*
"Alright. Perish." (Eterna)
She opens her palm, sluggishly training it on her target. Sariel understands, with this one attack she will be erased. Eterna isn't in a rush, because she truly was no threat to her. Her brilliant idea of throwing a blackhole didn't work. Eterna was reflected faithfully, the Eterna in this mirror world has all of her authority over the world.
Sariel can't use her Oblivion Magia, Alice's authority was spent on jamming Eterna's signals. There's nothing she could do here. Lastia and Arin had expected so much of her, now that the Invader was dealt with, had she finally done her best?
"Not enough. {Swap}. " (Sariel)
{Swap} happens instantaneously, there is no measure of speed that could compare. What holds it back is Sariel's reaction speed upon returning to a coordinate. If you're faster than her, it'll look like she stood still after arriving at her new coordinate, her mind is catching up to the environment. What about a deity? Someone who has reached the apex of this world, what speed would their magic attacks be? Naturally it would be the same. So if she disregarded her own reaction speed and layered two {Swaps} on one another, one to move away, one to return to the same spot...
This is gambling. Gambling that her opponent's attack moves at the same inviolable speed as {Swap}, and it either landed when Sariel was not in place or the attack landed but {Swap} breaks down the spacial congruity making it look like she attacked a ghost. Space... Her skill violates space. So that was it the whole time. All she had to do was...
A blast of wind blows past her ears. An innumerable number of attacks flashed past her vision, this is infinity, the apex of the universe using every means to finish her off after the first attack failed. It looks like even a deity can lose her composure. When something she had expected didn't play out as she wanted. She can feel it, the unbearable hostility in that divine gaze. An overflowing ceaseless stream of magical energy that she can't use, because it is divine aura, it is excess used up magical energy just like a magical girl's aura.
Like carbon monoxide and dioxide after combustion. It is no petrol, it is unusable. Emotions are enough to burn this much energy for a deity, and the attacks never stopped. However at this moment... Spacial congruity at least for Sariel's body had fallen apart. Space does not respond normally. Her body is falling apart, it might get shattered into countless pieces and at the end, it might violate time too and get scattered across human history. Maybe beyond that too.
The era of origin from the earth's formation to the dawn of modern civilisation, the era of mystery lost to time, the era of abundance where there is seemingly no conflict. She could lose parts of her body across any of these places.
"I'll repair space." (Eterna)
"I'll shatter it, unfortunately I'm better at breaking than you are at fixing." (Sariel)
She stands still, for fear of losing chunks of her own existence. What does it mean to violate space? What does it mean to violate this world? Despite these questions, she wouldn't ask what it meant to lose herself. Has she abandoned herself? Probably, that's the kind of resolve one needs to take on a deity. To willingly face death and self destruction. The world could perish for all she cared, what she wanted to do more than anything at this moment, was to eliminate her opponent.
Think about it, she's now an A grade. She has surpassed the generation, reached and became on par with the sentinels. Magical girls who persist in history. Has she caught up to Lastia and Arin yet? No. Those two were far too dazzling, they reached A grade a long long time ago. That's right... She's been comparing with heroes or demon lords of another era.
"Aughh!!" (Alice)
"Keep jamming her signals. Even when you realised this is just a future that could have been, you never really gave up on the present, did you?" (Sariel)
"Never! I'll protect the real world, you deal with this side!" (Alice)
That's right. Sariel was painfully ordinary, that had always been her complaint when compared to those two dazzling stars. That's why... That's why she can be all the more prideful of her own achievements right now. Reaching this far. No longer connecting to Yggdrasil to borrow power like last time. She clawed her way here. So...
"Leave it to me." (Sariel)
'Reach within yourself, fish out your soul. You can do it.' She hears such a voice. Incomprehensible. She can't tell if it was real or she's going insane. Lastia... Yggdrasil never heard voices, she never needed help from such dubious sources, likely because even voices of an unknown origin had acknowledged her strength. 'She didn't need it like I did' , this thought courses through her mind as she endured Eterna's attacks.
So she refused.
Power from the soul? A second skill? No, she'll kill Eterna with {Swap} alone. She understood, this was power from a bygone era, either from origin or mystery. Back then they must have had more than one skill, but it wouldn't be enough. After all what stood at the end of their eras was Eterna. She can't use Oblivion Magia, she can't use anything other than {Swap}.
Since her body has split into infinite pieces, phasing through Eterna's attacks like a ghost, she can't fight back physically. To hell with that!
"Kuhagh!" (Eterna)
She drives her fist into Eterna's abdomen, and it cuts short the divine barrage of raining fists. A look of confusion flashed past Eterna's expression. This world is a reflection of the real world, there is only a 'present' here and no past or future. No future prediction can be done inside a mirror image that is already a prediction of the future. The Eterna here isn't capable of manipulating time, and it seems she herself has accepted it. Unless she edits the world herself and supersedes the present with data from the past.
"Oblivion Magia. Unyielding temporal dam of endless prosperity. " (Eterna)