Nether, the aspect of destruction. We are mortal, because we are subject to nether, intertwined into the matter that builds us. What is known, is that our souls are not of nether, that's why their nature is indestructible.

The souls, however, are not only malleable by other aspects, such as order, but their nature can be defined by an aspect. It's why, the structure of the soul, often defined by other aspects, is susceptible to the influence of nether, which degrades the soul into its primitive compounds, although – it still remains one disconnected system.

To comprehend the nature of nether, we will list study examples of its occurrences in the realms.

At first, there are seven end-tier spells related to nether, and its interaction with other aspects.

Deconstruction – a nether spell capable of reversing the order, that is relations of order between primitive compounds. The effect dissolves the subject into a mass of its quantum objects, which cease to interact with each other.

Zero-point Petrification – a spell which completely removes volatility of a chaotic system, rendering it as a pin-point frame of its temporary state

Dematerialization – removes the aspect of physicality, that is anything material that defines a system, incorporeal aspects remain untouched. It's a common source of ghastly structures.

Lobotomy – utterly destroys aspect of the psyche, rendering sapient or sentient systems inexistent, leaving only their external shell. Affected systems are often called zombie systems, because while they may function in physical or ethereal worlds, it's all a matter of embedded instincts or algorithms.

Infinity-point Petrification – the system becomes timeless and similar to zero-point petrification, becomes a pin-point frame of its temporary state, however, while zero-point petrification only affects the aspect of chaos, where by other aspects, such as order, mechanisms can change, in this case, the state of the system is immortalized completely

Limbo-transfer – the spatial nature of a system is removed, degrading it to a null-point embedded in a spaceless void, such object is still susceptible to its thinking processes and can interact with the external world, as long as its nature allows it. However, it can't be affected by spatial transformations, such as these of aspect of physicality, since it's nowhere to be found.

Disintegration – counter-force to the aether, that is, aspect of creation. Removes affected system from existence. Since it's believed that some sort of aether is required for any system to exist, many consider other invocations to be a subset of this spell.

While most of the spells can be combined, only the superset - disintegration is considered a heresy-tier spell and is the closest curse to what we can deem equivalent to full neutralization of a soul. The invocation is known – "What once was, shall never be".

Since it's believed that it's impossible to achieve a perfect rigorous approach during the casting of a spell, it might indicate that these spells, are susceptible to deformities and imperfections, which can be a starting point to deem the curse as reversible. Although, it's never a trivial matter, when compared simply to casting.

What examples of nether do we meet in nature?

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Death – all systems built upon nether are bound to degradation, which is a limit function of its nether-connected compounds. In our case, our body and mind decay, although the matter itself remains in a changed system. The leading hypothesis, is that it's nether acting on aspects of order, chaos, and psyche.

Curse – since degradation is a limit function, nether doesn't act purely and absolutely on aspects, unless the limit is zero. In such a case, what we may experience is some destabilization of the system, what we commonly call a curse. As an effect, in an example, our body and mind might cease to feel emotions, or fall in a state of permanent pain – of any kind.

Incorporeal transform – as mentioned in the note on dematerialization. Contrary to what was once believed, incorporeal entities are as susceptible to nether, that is death or curses, as any other. It's also a misconception that incorporeal entities are incapable of interacting with the external world, it all depends on their system. The study of incorporeal entities is a separate category, so we won't delve into details.

Monsters – it is commonly believed, that If the aspect of the nether is strongly intertwined into the psyche, it can lead to destructive behaviors. One of the leading theories about the nature of wild animals, is that their psyche is largely affected by nether, which is why their levels of sapience or sentience might appear lower than ours, contrary to the belief that it was an effect of evolution. That alternative theory, called devolution theory, replaces the belief that it's the complexity of order and psyche that defines us, but rather that levels of nether limit us. It was partially proven true, but in modern times, it's believed that the truth lies somewhere in between, which was also birth to a branch of arcane focused on the uplifting of species. It seems that it's not possible to uplift every species, but only those limited by nether, If the aspect is countered.

Nightmares – end-tier entities, formed of highly concentrated nether and often also chaos, they're beyond our understanding, but their nature appears to be similar to that of monsters, but on a way harder to comprehend scale. Their only instinct is to destroy and devour, and they possess immense capabilities to do so. The study of nightmares is deemed near impossible, but controversial pseudo-sciences such as the uplifting of nightmares still exist.

Nether singularities – objects that rarely form after the death of a star, as extreme and unstudied as nightmares, although they lack psyche aspect and are often highly ordered and extremely physical. Their capability to devour is greater than that of a monster, but since they lack intuition, we learned to avoid them.

Weapons – Anaari high-tier tech comes to mind, especially their rifles capable of razing entire cities. The highly-concentrated nether is separated in a shell parallel to a time-spatial anomaly, to keep it from interacting with the environment. Once the shell comes into contact with its target, the anomaly destabilizes and nether is let out, it bonds with the affected systems, leading to cascade effects. It is hypothesized that the purest of Anaari bullets were made from the matter of nether singularities. Although, impure alternatives exist, which require harvesting nether energy released from other systems. In ancient times, the sacrifices were the basis of nether-based spells, so I hope you came to a conclusion about what's necessary to build such a weapon, on your own.

Counter-magic – the answer to counter-magic, which is still an enigma, since a branch of anti-magic still exists, is nether. Spells, just like any system, are susceptible to nether and can die. All it takes is to understand the process of destruction of a spell. Not to confuse with anti-magic, which focuses on counter-acting the spell with its opposite. The one big thing about countermagic is a branch of counter-spelling nether spells, which is harder than counteracting against standard magic. You either require stronger a concentration of nether, which is inefficient, or to understand the underlying structure of the spell and strike its weak points.

The rupture – one of the hypotheses, is that the destruction of reality as we knew it was the result of a global-scale heresy and at some point, it had to be followed by global-scale aether anti-spell. To fully understand whether the hypotheses are correct, we have to study the background signals that are considered to be the last 'heartbeats' of soul remnants. It appears, the rupture, although definitely beyond the end-tier, was still an imperfect, non-rigorous cast, and that's why it's still possible to study these traces.

The void – it is believed that the void between matter is composed of minuscule and volatile highly nether-affected matter, but that's not the only type of void. Such void can exist in relation to any aspect and determining the outcomes will be left to more ambitious students, as a part of a separate study.

Spatial prisons, pocket dimensions – spatial prison is an advanced spell that establishes a new boundary between worlds, but often, such worlds can overlap, co-exist or interact. This matter is often solved by supplying the spell with nether, to construct a void or conduct a lesser limbo-transfer which allows some sort of spatial anomaly to exist in the limbo.

Rifts – in their purest forms, gates to the limbo - the world between worlds, are partial removal of boundary, what leads 'close' topology-equivalent limbos to connect. Do not confuse with portals and gates, which establish a spatial bridge between separate dimensions. Rifts deal with the limbo, portals are spatial connections. What is it like inside a limbo? Don't ask me, it usually concerns non-spatial entities. All I know, is that like with all the other things, it's hard to find a perfect limbo, so you might find construct such as endless voids, which due to relativity of scale, minimize the limbo-transferred object to an equivalent of a point. Yes, it's weird, but it very often – but not always - works like that.

That concludes the first meeting on the theory of nether. As homework and a mental exercise, please include three new examples of systems affected by nether.