The second entity was different from the first.
He registered the difference through the Observer before the engagement began, the Law-composition reading returning a different organizing principle than the Law of pressure, this one organized around a Law of severance, the premise that things were defined more precisely by what separated them from other things than by any quality they possessed independently.
A Law about edges.
He thought about the Law of Slaughter's relationship to a Law of severance before the engagement closed the distance, the identification function running the comparison automatically. The Law of slaughter removed obstacles. The Law of severance defined through separation. Both Laws operated at the boundaries between things, one focused on the act of crossing the boundary and one focused on the boundary itself.
