Tiamat, Mother of Fear, spread from Neveah’s body and formed a protective bubble around her form. The beast of dark tendons and wicked feathers shrieked and sliced through the reverberations from the main conflict between Elhume and Mae Myrna. Swirling waves of the twisted force ripped the skin off of her left arm. The Patrons had been lost in the chaos. Neveah hopped backward to avoid getting caught up in a surge from the tainted image-state force resisting the implacable force unleashed by Elhume.

Mae Myrna’s voice rose above the collapsing wood around them. “Once more you take full culpability into your hand! Why are you so irredeemably selfish?!”

Elhume only responded with his fists.

Neveah made a beeline for the edge of the tree trunk, even while the carefully carved pillars pulps and splintered to tiny fragments. Several ominous-looking cracks yawned open beneath her feet as she scrambled away from the conflict. She ducked her way around a collapsing portion of the ceiling and then raised her arms and simply bulldozed her way through the wall and out into the open air. With the extra space and the decreased pressure from other images, Tiamat beat its wings and grew into a dark shadow to rival the churning significance hanging over Sanctuary.

With an Elhume focused only on his target, Neveah could acclimate the surrounding environment to her image.

People in the small town screamed and pointed upward at the toothed bird hanging over them, their idyllic existence broken. Compared to the ambiguously exploding trees, the giant black bird that induced soul-shuddering fear made an easy villain. Had the image-state maintained its hegemony in the area, Neveah might very well have been compelled to cackle and monologue for the terrified townsfolk.

An even louder explosion brought Neveah’s head whipping around. Mae’s thorny and vicious power gathered and fought against Elhume, ripping large chunks out of the tree as he thoroughly pounded the resistance out of her image. Elhume must have thrown enough punch within the tree, because a huge portion of the tree blasted outward. The tree had simply been leaning sideways in the past, but now it truly began to fall down.

More and more of the invisible force rushed to her side, leaving the people with very few protections against the top portion of the tree simply collapsing sideways and falling to crush the town. In her current state, Mae Myrna didn’t have the capacity to worry for anyone but herself.

Shouts echoed out and the guards of Sanctuary quickly gathered. They marshaled their image and Neveah could hear the guard leader making a rousing speech. “Even if we need to give our lives, we cannot allow the people of Sanctuary to come to harm. We are their shield, their armor. If this is the moment in which we pass to the next life, so be it! To provide the opportunity for the next generation to grow… that is my greatest wish.”

Twenty images wove themselves together, riding the powerful emotional steed of hope and selflessness. Some of the remaining dregs of Mae’s image, that which hadn’t yet been corrupted in her transformation, joined those images to form a massive blast rushing upward.

The valiant attempt crashed into the falling tree canopy… with as much effectiveness as a water balloon thrown at a brakeless car. Perhaps with the nudge of the Patron of Truth’s original experiment the strike would have deviated the falling tree, but not here. The underpinnings of the experiment were currently in flux, leaving these people weak and with poor instincts for how the world functioned.

They can’t ever leave, once they’ve embraced you, Mae. Neveah sighed. They are too far removed with the callous cause and effect of reality. Too used to the coddling nudges you offer to anyone who ‘deserves’ it…

Below, Neveah could sense Smart wrapping his arms around Quantas’s waist, who had previously just been standing next to the guards with an admiring gaze, and dragged his son toward the river. The frantic movements of the entire town fell in the shadow of the collapsing tree.

Neveah released a breath. The monstrous dragon Tiamat raised its head and roared in pleasure, feeding on the fear of the people below. It adjusted the angle of its wings and glided down to intercept the canopy. But Neveah took her time. Because as more and more of the sky above Sanctuary became the impending doom of the collapsing tree, the fear of the population skyrocketed.

A fear like this can be useful. It will help the people unlearn bad habits.

Sanctuary came face to face with its mortality and Neveah’s power grew. Whether they faced their fear and looked up defiantly or collapsed trembling on the ground, it didn’t matter. Her eyes glowed and the body of Tiamat swelled. It stretched out a taloned claw that resembled a long, muscled arm and plucked the canopy out of the air. Huge tree branches as long and thick as streams cracked and tumbled down, crashing through the roofs of some of the houses and destroying street stalls.

For a split second, the massive blossom of branches and carved wood hovered there, a few stray leaves fluttering down onto the fearful residents of Sanctuary. Then the cooing Mother of Fear tossed the death to the side.

The people looked up, their eyes wide, stinking of fear. Neveah paused and simply luxuriated in the sensation she felt, the timid expectation from those below, looking with dread up at the dark shadow that had spared them their faith.

Enduring fear is possible, but one threat always leads to another. Once fear has seized your heart, it makes a permanent home there.

But that presence is not without benefit.

Further musings on her image ceased when another portion of the massive tree crumbled and splintered. Mae Myrna’s body shot out of the debris and crashed into the ground. She bounced and tumbled under her body plunged into the fast-moving portion of the river. Elhume shot out a second later, making a beeline for her position.

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He passed through the area dominated by Neveah’s fear and just forced his own image to prominence with raw force.

However, the space between the two fighters gave the weaker party the chance to mobilize the energy she gathered. The shifted energy of Mae Myrna ripped its way out, soon infecting a massive stretch of the river with its hooked-edged substance. A serpent of water undulated its way up and opened up its wide mouth to meet Elhume. The grim-faced man didn’t do anything but throw another punch. He straightened, planted a foot in the air, and swung.

From this vantage, Neveah had a better opportunity to sense the difference in the current version of his image. Because suddenly, his image stretched out around the punch an impacted the very fabric of existence; his punch sucked the air out of the environment and left the victim in a void.

It was a punch that isolated with its power. To receive that attack was to simultaneously struggle against suffocation.

The punch reminded the snake it was just water, collapsing the body and leaving most of the houses along the river slapped with huge swathes of liquid. A Lizakh teen squealed as she was knocked off her feet, but soon scrambled back up. Elhume continued to accelerate forward. At the current moment, he remained the sort of fighter that relied on only a single honed attack to strike. But that didn’t make Neveah any less wary of him.

“Elhume!” Mae Myrna’s shoulders trembled as she glared at him.

“Mae.” Elhume’s lips barely moved; his jaw seemed locked in place. The muscles of his shoulders and arms flexed as he raised his hands and prepared to throw one more punch. Mae raised her hands and her energy swirled in front of her in an approximation of the shield, but her image simply couldn’t withstand the bludgeoning of his own. Maybe if the transformation had been completed for longer-

“Wait!” The Patron of the Deep flew downward to try and catch up to the conflict. “Elhume, we need to discuss-”

The Patron of Blades stepped in front of the Patron of the Deep and glared at him. “Why? Can you not feel the strange energy she has developed? No wonder Pine is being damaged by its presence. She breathes out poison, and drags innocents along for the ride.”

“I hardly would call this poison-” The Patron of the Deep huffed out with such force that his whole body shook, but Elhume hadn’t paused to acknowledge his words at all. Elhume and Mae, the two only had eyes for each other.

So far, Elhume since his first accusation, the only non-punch response he offered had been her name.

Mae’s lips were pulled back, locked into a rictus sneer. Her eyes blazed as her hands drifted back down from a defensive position to her sides. Neveah winced, seeing the way she still used her world-state image to forcefully suppress the wound on her soul. So the Mae Myrna seemed like a dead thing, her features stiff and hollow. Perhaps Elhume saw the same remorseless exterior and didn’t understand it was just a defense mechanism, because when the two moved close enough to embrace he just threw another punch.

This time, Neveah allowed Tiamat to raise its head and shriek with a more malicious goal in mind. Her image’s leathery wings forced themselves into the space between Elhume and Mae, muffling a portion of the blow. However, she was too distant and unable to quite rival the improved image of Elhume. Her image, even feasting on the fear of the people of Sanctuary, broke and faded under the opponent’s suppression. Elhume’s fist contacted Mae directly, cracking her ribcage and smashing Mae into the ground with blood leaking from her mouth.

Elhume finally paused in his offensive, glancing sideways at Neveah. “Why?”

From the harsh light in his eyes, he included the subtext: if you interfere again, you will be next.

Fear sang in Neveah’s veins as Elhume’s eyes bored into her. Yet she forced herself to straighten and meet his gaze. “You are acting like a bully, Elhume. And I don’t flinch in front of bullies. We can suppress her image without killing her.”

As his eyes narrowed and Elhume swiveled his hips, Neveah admitted to herself she should have seen this coming. And seeing the way he torqued his shoulder and waist to attack, she realized he had been holding back in his pursuit of Mae. Over the past few minutes, this emotionally stunted version of Elhume had proven to have very few other coping mechanisms with external stimuli.

Elhume punched, the same motion, just with a vehemence and disgust he hadn’t employed previously.

The void tightened around Neveah’s body, the less dramatic but ominously powerful new aspect to Elhume’s image. Her own fear only filled Tiamat with swelling power, so the massive dragon carrion spread its wings in firm rejection. Her image force exploded forward and clashed against the fist. She wore down its power, but Tiamat rapidly began to recede before the raw force of his image. Within the void, even fear vanished. It was the sort of death that ended in apathy.

The punch hit Neveah and forced her backward. She grunted but otherwise was none the worse for wear. Just like Randidly, her physical form could withstand quite a bit of abuse. Already, Elhume turned away. Because from the crater on the ground, Mae Myrna straightened and coughed.

The storm of significance roared in approval, the full weight of history gathered at this point. The memory began to stutter, so many forces laid on top of one another, the first signs of instability in quite a while. Great mechanisms of Nether moved behind the scenes, shifting suddenly into place. But Neveah was the only one who noticed, the rest of the actors were too busy pushing themselves off the cliff.

His eyes still empty of any emotion but determination, Elhume descended to face his Patron of Truth.

“This is highly reckless!” The Patron of the Deep tried to force his way past the Patron of Blades, but the other Patron restrained him. However, with the distraction of his resistance, another Patron could blur past and land in a heap next to Elhume and Mae.

The Patron of the Borrowed, Fiero looked desperately from one to the other. “Do you truly mean to kill her?”

“Yes,” came Elhume’s emotionless response. Mae pressed her hand to her chest, her breath coming out in a wheeze. Her eyes were bright and brittle, not even recognizing the threat in front of her. Stubbornness kept her upright while the rest of the focus funneled toward burying her own pain. She bared her teeth and they were slick with her own blood.

Neveah stirred as the significance yawned above the action… then split. The world shivered and then folded in response. Neveah felt a horrible mental pain as she witnessed another version of life being pressed over existence by a heavy hand of significance. It felt like a spike was being hammered between her eyes.

This has happened… before… Neveah had to squint to see through the pain and could barely make out the movements of significance. The world stuttered and tore slightly, those suddenly present mechanisms attempting to snap into place, but found an unaccounted-for detail propping them open.

It took a few seconds of stunned senselessness to realize the source of the problem: in the two versions of existence, the Patrons of Truth had different energies. In the other, she retained the pure version while this remained tainted. That difference… kept the hidden mechanisms from snapping closed in an overwhelming fold and allowed Neveah to peer into two realities.