*
Its death was declared then and there, a bold action for someone who was weak. More chains materialised and struck into its flesh with pointed tips, Lastia jumped back to form more distance between them, keeping in mind to conjure more invisible chains between the two while replenishing those that were destroyed.
With a single movement, the Remnant shattered the chains in contact with its body. It unhinged its jaw and opened wide, unleashing a beam of black light that had the same composition as the smog it releases. The beam passed through the chains effortlessly, despite having a comparable density of magic energy, it was the momentum that it carried which allowed it to obliterate its obstacles. It's vast muscular neck turned with great vigor, dragging the beam into another direction and spreading out the destruction.
There was no way to avoid this attack, it would turn its head over before the two magical girls could do anything. A large mass of chains bunched up together, fashioned into a mace and smashed into its cheek, impeding the turning of its head. The beam attack's advance slowed for a moment as Lastia carried Pelenia off and jumped into a nearby building. She smashed through the walls with her head and began running towards her right while smashing through the floors to reach higher ground.
The beam passed through the building in a horizontal manner, causing an entire lower floor to erupt in an explosion. Finally, it ran out of energy and died off, but the building began to collapse. Lastia continued running with Pelenia in her arms, swiftly she jumped into the side of another building before punching the ground to reach a lower floor.
"Haa~ haa~ haa~" (Lastia)
Her forehead was drenched in a layer of sweat and dust that came from the stale air of these buildings. Strands of hair stuck to her cheek and droplets drop to the tiled floor. Pelenia got off and stood on her own, continuing to utilise {Gratitude} on Lastia.
"The... The chains... It's because I made so much energy with {Feed}, but I used up a large portion of it just to survive just now." (Lastia)
"... How much do you have left...?" (Pelenia)
"Surprisingly? A lot. {Feed} kept expanding, naturally the outer circumference of the area it occupied kept increasing too, the volume increased exponentially.
This much is still a bucket's worth of a large swimming pool." (Lastia)
She herself was surprised, when she sensed the magic density of her enemy and tried to match her chain's density accordingly, it didn't consume all that much. She must concentrate, because she's continuously consuming her enemy's magic, quantity wise she should be superior.
"... What are you doing?" (Pelenia)
Lastia stood to the spot, she didn't even attempt to evade. The Remnant appeared next to her, raining punch after punch, chains shattered repeatedly without pause. At this rate, she was just wasting her magic. At the same time, the Remnant was emboldened, putting the rest of their strength to speed up and assault more effectively. With every twitch of its muscles, a single chain breaks, with the coordination of multiple muscles, an entire bunch of chains shatters.
Why is she staying still? She's wastefully burning through her stock of magical energy procured from {Feed}! She declared her opponent's defeat, and stopped moving. Is she still mocking them, or did she have a death wish? Regardless... Pelenia had nothing to do with her. They only met a couple hours ago, they weren't particularly close. That's why... She shouldn't have dragged Lastia in.
"... Apologies, it took a while. You see the main issue was that the densities of our magic are drastically different. I needed time to converge [Ingest] which had covered the entire city." (Lastia)
Burning through the magic that was nearer to her by converging them into chains, it formed a vacuum which pulled nearer the [Ingest] that layed further away. The reason she could say it now without worrying about her ropponent's reaction... Was that it was a success. It was far faster than what she thought was possible, but that only proved how much magic the Remnant forcefully burnt through..
The pressure on the Remnant only intensified gradually, it should have at least recognised how her power was finally converging. Absolute confidence practically emanated from its body like black steam, its chiseled built glistened under the numerous sources of sparkling light in this space. Now that the [Ingest] was close enough for Lastia to manipulate, it pulled its fist back.
It was sure that Lastia couldn't dodge it nor survive. With a single swift movement, it vaporised every chain in the way and bore a hole in her chest. It had aimed at her head, one single point of dark scarlet blocked its fist, a vigorous clash released countless shock waves into the surroundings. The strongest shock wave carved a large hole into her chest.
A dark scarlet orb, like a floating globule of blood stood between Lastia and death. When the Remnant pulled its fist back, she had to cover her most vital body part first. The air was no longer filled with a scarlet light. This orb was the densest her magic ever reached, even the [ingest] in her body was now contained in it, she was no longer so unstable that she needed Pelenia to constantly heal her body.
She grits her teeth and punches the orb with her fist. Fist to fist, they continued to push, the dense magic spreads over her knuckles, disintegration it instantly. Her ears and nose bled, her eyes coated in pink. Her body was breaking down once again now that she was trying to control that massive mass of magical energy, but it was the key to winning. If the Remnant decided to pull back and retreat, all of it would have been for naught, and she would gradually lose the energy in this orb. This was the one chance to kill it.
'I feel like I can do it. I don't know how, but by exploiting the curse, there's a chance I can sacrifice a day' s worth of momeries to better control this orb and run it through the enemy. ' (Lastia)
It was the only solution she could think off, essentially she will funnel magic into the curse and have it take the burden of controlling the magic. Looking at it another way, she was taking the remainder of her less than 24 hours lifespan and concentrating it into a single moment, activating the curse while boosting her strength.
"I won't let you." (Pelenia)
How did she read her mind?
"I didn't. It's just that, we thought of the same thing." (Pelenia)
She couldn't possibly know about the curse. She was referring to self sacrifice.
"I need to take care of my own mess too. {Gratitude}. " (Pelenia)
The crystallisation of her feelings to 'return' things to the ideal state of the world.