Before I knew it, I was voicing the question weighing on my heart.
"Lady Hero... do you truly believe you can still win?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I am certainly at a disadvantage in terms of skill. However, I will never perish. I have all these replacements here, and I can always summon more from afar."
As it stood, I hadn't been able to land a single hit on her. I had been struck down repeatedly. And yet, the actual damage to me was effectively zero. I was feeling a bit of mental fatigue, but even that was well within a negligible range.
"In contrast, you are but a single human. Even the slightest wound could prove fatal. To achieve victory, you would have to cut down an astronomical number of Demon Kings."
Despite her extraordinary strength, she was unmistakably human. She possessed transcendent swordplay, but that was the limit of her existence. To kill me completely, one would have to annihilate every Undead I have stationed across the world. That would include the likes of Grom, Dorda, and the Research Institute Director. If those were not enough, I could simply attack more humans and turn them into new Undead to bolster the count.
As a human, she would eventually succumb to exhaustion. All the while, she would be required to keep winning against the Greatest Demon King. Therefore, her victory was an absolute impossibility.
This trait of mine was a total violation of fair play. It might have looked like a fair duel on the surface, but the reality was quite different. In my cowardice, I had constructed a situation where my victory was a mathematical certainty. I was not an opponent an individual could hope to match, and that remained true even for her.
"I understand that this is a grueling battle. I face you with that full knowledge."
She declared this as if to sweep my assertions aside. It was by no means a mere bluff. Her eyes, fixed with the light of justice, had lost none of their radiance.
She leveled the tip of her sword toward me once more.
"I am the Hero. If a Demon King who commits evil reigns, I will continue to strike him down, whether it be thousands or tens of thousands of times. If I lacked such resolve, I would never have shouldered this mission to begin with."