Hope born of solitus

*

For an A grade, the Destitute knight was significantly slower than The Remnant. Rather, the Remnant was just at an absurd level. The knight was faster than Lastia, but she could still follow his movements and make preparations. After restricting his attack on the other magical girls, he twisted his body and attacked Lastia without pause. His momentum was too fast, this time he would rip apart the threads of {Feed}, so she had to intercept.

Remember the sensation of that one aerial attack she did on The Remnant. Dark scarlet wings grew on her back before dissipating back into the air. Contain it within her body, grasp her own magic wholly and strike! Modeling her sword after The Remnants, she formed a blade out of {Feed} that converts magic energy into a cutting, serrating force. {Feed} not just on energy, but on everything as a whole... To achieve this... Absorb the attractive forces between atoms...

The knight's blade turned into stone at the point of collision, before the stone parts cracked apart. Lastia swung her blade forward as the knight's blade snapped into two. It thrusted its neck back, narrowly avoiding the slash. Forget the blade, her main weapon had always been her fist. Now he was wide open, she swung her left arm at his core, stuck in an awkward position.

Her left knuckle cracked and shattered as the metal fragmented, she repeatedly poured {Feed} into its body, healing herself up and powering her attack even further. When her attack finished, the knight was thrown onto the ground, it bounced once and slid half a metre away. For now, it worked because her impromptu forming of a blade was sufficient.

Truthfully she reinforced its physical toughness as much as she could by copiously pouring in her magic energy. The light of {Feed} can solidify by forcefully absorbing all kinetic energy and standing in the path of objects with momentum. The sword she made only worked as it withstood the initial swing from the opponent, then decayed their weapon by absorbing their strong nuclear force, causing the collapse of matter. It worked similarly to petrification and weakening seen in myths.

A large part of urban legends and myths were due to the doing of Traces after all, it would be more surprising if actual petrification magic didn't exist or work on similar principles. As such, the blade she made actually had a weaker application of {Feed} than her casually enhanced punch. Before she noticed, the knight stood back up with a shining new blade...

It was shining because of the blood stains and grease, its regenerated blade still retained that extremely aged look, as if it had been dug out of some ancient treasure chest and was ready to snap at any time. She put away her blade and concentrated her magic on her fist. That experiment with her blade told her enough, her fist would better withstand her opponent's weapon. They charged at each other, fist to blade.

It swung each slash with precision and massive force, Lastia barely kept up by deflecting each swing with her fists. She stepped to the side and guided the swings upwards, the pain seeped into her palms as she grit her teeth. The difference between the knight and The Remnant was night and day. She stepped closer and accelerated in an instant, sliding across its blade with her other fist, she slammed her right arm into its head. The metal creaked in agony as it stumbled a couple steps back. Unrelenting, Lastia threw her left arm too and began a barrage of punches.

Her left hits its chest before her right threw an uppercut. She kicked it in the torso as it tried to lift its blade, sending it flying towards the classroom wall. There were many scraps of random debris on the ground, chopped up tables and chairs laid around, posing a hazard. She rushed towards it, closing the distance. It sliced upwards with its blade, nearly decapitating Lastia if she hadn't leaned back.

It secured space for itself and stood up, blocking the next punch with the flat of its blade, before slicing horizontally. Lastia shields her stomach with her left arm, causing a deep cut into her arm. Blood spilled out profusely, but it quickly healed up due to the energy she had been storing from {Feed}. Her energy was at a net zero loss, she was absorbing as much as she was using. She was imitating the Destitute knight.

Beyond its visor were 2 illuminating red orbs, there likely wasn't any flesh underneath. It was a walking pile of armour and a sword, the metal itself was its body. That's why it could be so heavy, yet move so quick. It wasn't facing the same weight issues that a human would have when wearing armour, it was the armour itself. When its blade grew back, it was regenerating its body. It didn't feel pain nor fatigue and its body composition was homogeneous. It could theoretically grow back from any piece of metal as long as a little scrap was left.

It had amazing physical prowess, yet it had a large magic reserve that could keep powering its regeneration. It deserved to be A grade and Lastia had to overcome it. A creature with no shortcomings, did it deserve to survive more than humans solely based on that merit? A superior creature that surprised Lastia with its intelligence and prudence. It was managing the distance better than Lastia, not only because the sword had a longer reach than her fist, but also because it was simply more knowledgeable in combat.

She side steps, dodging a downward slash. Her fist have only been keeping up because that's where the majority of her magic was going, to reinforce it. Unlike The Remnant, the reinforcement was sufficient to prevent the knight's sword from cleaving off her hand. But this also meant...

She dodged a high-speed thrust by turning her neck towards the right. The blade swung through the air with a hum, causing a deep caught in her left cheek. She grabbed the blade with her left arm and shoved her right fist into its head, causing it to stagger for one moment. It's sword leans away, so she chains with more attacks. Each slam sounded more devastating than before, indenting its metallic surface, deforming the knight.

Odd. This whole time, the knight must have been weakened... Right, there were other magical girls here. Perhaps one with telekinesis was hindering its strength the whole time. That's why Lastia's fist could get out with mere scratches.