Vhal Corren drew his sword.
The blade flickered.
Then he stood in two places.
Sorrow's eyes narrowed.
Reality stuttered.
Vhal appeared directly in front of her.
His sword crossed her throat.
Sorrow stepped aside.
Both things happened.
A line of blood appeared across her neck.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Five of Sorrow's Generals immediately reached for their weapons.
Sorrow raised one hand.
Sorrow said, "Stay where you are."
The Generals stopped.
Vhal smiled.
Vhal said, "Good decision."
He moved again.
Sorrow watched more carefully this time.
Vhal did not duplicate himself.
He did not create alternate timelines.
He did something considerably more irritating.
When a normal person acted, reality immediately decided what had happened.
A strike landed or missed.
A person moved left or right.
A wound existed or it did not.
Vhal's Chaotic Energy disrupted that decision.
For the briefest interval, reality lost the ability to settle on a conclusion.
It became overwhelmed with incompatible answers.
Vhal exploited that hesitation.
Three versions of his sword appeared around Sorrow.
One missed.
One struck her shoulder.
One had never been swung.
Reality attempted to choose.
Vhal selected the second.
Blood burst from Sorrow's shoulder.
Vhal said, "Reality isn't intelligent."
He walked slowly around her.
Vhal continued, "It's orderly."
His Chaotic Energy crawled over his body in fractured crimson lines.
Vhal said, "Give it enough incompatible information at once and it starts to stutter."
Sorrow touched the wound.
Vhal smiled.
Vhal said, "When it does, I choose which answer survives."
Karma watched from his throne.
Karma said, "He's very proud of that."
Vhal glanced toward him.
Vhal said, "You appointed me because of it."
Karma replied, "I appointed you because the other candidate annoyed me."
Vhal's expression tightened.
Sorrow almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Vhal attacked.
His body fractured across the battlefield.
Not clones.
Possibilities.
In one, he attacked from above.
In another, from behind.
In another, he remained completely still and Sorrow somehow already possessed a wound across her stomach.
Reality shuddered beneath the pressure of contradictory outcomes.
Sorrow blocked the attack above her.
The one behind her landed.
Her coat split.
Vhal immediately selected that result.
Sorrow turned.
Vhal was already elsewhere.
Then she noticed his foot.
It had entered her shadow.
Sorrow looked down.
Vhal noticed.
Sorrow said, "Take another step."
Vhal laughed.
Vhal stepped.
His forward foot moved.
His rear foot did not.
His body jerked violently.
Vhal looked down.
Nothing held him.
No force restrained his leg.
His next step simply failed to occur.
Vhal frowned.
He pushed Chaotic Energy through the contradiction.
Reality stuttered.
A second Vhal appeared three meters away.
In that outcome, he had already escaped.
Sorrow's shadow stretched.
It touched the alternate Vhal's foot.
That version stopped too.
Vhal's expression changed.
Sorrow said, "You make reality indecisive."
Vhal remained silent.
Sorrow continued, "I make it grieve."
Vhal's eyes narrowed.
Sorrow stepped forward.
Her shadow moved with her.
Sorrow said, "Grief is not sadness."
The darkness beneath Vhal deepened.
Sorrow continued, "Sadness is emotion."
Vhal attempted another outcome.
His wounded shoulder became unwounded.
His position changed.
The sword returned to his hand after he had already thrown it.
Reality tried to preserve all three possibilities.
Sorrow's shadow reached one.
It vanished.
Not destroyed.
Finished.
Sorrow said, "Grief is acknowledgment."
Another possibility disappeared.
Sorrow said, "Something existed."
Another disappeared.
Sorrow said, "Then it was lost."
Vhal's unwounded state flickered.
Sorrow looked directly at it.
Sorrow said, "And reality learned to continue without it."
The unwounded possibility disappeared.
The injury returned.
Vhal staggered.
For the first time, confusion crossed his face.
Vhal forced more Chaotic Energy outward.
Ten versions of himself appeared.
Then fifty.
Then hundreds.
Different attacks.
Different injuries.
Different positions.
Some victorious.
Some dying.
Some never having entered the fight at all.
The battlefield trembled beneath the contradiction.
Vhal shouted, "Pick one."
Sorrow looked around.
Sorrow replied, "I don't need to."
Her shadow widened.
One Vhal disappeared.
Then another.
Then five.
Then twenty.
Every possibility Sorrow touched stopped being an available future.
Reality did not treat them as destroyed possibilities.
It treated them as lost possibilities.
Things that had once been possible.
Things that now belonged to the past.
Vhal selected another healthy state.
Sorrow said, "Mourn it."
Gone.
Vhal selected a version where his ribs had never broken.
Sorrow said, "Mourn it."
Gone.
He selected another where Sorrow's earlier attack had missed entirely.
Sorrow said, "Mourn it."
Gone.
Vhal's breathing became faster.
Old injuries began returning.
His armor darkened beneath the chest plate.
Blood leaked through the seams.
His left knee collapsed inward with a wet crack.
Vhal growled and forced himself upright.
A wound appeared beneath his right eye.
Another opened across his stomach.
His armor filled with blood as every discarded consequence found itself attached to the only Vhal still permitted to continue.
One of Sorrow's Generals whispered, "She's collapsing his superposition."
Another General corrected him.
The General said, "No."
The first General looked toward him.
The second General stared at Sorrow.
The General said, "She's making reality mourn every version where he survives."
Vhal dropped to one knee.
His right eye filled entirely with red.
He tried standing.
His foot entered the shadow beneath him.
Sorrow watched him struggle.
Vhal forced his leg forward.
Sorrow said, "You lost that step."
His foot stopped.
Vhal's face twisted.
He inhaled sharply.
Sorrow said, "And the next breath."
His chest expanded.
Nothing entered his lungs.
Vhal's remaining eye widened.
He clawed at his throat.
There was no blockage.
No injury.
No attack.
The continuation from exhale to inhale had simply been mourned.
Vhal fell forward.
His fingers twitched once.
Then stopped.
Sorrow watched his body for several seconds.
There was no satisfaction on her face.
Sorrow said, "I gave him the opportunity to stop."
Karma leaned forward in his throne.
Karma replied, "He would've hated you if he had."
Sorrow looked toward him.
Karma smiled.
Then Karma pointed toward his remaining General.
He said, "Irix."