*
As if treating it as a form of training, Eterna was steadily finishing off the clones with one move, one by one she eliminated those that got close. Multiple of them begun to gather their magic, stars of reddish white light glimmer in the skies before shooting beams towards Eterna. The beams swerve in the air and crash into some of the clones, burning some of them alive while eliminating others.
At once, every clone had their necks snap and their bodies burned to ash. The solution was simple, track every clone and target them all at once. The world grows quiet with stillness, she turns back and faces the hospital. Over there, floating in the air facing her... Was a Lastia she didn't eliminate. All the clones should have been dead, this clone... Had almost no magic. It only had enough to fly, containing as much magic as an E grade. A fragile fly.
She smiled peacefully at Eterna, the fire in her eyes hasn't burned out.
"Your magic... There's not even enough to cast {Envy} now, step aside. At least then, you can live on asa ghost." (Eterna)
"{Feed}." (Lastia)
"...!? You would replicate your own tragedy? Your karma is not nearly enough for mutual annihilation. " (Eterna)
The target for {Feed} was not anyone in particular, it was the world itself, destiny, the heavens. Whatever you wanted to call it. A futile attempt normally, usually the magical energy of {Feed} will fizzle out and disappear in its attempt to cover the entire universe. An S grade didn't have enough magical energy to accomplish that, much less an E grade. However, this was different.
Eterna is the world, Eterna is destiny. Was she born like this? Did the world make her it's representative, or did she decide to be the representative and seize the world's authority? When it comes to magic... The how never mattered, the origin and cause is irrelevant. It only matter what happened afterwards, the arcane only faced the future. Even karma is just another currency operating under the heavens, something of no consequence or value to Lastia.
The function of {Feed} was never quite that complicated. It recycled existential information into energy, magic energy had a high composition of information so it was the easiest to recycle. The Observer's energy was almost fully composed of eldritch information, it was the easiest to absorb and even easier to apply. This time the target... Since Eterna is the world, if the spell successfully hit the world then it hit Eterna. There's no avoiding it when the universe itself the target, just making contact with the air qualified as meeting the universe.
However, isn't this the same as igniting a lighter and expecting the sky to catch on fire?
"One mistake... {Feed} is no longer unique because {Yggdrasil} accessed it." (Lastia)
This isn't the only clone! If she can't sense one Grade E, then she can't sense countless more. Together, they form a network bound by {Envy}. Now that she can't access {Yggdrasil}, she has to make her own network and move on. Thank you, Giselle. You've given me so much, despite beginning with nothing alongside me. Before we noticed, I must have become everything to you. That's why, I must catch up and surpass you, to make you proud.
The fight started without any personal feelings involved. One wanted humanity gone, and the other refused. Though now... It must have ended consisting only of personal feelings. Sariel, Arin, Giselle's expectations for Lastia and her wish to honour those expectations. Eterna's resolve to face The Destined End brought by The Primordial One.
"You missed your chance... Or rather everytime you had one, I gladly stood in the way." (Lastia)
If anyone could say this magical girl accomplished anything, it would be the hindrance she brought to Eterna. This time the world around them unfolded like a blank canvas, a space different from an Oblivion Magia, but formed by {Envy} nonetheless.
"My... Ego? You trapped me in my own mind, but I'm just as strong, perhaps stronger here." (Eterna)
"Your ego... You didn't think I left your 'shell' alone, did I...? Aaargh!! " (Lastia)
She caught up, assimilated Eterna's corpse. Though Eterna's mind is still here, and not any weaker at all.
"Like I said... Mutual annihilation. Only, my mind will escape. You will destroy yourself by trying to absorb the world, you end up stretching yourself into infinity and get digested by the world instead." (Eterna)
Assimilating Eterna's divine vessel, connected her mind to the universe. She immediately blocked off some of her authority to ease the strain brought by the connection. Her mind creaks with agony, the steady dripping of blood out of her ears chimes all the more clearly in this land. Her teeth was grit tightly, a trace of her resolve still peeks through her distorted expression. It's not just the mind that has to handle the computational load, the soul has withstand the conceptual strain too. Her existence is steadily being chipped away by infinity like Eterna said.
She thought she pulled one over on Eterna, but Eterna saw the end result faster than she did. Even now, even near the end she believed she brought with her own efforts, she's going to be stopped. She lost her life in the battle with The Calamity, Giselle abandoned her vessel to ascend. The materials were there to ressurect her, and even after Sariel went through all that effort... She couldn't pull it off. There's no point stalling this fight, time is against her anyway. She can't help but fall apart at the end.
Her body already felt light, and all the clones were assimilated to enter this area and meet Eterna. Even after death, it felt like hope was dangled in front of her then taken away again... She rushed back in time with the determination to die, she wasn't mean to be alive anyway.
She looks up once more, meeting Eterna's eyes.
"Good eyes. Let make this a good one. I'll take my body back once I'm done. Relics of the past should stay in the past, leave the future to me." (Eterna)
Ironically, she no longer wanted to destroy humanity. What burned even stronger in her desires was the thirst to kill Lastia, one last obstacle to make sure she had what it took to fight The Primordial One head on. If she lost, The Primordial One will erase new humanity anyway. Their fate wasn't much different either way, so she believed that they should serve as her ammunition instead. Who knew they could produce a miracle of this level, it moved her so. Out of respect, she won't aim to make humanity extinct anymore.