Keter's explanation of Malkuth's power

“Malkuth,” I said. “Or whatever his real name is. What’s his power?”

If the Light Elemental was surprised or put off by the sudden change in topic, he didn’t show it. Instead, he simple answered.

“He is Malkuth, the Kingdom,” He replied. “And it is he who makes the rules of this world.”

Well, I thought. That was fucking ominous.

Also, vague as hell. Putting aside the chill of intelligent fear that swept through me, I pondered the implications and quickly decided that it could mean any number of things. Given what I knew of my enemy—of Malkuth, as I knew him now—it seemed fairly safe to assume the worst, but even that could have meant anything from a massively supped up version of Albus’s Semblance to straight-up reality warping. Either way, it would no doubt be a terrifying thing to face, but I liked to know precisely how screwed I was.

And, I reminded myself firmly when that did little to assuage my fear, whatever his power was, it obviously had limits. Everything did, after all, and if he was an exception there’d be no point to playing this game of secrets and lies; if he could think hard and simply make his will truth, then logically he should have won by now.

I paused at that thought, frowning slightly as noticed the flaw in my logic.

He should have won completely, I corrected. Even if the Grimm ruled the world, he didn’t have everything he wanted and couldn’t just stomp all over things to take it. There had to be a reason for that.

“I need specifics,” I stated, tilting my head at the Elemental. “If we’re both Archangels, do our powers work similarly?”

“No,” The Elemental stated. “We are different in many ways. We were made for different purposes and our paths have only diverged from there. But even so, he is still the Kingdom.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “You’ve mentioned that he’s the Kingdom, but what is the Kingdom?”

“The Kingdom is this,” He replied, but instead of gesturing to indicate anything, he stood utterly still. “Everything you’ve ever seen, everything you’ve ever known, is Malkuth. The Kingdom is the physical realm.”

“I thought the Sephirot were parts of the soul?” I wondered, growing increasingly worried and confused.
The Light Elemental blinked at me once and tilted his head.

“The Sephirot are…” He paused, seeming to contemplate how to phrase it for a second. “As I said, they are many things, one of which is the forms the Light takes.”

“The Light being the soul?”

“That is one of its forms,” He agreed. “The Sephirot themselves are…pieces. Elements that come together to create greater things, like types of atoms and molecules. Yet they can also be seen as forms of the same thing, like the different states of matter. And of the Sephirot, Malkuth is the closest to the physical realm. You could go so far as to consider Malkuth to be the material form of the Light.”

I stared at him for a long moment, silently putting the pieces together.

“That’s what Malkuth Theory is,” I whispered at last. “The creation of matter—except matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed. In this case, changed from the Light into Malkuth. Then we—Hunters, Conquest, the Grimm, and whatever else—pull down energy and shape it into Malkuth; into something real. A fireball, bone spikes, some kind of mind attack…they’re all created through Malkuth.”

“Yes,” He confirmed. “That is the source of his power, which was said to rival our own. Malkuth is everything that is given shape in this world and therefore he wields power over all that is. The shifting of existing laws, the adjustment of constants, the creation of matter that interacts with the world in unique ways—all these things and more are within his power to control.”

Well, fuck. If I was a game character, it looked like he was the world and the physics engine it ran on. That kind of sucked. I didn’t even want to know how he could abuse a power like that.

I asked anyway.

“What can he do,” I asked. “Do you remember?”

“All too well,” He answered, million eyes solemn—and wow, I was already getting used to that. “You can already imagine, I’m sure. While he cannot simply ignore one’s Aura, he is skill at making one’s surroundings exceedingly hostile. He can increase gravity, adjust local conditions to cause phenomena to occur more easily, make reactions behave unnaturally…with direct contact, he can even cause shifts in the Strong and Weak Forces that govern the body. One of the more pleasant possible side-effects of such a thing is complete disintegration. He can even write entirely new physical laws into the world, though with far greater difficulty then his other abilities. Generally, he’s limited to only one such adjustment, but that tends to be more than enough to make life unpleasant.”

“How bad?” I asked, even though I was really beginning to wish for a topic change. Or at least a break to allow me time to demolish the rest of the city.

“It’s hard to say,” He replied. “Sadly, he rarely broadcasted the details of his rules, but several of the more memorable ones were fairly awful. One seemed to adjust how his body interacted with external forces in a way that he claimed granted him invincibility—despite a rather significant amount of effort, we were unable to disprove this. Another caused a variety of existing principles cease to function, which could do anything from disable certain abilities entirely to make survival tremendously complicated. One effect we were on the receiving end of seemed to greatly increase the output of his attacks.”

“Define greatly,” I asked, wishing for a chair.

“We believe it squared their power.”

Good God. I didn’t need the Mathematician’s Answer to figure out how shitty that could be, but it helpfully informed me.

“Is there any good news?”

“His power is not infinite,” He answered. “And its magnitude ensures that it is quite costly.”

“Since we knew about that and still didn’t win, I’m assuming there’s a ‘but’,” I replied with a sigh.

“Though not infinite, his power is tremendous,” My manifested soul agreed. “And should he not be preoccupied by the more draining uses of his power, he can adjust his surroundings to regain that power exceedingly quickly.”

“He cheats,” I summarized. And sure, I cheated incessantly myself, but it seemed a lot less fair when I—and the rest of the world, of course—was on the receiving end.

“Relentlessly.”

I took a deep breath and wiped my hands on my pants, giving the reality of…of this a moment to sink in.