Chapter 63: Advisory Three, Written by My Own Hand for the Edification of My Beloved Ones, the Denizens of Machrae Diir, Regarding Phase-Dueling
Demon Queen of the Deep Ways by Ashenvein_Gate
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  1. Phase-dueling is a contest of paramount cruelty. You and your opponent merge your entire self-conceptions into reality. Every technique, every revelation that grew the insight to manifest that technique in you, is the culmination of months, years, even decades of life, growth, and soul-mutation. In the phase-duel you twist every single thing your opponent does into a testament to your glory.
  2. "I am stronger than you" is a pointless assertion, an empty conceptual flail. If you feel that you must present this idea to win, then your defeat is already inevitable. Techniques and manifest abilities are not separable from strength, from power: they are its very essence.
  3. Things that are foolish to tell the enemy can hold the seeds of things that are vital to tell yourself. "I am stronger than you" is foolish. It places your power within the enemy's power to affirm or deny by their reaction. "I will be strong" is what you must believe, always.
  4. You may use mathematical constructs to phase-duel if you so desire. Use art, science, metaphor, music, I don't give a damn, just be fucking good at it and expect the same from your enemy. We grow towards what we measure ourselves by. Never measure yourself by mediocrity.
  5. If any component of this list feels a little too close to home, it's absolutely because I've been studying people who say the same things you do. Dissecting them in my mind. Phase-dueling is always extremely personal... but this is just restating #1.
  6. redux: Separate modes of action from emotional state. "Cruelty" is a mode of action. Cruelty may be committed with a grimace, with a smile, with tears in your eyes, yet it remains cruelty. The optimum balance for a phase-duelist is the aspect of a mutually-toxic relationship: You must be full of insane, drooling, furious glee at playing your part in the spectacle of two people tearing each other apart.
    (If you are unable to conceive of yourself as a person, you may find phase-dueling difficult.)
  1. Never trust conditional revelations. "I am skilled" is what we call a finite absolute: you conceive of yourself as skilled without making your identity dependent on an external hierarchy of skill. "I am more skilled than X" means that your skill loses some of its essence the instant X ceases to exist.
  2. Negation is the worst power. It exists only through the mirror of the very thing it tries to erase. It's inefficient and causes massive power waste. So of course, you should always try it first. If you can completely turn off someone's powers, they're not worth your time.
  3. Always be aware of the implications your own techniques have for you. If you are flesh, anything you do to a foe's flesh can be done also to yours. If you can love, any way that you twist your enemy's love against them can also twist yours.
    In short, become a sadomasochist.
  1. Remember that phase-dueling is not, inherently, a negation. You do not fight to end your enemy's story. You fight to keep your own story going. This is the only real reason villains generally lose to heroes. Most villains lack stories of their own to tell.
  2. The heart of phase-dueling is not in finding one sound principle and making it work in your favor, but making EVERY sound principle work in your favor with every single technique you manifest. Thus, by my own definition, I am still many millennia from mastering it.
    Closing: I will not tell you all the techniques I have devised by very virtue of the fact that they are mine. You'll feel their power, be tempted to copy them, and in a few years' time find yourself trance-walking to the ADS for me to assimilate you.
    Fun idea! Wrong advisory!
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