Much as my mind wanted to argue that providence and another lesser hand had provided in this, that the Severance and Light made him uniquely suited to demonslaying, I knew those whispers for what they were – a tinge of fear and dismay. Behind them was the knowledge that, right now, the one trick I had that might still be able to curb him was beyond my reach: now that the emergency wards had come on, I could no longer try to gate the hero to his demise. The Saint could cut gates, I thought. So would it even be enough if I could still use them?

- Book 6, Chapter 25: Sanitize

“I believe,” Hierophant murmured, “that he is opening a Greater Breach.”

...

The last time the Dead King had opened a Greater Breach, he’d blighted most of the Kingdom of the Dead doing it. It was the reason the phenomenon was known as Keter’s Due in the first place.

“I can’t be sure,” Masego admitted. “Perhaps as far as the defence line to the south?”

That was, I thought, perhaps nine tenths of Hainaut that he had described. Made into a howling wasteland by the spell ahead of us, those spinning circles whose rotations were beginning to quicken. My bloody hand left the staff and I looked down at it, feeling numb. This was… Tariq had died for this, and a blighted Hainaut with a permanent hellgate in the middle was what would be achieved?

...

The world went still, for a terrible moment, and then the storm exploded outwards. Even with all the Night I could spare holding me down and the guidance of Sve Noc, I still fell down on one knee. The power was blinding, staggering, and I could feel it sink into the earth as well as the air. Whether it lasted for moments or hours I could not tell, my body and mind bitterly arguing what was true and false, but eventually the storm passed. It left behind only a perfect circle of runes hanging in the air, a perfect gate into some distant Hell.

...

Her gaze followed my own, coming to rest on the Hellgate.

“It is oddly beautiful,” Akua Sahelian said, “for such a terrible thing.”

I didn’t answer. The Severance, I thought, might destroy such a gate.

- Book 6, Chapter 78: Keter's Due