Lowanna the Nether Arbiter felt exhausted. Doubly so as Nether King Hungry Eye appeared before her with deep bags under his eyes but a wild grin like the two of them were committing some eldritch taboo together, by labeling Nether connections.

And what made her heart ache was… he was probably correct.

Before she could respond, Enmya snorted. He had been releasing heavy sighs and pacing for a while now, waiting for an opportunity to vent some of his frustrations; Hungry Eye’s presence was exactly the excuse he needed. “Leave, untethered Nether King. Before my patience comes to an end. Your interference will no longer—”

“Enmya,” Lowanna huffed out her words. Her long-time companion might want to lash out, but they couldn’t afford the distraction. Her fingers twitched like the legs of an idle centipede. “Do not interfere. It is true that Nether King Hungry Eye and I have much to discuss… for example, why he has so thoroughly tried to mar this world with his energies. In addition, what thickening barrier have you erected around us?”

Lowanna’s eyes flicked to patterns in the sky that arced toward the horizon. She could see them replicating and strengthening themselves, even as she watched. Beyond them, parts of the Nexus suddenly lay dangerously. Of course, she also sensed the strange presence of… another reality creeping closer. So much of the bedrock of existence that she had taken for granted now seemed in flux. The efforts of Hungry Eye appeared to be foiling that encroaching force, but she wished to understand why one-third of the Nexus needed to be tossed away.

“I mean, you have to admit, all my tempestuous capabilities really were much ado about nothing,” Hungry Eye shrugged, still with that crooked grin on his face. “But that new barrier, well. We started a process to turn this… into a Dungeon. The very same sort of zone that Westrisser constructs. Only this new Dungeon is attached to my reality. Congratulations: you will soon experience the distant and modern reverberations from this war, if you wish to know your fate.”

Lowanna’s extremities felt cold. Both the strange, disapproving gaze of Deganawidah and the open hostility and worry from Enmya weighed heavily on her. She wanted to be able to physically pick up their attentions and shred them into little scraps of paper. Because she could not, she focused all of her antagonism on Hungry Eye. “You’ve made so many claims. You’ve shown me much, and I can feel your belief in what you say, but you’ve also asked me for a monstrous sin against my people. Against all the innocents I— those I spend every second of my days trying to protect—”

For a moment, the mundane, acidic emotions that she couldn’t avoid developing choked Lowanna to silence. Into that opening, Hungry Eye spoke with a soft voice. “We discussed a balance, a return to the true equilibrium of utilizing all three bonds across a single people. Without this unity-”

“Sacrilege and stupidity,” Deganawidah hissed.

Hungry Eye shook his head, even while the sounds of fighting behind him grew louder; the agents of the Cult of the Savior drew closer to their location. “I know what I’m asking of you. But there is no other choice. Specificity brings with it drawbacks, but also great strengths.”

“How convenient for you, that you stand to benefit so much from these strengths, while you bare so little of the drawbacks.” Her fingers twitched. Lowanna found she didn’t really care anymore. Too much buzzed around her head. Too many emotions clouded her vision. She had held back for so long.

And against this man, she need not pull her punches.

So she raised her hands, a grin similar to Hungry Eye’s own springing into existence across her face. “I do have an answer for you, Nether King. But I will not give it freely. Show me you truly understand Nether well enough to best me. One last duel, with everything on the line. If you win, I will provide your answer. If you do not…”

Randidly glanced behind him. Then he looked forward. In real-time, Lowanna could see his aura sharpening. Despite how meager the reserves Nether King possessed based on the strain wrapped around his body, he whittled that down to a razor point. He hefted that mental blade with its edge aimed at her heart. His smile widened. “A challenge it is.”

Neither wasted any time. Lowanna liberated the ambient Nether she could control, the energy that oozed up from the cursed mass of power she possessed, holding the lives of her entire people. Her energy and Hungry Eye’s rushed toward each other, focused blasts of significance.

From their earlier duels, Lowanna understood the way Hungry Eye wielded his energy. From her repeated victories over him, he had learned not to engage her directly; in terms of significance, she possessed a definite edge. Yet now, his force slithered forward to directly clash with her assault. Waves of force crashed and broke against one another, the two flows mixing and sizzling with antagonism. But the lack of subterfuge instantly made her wary, even through her own emotional exhaustion.

Which is why she noticed the strange forcefield conjured across her own Nether as it moved forward, restraining her significance just enough that his could thrash and force her back.

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“What…?” Lowanna’s eyes widened, even as Hungry Eye’s energy swung around her own and shot toward her body. He seemed to be aiming for a quick victory. “You can… manipulate time?”

Hungry Eye flashed a new, wolfish grin. But Lowanna just shook her head sadly and skimmed more energy into the significance she utilized. Because in the end, time could be considered connected to all things. It possessed its own unique Nether bond, but she was the Nether Arbiter. So when she focused her mind and characterized the bond with her as the service-oriented Toosah—

The strange barrier vanished. Time bowed before her ponderous presence. Lowanna’s significance crashed sideways in Hungry Eye’s gambit and the two roiled and wrestled. Their patterns began grinding against one another.

The point of conflict between them swirled around a point two-thirds of the way between him and her, but there it stopped. Hungry Eye whistled, not at all disappointed his advantage had been instantly obliterated. “How sharp.”

The battlefield had been selected and now came the melee to seize the field. Once Lowanna identified the patterns that Hungry Eye utilized, she began to calm down. He had improved a ridiculous amount since they had last sparred in this manner, his Nether becoming thick and stubborn. However, it could not bridge the gap in experience between a Nether King who grew up away from his people and the Nether Arbiter.

When she found flaws in his patterns, she ripped through the flaws-

And then blinked when Hungry Eye’s energy didn’t dissipate. If anything, it used her strike to break into smaller patterns, oozed forward closer to Lowanna herself, then reform into a cohesive whole. Her own significance needed to swim around and restart its patterns once more. She could feel even Deganawidah still as they observed the determination of his energy.

Feeling the first stirrings of panic as the conflict kept hopping a few steps closer, Lowanna brought her significance around and attempted to crush Hungry Eye’s power. Yet again, her strikes pulped and broke the energy down and it reformed a second later, without losing any of its potency.

Next to her, Deganawidah grunted. “Fascinating. You cannot match the Arbiter for power, so you make up for it in ingenuity. Thin threads of your densest, most refined significance, sewn through the heart of your attack suture your offensive together. When she shatters your armies, you pull at the inert threads and assemble them again once more as though no harm had been inflicted.”

Hungry Eye at least grimaced at this reveal. Lowanna felt torn between annoyance that she needed the Nether Monster’s help and a sense of relief; Hungry Eye’s techniques had become more sophisticated at a rate that left her shocked. Yet she fought now to prevent him from forcing her hand in this manner.

The Nether people did not need to be any more encumbered than they already were.

Her eyes narrowed. Her Nether sharpened into a blade and homed in on the critical threat. In the end, so long as she cut this thread-

Her significance roared and pounced once it found that point. The gleaming woven core to Hungry Eye’s assault, which allowed him to achieve so much more success than he had in the past, couldn’t be repositioned. If he attempted to dodge her attack, his whole offensive would collapse and the Nether King would have failed. She wouldn’t need to vocalize and name this horrid truth she had encountered.

She could steamroll his remnant significance and smash her energy against him, winning the impromptu challenge.

All her deepest wishes flowed through the inky-black wave of Nether. She rejected this pattern. She lashed out. The two significances smashed against each other.

I will not allow you to do this, Her eyes simmered as she looked at Nether King Hungry Eye, so close physically, wreathed in his resilient Nether. But at the moment that their two powers clashed, he smiled.

She felt the difference immediately in his Nether, although it took a bit longer for her to understand the sensation. The density hadn’t changed that much since their previous clashes. His methodology had evolved, which deserved praise, but it wasn’t to the point that Lowanna wouldn’t be able to overcome it. No, it was the depth of his significance that suddenly became overwhelmingly clear.

She came with blades and his core threads turned out to be woven steel.

The ground beneath the impact point shattered, spraying bits of stone. The Nether of Hungry Eye rebuffed her sharpened significance after a long moment of strain. It seemed to snort in derision at her attempt; it clearly announced that it had been struggling against the oppressive of impossibility, while her Nether had engaged in no such trials. As such, it possessed an edge she didn’t expect.

With her attack rebuffed, Hungry Eye had a moment he didn’t waste. He stepped forward, his Nether reforming and cutting through her briefly disorganized defenses. Lowanna’s eyes widened as his Nether curled away, a hair away from impacting her directly.

Had that strike landed, her body would have likely drawn on the forbidden powers instinctively.

“It is my win,” Hungry Eye said. When Lowanna could only stand and stare at him, unable to understand where that last bit of invulnerability had been born, he patted her shoulder. “You spend too much time respecting the forbidden.”

“And you transgress too freely. It…” The Nether Arbiter sighed out the words. All the tension left her body. She sat on the ground and began to tremble. She looked up at him. “You truly wish for this to be said?”

Hungry Eye nodded. The movement did not come easily. She could see the pressure on his shoulders as he assented. He understood.

For her, that sense of gravity was enough. Lowanna huffed, still surprised she had lost. “It is not a complicated truth. It cannot be if it is to unify all Nether Bonds. But we have always known this was the case, haven’t we? Otherwise, why would the first measure we take of our power be its Weight?

“Because for Nether beings… to be touched by another is to be burdened. All connections become restrictions. As we exist, we grow heavier every moment.”