Chapter 64: Chapter 65: Advisory Four, Written by My Own Hand for the Edification of My Beloved Ones, etc., Further Exploring Phase-dueling

1. As in all other uses of the deep power, the heart of phase-dueling is existential weight. There is Absolute Existential Weight (AEW), and Relative Existential Weight (REW.) These are the same in principle as MTP and EMP (See Advisory #2, Regarding the Deep Power), but in phase-dueling you must regard them as a kind of weight.
2. AEW is impossible to ever measure. You understand? This thing cannot be done. Numbers, words, even the outcomes of phase-dueling itself only measure REW within the internal continuum of the forces working with or in opposition to each other. There are universes where a farmer invests more weight into a single swing of her harvest-scythe than the creator-gods of other universes can muster for the whole cyclical creation, destruction, and rebirth of all things.
   There is more to this than the weakness of a closed cycle.
   The farmer might number among the weakest beings of all her universe. She might go all her days knowing this, yet be so far above the god that she does not even notice when the god tries to enter her reality and is annihilated by the sheer density of her presence.

3. Now you know why every skilled phase-duelist lives in constant terror. Violent power is no path to comfort. Violent power is a path to violent power. Nothing else is certain. All phase-dueling techniques are, in the end, a matter of impressing your weight upon your enemies. A wound is a wedge of your person you make into your enemy's form. In being able to make the wound, you make them feel your weight.
   Trauma is a wedge of your person you make into your enemy's soul.
   It is, in truth, just another form of wound.

4. When you push your weight into another, you will feel theirs echoing back into all the weight you touch them with. Until this moment, you'll never know whether or not you can survive the return pressure. Phase-dueling is an art of learning the enemy before committing. Touch with just a low-weighted piece, and only that piece will be destroyed if the return force is too great--but of course, it's more likely to be destroyed the less you weight it. Astral projection is really just a safer way to gauge the weight of other universes.
5. Those who know the deep power know that there is no permanent ruin. Annihilation itself has a shape to it. The obliterated pieces of you will be reborn, stronger. Phase-duelists know this is true of everyone, so it's not such an advantage.
   And it still fucking hurts.

6. Concept-spaces such as the acausal morass, the works of fiction you write, and your own dreams are zero-weight environments. Your power there is effectively infinite, and the only things holding you back from accomplishing anything you desire are the places within where your essence is divided against itself. Zero-weight environments are good for determining whether something can be done (always yes), and getting a better idea of how to do it. They are useless for telling you whether you are actually powerful enough to do it.
7. I have written that in a clash between two deep powers, the greater will always triumph. This is true. But it speaks to Effective Manifest Power, not the Maximum Theoretical. Therefore in phase-dueling, you must always contemplate these points:
   

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   -How to control your sense of your own weight (this raises or lowers your EMP, as needed for decisive strikes and feints or evasion respectively)
   -How to keep your weighted pieces where your foe cannot wound them (this stops them harming your MTP, which is, of course, you)
   -How to wound your foe's weighted pieces (this will drive most of your techniques, but little of your tactics)
   -How to control your opponent's sense of their weight. Be wary of this. They are the weight you measure yourself against. Diminishing them may diminish you also.

8. If you believe thinking in combat will make you act too slowly, then you are already far too slow for combat, and further, you probably don't understand what thinking is. If you cannot think with your perceptions and your instincts, you will never become a phase-duelist.
9. Victory is a lie. Victory is the enemy of the phase-duelist. Victory does not exist.
   Challenge is where glory lies. Challenge is your salvation. Therefore, never refuse to witness the weight of a technique your opponent touches you with. Once the wound is made it lies within you and is part of you. If you refuse to recognize it then you refuse to recognize part of yourself. Your soul will fission. All phase-duels end with a death spiral. If you fission to avoid admitting touches, you'll spiral oh so swiftly.

10. You may think and feel whatever you want about those you choose to fight. Once you choose to destroy someone, there is one thing you must never let yourself feel, and that is compassion. Compassion is nurturing, slaughter's antithesis. There will always be exactly enough of you to match yourself. If you try to feel compassion for a being you are working to end, you will grind yourself to oblivion in the paradox.
    Respect, love, lust, envy, hatred, disappointment, fear--all these, yes. But never compassion.

These are the final principles I will write of the phase-duel. About my insights, my techniques and skills and powers, there are a thousand and more things I could write. But all the core of the art is open to you in the words I have given already.

Wield it or not, as you will.

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