“It is truly astounding,” The Scythe whispered into the Prophet’s ear. “How the timing of these two events once more has fallen into alignment, despite the many deviations along the way. It is almost as if… your fears have been completely unfounded. Every step beyond the prophecy you have taken… has been superfluous.

“Heh. I suppose all sins are superfluous, aren’t they?”

The Prophet kept his growing disgust for the hunched and shadowy form of the Scythe from showing on his face. His eye-mouths twitched, but that was all the reaction he displayed. Disappointed, the Scythe prowled away.

Not that the Scythe truly cared about the deviations from the prophecy; that was the great contradiction of the Scythe, it must exist within the Cult of the Savior, without being bogged down by sentimentality. When part of the flesh needed to be removed, it was an impartial butcher.

And its words now were designed to inflict pain. They definitely had, considering the way the Prophet’s actions over the past few weeks wandered away from the light and into unknown territory. Doubt plagued his every step.

Yet no one else seemed to recognize the threat to the light that this incursion could represent. Allowing information to the superiors of Nether King Hungry Eye felt like an obvious liability.

Which then sent the Prophet’s mind spinning down the rabbit hole of wondering whether he only thought that because he had so long been deprived of the light he didn’t remember the invulnerability of its radiance-

The Prophet narrowed the bulging eye hanging from its chin. Do not let your attention wander. Enough of that has happened. Now witness, the beauty of the Prophecy.

In front of him the shallow stone bowl filled with water rippled and he witnessed events knitting themselves into the future predicted by the light of El-Kedec.

After receiving the careful instructions from the Cult of the Savior, Elhume had asked why they the Prophet had been so detailed. IN response, the Prophet had smiled. “I had assumed… we are aware that you are working with us because both intend for the safety of Pine… but you would be more comfortable with us not present for the process of introducing the Hierarchy of Equivalence into the universe. But if you need assistance-”

“No, I will be fine,” Elhume had closed his eyes and turned away. “The important portion is connecting with the correct… Schema Coelom, yes? And pulling the proper idea. I can manage it.”

In the present, the Prophet observed Elhume with his glowing eye as he proceeded through the ritual. Based on Nether principles, the ritual opened up a small door to the deeper realm, through which the fabric of universal law moved. The true source of El-Kedec existed in that place and even thinking about it filled the Prophet with longing.

But right now, the Prophet would accept this obvious invitation. The Prophet’s attention shifted and the depiction on the water’s surface shifted. To the Northeast, the frazzled and exhausted Mae Myrna dragged her fingers in sharp lines across the walls and floor of a stone room, carving out furrows. Her eyes were bloodshot; she hadn’t slept since the confrontation between herself and Elhume.

Already, her energy began flowing through the patterns carved into the room. Being so casually dismantled by Nether King Hungry Eye had taught her a lesson, but she had doubled down on this path, just as the Prophecy had predicted. Her fingers twitched when she didn’t use them to carve, but they didn’t possess the slightest tremor during the work.

She took the lessons imparted by the Nether King, advancing by leaps and bounds, much faster than predicted. But the Prophet supposed that those same ripples released by the interloper had propelled Elhume to power more quickly. Already, the fist-user’s image crackled with a vast emptiness that made the Prophet’s hands tingle. They grew close to the point that the pieces they played with grew powerful enough to throw off their yoke, should they become aware of it.

A thought popped into the Prophet’s head. Perhaps then the Prophecies of El-Kedec are not the product of an awareness that reaches every corner of the universe, but of a sort of pinning. This particular series of events were not foreseen, but due to the influence of the Prophecy, Elhume and Mae Myrna were bound together.

Instantly, the Prophet’s eye mouths opened in abject horror. It flinched, expecting an immediate sense of loss and condemnation from within; after all, to doubt the omnipresence of the holy light was sacrilege.

No hammer of judgment descended. The environment didn’t shift, the Prophet’s own connection to the holy light, reduced to a feeble warmth in its chest without its pure radiance in the Schema Coelom, remained inert. Rather sightlessly, it just remained hunched and observed Mae’s obsessive efforts.

The lack of response only made the Prophet sweat. Because did nothing result from the sacrilegious thought because the strange reproductive nature of their current existence shielded them from El-Kedec’s true light, or because-

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No more. The Prophet exercised its will and suppressed any further thought. It sat back to observe, attention flicking between the two individuals.

Mae Myrna remained in constant motion for the next two hours, a woman possessed. Each detail cut into the stone room gave her energy structure, her world state once more beginning to flow. She muttered to herself constantly, small noises that the Prophet didn’t bother to examine, able to see the jittery movements of her mind just from how she structured to room.

With a better foundation in the room for her image of the world, the energy began to seep outward. Once more the city where she had based herself fell under its sway. But this time, the influence spread out more rapidly. The landscape fell quickly, already used to brief moments of spatial inconvenience that would be forgotten, if an individual needed to be somewhere at a precise time. The weather turned alternatively gorgeous and murky, to designate which moments were worth observing and relishing versus those that just needed to be glossed over.

The few Nether Warriors that hadn’t fled immediately when the narrative grip on them weakened fell once more under Mae Myrna’s thrall. This, finally, distracted the Prophet and made both of its eye mouths sneer; truly, the beings of the Nexus needed a thorough cleansing of El-Kedec’s light.

Just as you do, The Prophet’s own inner voice whispered.

On Elhume’s side, he followed the instructions perfectly. He sat in the middle of the arcane runes, his energy flowing along their length and animating the underlying principles of reality. Even through the reinforced scrying technique, the vision of Elhume became wavy and disturbed as the energy did its work.

Yet Elhume simply waited. He had to focus on the principles of equilibrium described by the Prophet. He pictured the shape, the body chosen to represent this particular concept within the Schema Coelom.

The Scythe had smirked and cackled and suggested that the Prophet provide the incorrect description, leading Elhume to drag some invasive horror out of the Schema Coelom, but the Prophet had provided the correct instruction.

Even though it knew the attempt would not succeed; per the Prophecy, the Hierarchy of Equivalence would not exist within the Nexus.

The influence of Mae Myrna bounded outward in every direction, quickly eating up the surrounding land. Due to the blazing offensive of the Nether in that region, most of the population had already been killed or forced to Mae Myrna’s side anyway. Her world state image now devoured the remnants, swelling to cover an area almost double the size of her original little kingdom, but only increasing the population by about 15%.

Then, because it wasn’t just insights about patterns she had taken from Nether King Hungry Eye, she ceased the expansion. The rotation of her energy turned inward, cycling through her demesne. Each passage of the energy strengthened its grip. In addition, the focused Mae added quite a bit to her pattern that entrenched it into the ground.

It would not easily expand beyond this area, but in exchange, it would be very difficult for other forces to invade and attack her until she had finished her preparations.

The Prophet pivoted back to Elhume, fishing out into the Schema Coelom for the proper Hierarchy.

Normally, the relatively modest area, perhaps now a twentieth of the total Aetherlands, would not have much of an impact on the process of acquiring a Hierarchy. The Prophet straightened slightly, feeling Mae Myrna’s image reinforcing itself, and therefore exerting a larger influence on the Universal. Its existence gathered enough pull to drag more of the universe soul into alignment.

The Cult of the Savior had carefully pruned for this moment over the course of two hundred years.

The whole of the current Nexus was about nine parts Nether to one part Aether. But in the universe soul, both were represented equally. So this small bubble Mae created and cut off from the world became grossly overrepresented. Simultaneously, another piece had developed far earlier than expected, without any assistance from the Cult of the Savior, spreading the technique with abandon.

Each time an Aether being created one of Cerulean’s ‘Fates’, what they really did was cut back out their contribution to the universe soul, weakening it further. To fill that space, what choice did Pine have but turn to the solid, if warping, Mae Myrna?

The Prophet snickered. Finally, Elhume found the proper target within that horrid gulf of the spiritual abyss, so many poisoned shapes trying to smother El-Kedec’s light. He pulled, dragging a little bit of that influence into the Nexus. The whole isolated universe shook as the principle tried to squeeze its way into their little corner of existence.

It passed through the universe soul, Pine exhausted and tainted by Mae Myrna, and trembled. It reacted to the energies present in the universe… and shifted.

The Hierarchy of Equivalence entered through the other side of the portal and the Hierarchy of Karma popped out the other side, affected by its new environment. It came into existence as a crystal chalice, not large enough to serve a drink, with a stem so thin it looked as though it could snap with just two fingers.

The Hierarchy released a soft radiance, its influence percolating out through existence and settling across the Nexus.

When Elhume smiled, he looked young. “With this, Pine…!”

The problems began when he reached out to touch the Hierarchy.

At the point his fingers brushed against the chalice, little motes of energy exploded outward like a kicked dandelion. Blinking in surprise, Elhume swiped his hand ineffectually through the new light. When it finally began to dissipate, his eyes widened to see the chalice now missed several large chunks, with more breaking off and flaking away every second.

“What?” Elhume’s hand snaked outward. He touched the chalice and it exploded, vanishing before he could even take advantage of the tainted tool he had pulled into the Nexus.

The Prophet could hear the wet sound of Scythe licking his lips. A newly arrived Hierarchy always came through the universe core, but would immediately be pulled toward the individual who most epitomized it.