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I have a new theory about what Hemalurgic decay is. The core piece of information that is relevant to my new theory is something @Argent got out of Brandon in the Stormlight update #6: Q: Is death in the Cosmere a two-stage process? It seems to me like (under normal circumstances) the body dies first, sending the mind fully in the Cognitive Realm; the soul, presumably, remains in the Spiritual for the entire process. I am a little unclear on what happens after that though - what is it that passes into the Beyond, just the mind? Does the soul / spiritual aspect / Spiritweb just kind of... break down in the Spiritual Realm, turn into free investiture? A: Yes. It's a two stage process, and most of what you said is correct. The odd thing is, though, that the spiritweb doesn't completely break down (just like your body doesn't immediately break down.) Even after a long time, there's a record of that spirit web in the spiritual realm. And before I go into how I am interpreting that, some background on ideas that also contributed: Time and Place don't really exist in the Spiritual Realm. At a guess, there is likely data about them there, but space-time isn't as relevant/existent. Hemalurgy 'staples' soul chunks onto people to grant them abilities/traits. Hemalurgic spikes 'decay' and slowly lose their powers if they aren't in contact with (flowing?) blood. Now for some actual rhetoric! I always assumed that when someone died, their Investiture dissipated back into the Shard that it came from while their mind went on to the Beyond. I thought something similar was happening with Hemalurgy in that there was a chunk of soul that was ripped off the person and attached to someone else via the spike. When the spike wasn't in someone, the chunk of web decayed and the spike lost power. Now, though, I think that the spike is just hard wiring a Connection between the chunk of web that got ripped off and the person who has the spike. It is like adding a short to a circuit, sort of, anyway. When the spike isn't active and in blood, though, the power of Ruinous intent isn't maintaining the line, and the Connection between the spike and the web decays. The chunk of web probably decays at about the same rate that the web of a normal dead person does, which is apparently slowly, as evidenced by the WoB above. With that in mind, this has definite implications for Kel's resurrection. He was brought back within a few years, since he went and helped out the SoScads only a few years after the Catacendre. This means that his spiritweb was still mostly intact, so they just had to Hemalurgically staple it back onto a physical form. It is probably stapling his mind, soul, and body back together all at once, or there are spikes for each Connection. Presumably, he functions similar to Kandra now, in that if the spikes are removed, he will cease to survive, but he could just get stapled back together... creepy.