Nightmare Fuel / Shadows over Meridian

• War Is Hell is in general effect here. In the first few chapters alone, many guards and rebels are killed during the surprise attack the Shadowkhan launch against Elyon's castle. Just after this first conflict alone, the Shadowkhan quickly become more feared on Meridian than Phobos and his underlings.
  • Jade supplies Phobos' regular soldiers with equipment that makes them a serious threat even when the Shadowkhan aren't around; their dark-colored weapons can easily shatter ordinary steel, and some are given giant serpents of the Shadow Realm to serve as mounts capable of flight and tearing enemies apart.
• Caleb's obsession to purge Meridian of Phobos' influence has all but turned him into a Knight Templar. He's become so distrustful of the Guard that during the first fight against the Shadowkhan, he willingly abandons Captain Granik to face the enemy alone and even wishes the Guards will be finished off by the Shadowkhan. He's so filled with Irrational Hatred towards Jade that he can't be convinced that "the Mage" lied about her being Phobos' monster and even looks forward to killing her against Elyon and the Guardians' wishes of making peace with her.
• The Warden of Cavigor and a large number of his troops are willing to kill all their defenseless prisoners rather than risk Frost freeing them.
• Though Jade has merged with the Queen, the latter still somewhat exists as a Superpowered Evil Side. During the battle at Snowpoint, Jade is filled with bloodlust that comes with her new Oni biology, slips into a mindset much more like purely the Queen, and gets caught up going after the rebel soldiers in a vicious fury that only fades once the fighting is over.
  • Jade has gained an ability to cast storm winds intense enough to throw around hundreds of people. If you're lucky enough not to be killed by the impact, you'll be left paralyzed by the shadow energy filling the winds.
• Vera Bexley's arrow nearly hits Jade's head before a Ninja Khan saves her at the last second, reminding the readers that for all her experience and power, Jade is not invincible and can be taken by surprise.
• Metalbeak tells Jade that he was a hatchling when the Mogriffs were forced out of their nesting grounds decades ago. He has flashbacks of that day when he witnessed the man known as the "Nest Butcher" killing with glee any Mogriffs he encountered, including hatchlings and eggs. Jade is so horrified by the man's actions that she considers it justice that Metalbeak eventually killed him.
  • That same man also happened to be the beloved grandfather of Vera Bexley who remembers him as a retired soldier, and whom she's been obsessed to avenge after seeing his death at Metalbeak's claws as a child.
• Tyrian starts out as comic relief, but turns out to be an Ax-Crazy member of a cult that worships a goddess foretold to rise from the Shadow Realm and cover all worlds in darkness. As he's convinced that Jade is that goddess, he's begun to fanatically serve her, much to her discomfort, and threatening his own allies for not sharing his beliefs. And despite being a Cloudcuckoolander, he's extremely skilled with his knives and won't be deferred when his own shadow serpent steed nearly eats him alive on a regular basis.
• The fact that Vera is so obsessed with revenge on Metalbeak that she's willing to lie to her closest friends and lead them on what's essentially a suicide mission in order to achieve it. The nearer she gets to the Mogriffs' nest, her Sanity Slippage becomes more and more clear even to her closest supporters Tinsley and Alan. She ultimately abandons her wounded and exhausted friends for being ready to surrender and runs off to get her revenge without caring if it'll cost her her life. She's also willing to kill any hatchlings and eggs coming her way, which horrifies Tinsley and is considered an overstep even by Amelia — and she ends up holding Metalbeak and Windblade's hatchling son hostage in front of his parents' eyes.
  • Both Metalbeak and Jade end up feeling disturbed after seeing how willing Vera is to throw away her entire life just to have her revenge; Metalbeak feels responsible for setting her on this path, and Jade starts wondering if letting her own revenge against Elyon and the Guardians overwhelm her will end up making her just like Vera if she's not careful.
  • In Chapter 31, Vera is so far gone that she decides to assassinate Jade, ignoring the fact (pointed out by several other people) that for all she knows, doing so could start a war with the Shadow Realm that Meridian couldn't possibly win.
    • When she finds out that Maya is a shapeshifter, she tries to kill her... and then tries to kill Caroline when she interferes to save Maya and force Vera to stop her rampage, showing beyond any shadow of doubt that she no longer cares in any way for her former friends.
• Vera's team gets on their trail a Frostbiter, the fierce apex predator of the northern mountains powerful enough to beat a squad of armored soldiers. Drawn by the scent of Caroline's bleeding hand, it chases them all the way out of its territory into a maze of rocks where the boulders can only slow it down.
  • The beast itself is described to be a giant lizard with white fur, strong claws and a beak-like snout filled with fangs. The Mogriffs call it the White Death.
• The tunnels of the Abandoned Mine beneath the Stone Nest are filled with highly inflammable "cave dust" (which is real-life coal dust). Vera considers using it to burn the entire Mogriff nest until Amelia warns it could risk bringing the entire mountain down on them as well. Though Vera decides to reserve that idea as her last resort, she does weaponize the dust against Tyrian and Jade, wounding the former in the eyes and bringing a tunnel down on the latter.
• Jade gets so pissed after Vera tries to kill her with a cave-in that she goes full Oni and summons a tornado of shadows, while opening massive portals to the Shadow Realm and threatening to drown Vera in its depths. It takes Metalbeak pointing out that she's risking the entire mountain to calm her down — and even then, she immediately considers killing Vera before deciding to leave her fate in the Mogriff leader's hands.
  • Even those outside the mountain get a taste of Jade's wrath — the Phobos loyalists in Snowpoint witness the mountain turning black as an earthquake shakes the entire fortress down to the dungeons, and the courtyard is filled with so many Shadowkhan the Phobos loyalists are afraid they're about to invade Meridian until a giant beam of dark light erupts from the crater of the extinct volcano.
• Jade's threat of having the Leech Khan take Vera's shadow (which she describes as stealing her soul and is implied to be similar to lobotomy in the effects) is actually enough to get through Vera's self-righteous madness and leave her scared of her fate.
  • A few chapters later, when Jade finally enacts this punishment, she doesn't go so far as to have the Leech Khan eat Vera's entire shadow, but this is arguably worse — the slow process of having her shadow only partially devoured causes Vera agonizing pain, and leaves one of her arms completely paralyzed, essentially crippling her.
• During the Prison Riot of Chapter 31, one of the escaped rebels shows lustful intentions towards Altaria, and only Vera's order to finish the takeover of Snowpoint prevents him from going through with them.
• Phobos once executed a Serial Killer who focused on children by flaying him alive.
• Phobos and Raythor deduce that the reason Kur has sealed off the city of Everdeen is so that he can control rationing of food in such a way as to starve the local nonhumans until they lash out, in order to give him an excuse to purge them. And if that plan doesn't work out, he can burn the entire city and blame it on anyone, meaning that he'll win anyway.

---