Numenorean

So we've seen that Dustbringers can burn things, and it seemed to be implied that this was a resonance specific to the order of Dustbringers and not shared by Edgedancers or Skybreakers. Here's my theory on how it works: We know from WoB that division works by breaking the molecular bonds of things the surgebinder touches. Some elements such as hydrogen are flammable when on their own and not bonded to other elements. The "resonance" that burns things is probably the result of Dustbringers using division to separate objects into their elemental components and then using friction to set the flammable components on fire.

Yeah, I liked the prose quite a bit. Not flawless like stormlight, but a good story nonetheless. The typos were very distracting however, and the diction could have been better in places. I really think that he should've just polished it up and released it as a novel. One thing I noticed was the excessive use of the word "mumbled" - 116 times in total

This seems to be a recurring theme with investiture tending to more easily influence/be channeled by people who have been through traumatic events or who are "unhinged." I'd guess it has something to do with damage to the spiritweb, as we know that trauma or mental brokenness creates cracks in the spiritweb that create room for a nahel bond to form. Hemalurgic spikes warp the spiritweb and allow scadrial's shards to more easily influence people similarly to the mentally unhinged. Allomancers must "snap" due to traumatic events, etc. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the same was true of nightblood, a very invested object.

Ah my bad, I forgot that he had to complete the quest specified in his oath first

Thanks, this confirms my theory about abrasion negating air resistance/terminal velocity when combined with gravitation. Also, I'd forgotten about the part in TWoK when Szeth lashes a "massive" stone block 20 times with stormlight to spare. Since he's now an actual 4th ideal radiant and much more efficient with stormlight, I'm assuming he could lash himself even more times than this by now, which combined with abrasion means that he could reach absolutely ridiculous levels of speed in a short time and then maintain them with relatively little additional use of stormlight.

@Kk- yeah, this was exactly what I was thinking. And as far as steel compounding goes, it's true there's no way I can think of to match the agility of a steel compounder since they seem to defy the laws of physics in that regard, but a radiant with all surges could probably reach flying speeds that would make a steel compounder pale in comparison - since abrasion can basically negate friction, air resistance wouldn't be an issue while using lashings, so terminal velocity goes out the window. Basically infinite acceleration Say Szeth uses 5 lashings and abrasion, assuming roshar's gravity is 70% of Earth's, he can accelerate constantly at a rate of ~34 m/s² and sustain this using relatively small amounts of stormlight. Kinda scary. If he flew a few thousand meters away from tlr and then accelerated toward him, potentially he could be going fast enough that it would be impossible to dodge even with compounded speed and atium. Just hold nightblood out to the side and he's done for. And @Yata we've seen that shallan could give some substance to her illusions, meaning that they'd probably produce atium shadows themselves. Szeth could just create a bunch of illusions of himself and have them pretend to attack tlr as well and he'd have to deal with a bunch of illusions all producing atium shadows. And since it's been hinted that lightweavers can control other forms of wave as well as light, if szeth knows what allomantic pulses are like, he could produce the effect in his illusions, so TLR effectively wouldn't be able to tell which the real one is. Also, a skilled lightweaver could probably make him/herself basically invisible through mimicking his surroundings, so there's that.

The Lord ruler has access to his full power and all metals including atium. Szeth has access to a large amount of stormlight, plus access to all of the surges granted by swallowing yelig-nar. Like the fused, he has access to large amounts of voidlight provided by ba-ado-mishram. He has nightblood, and let's assume that he also gets ahold of a set of shardplate. He has had time to master all of his surges. Given this unlikely, but very possible scenario in which szeth acquires yelig-nar and shardplate, I honestly think that Szeth stands a fair chance against TLR. From stormlight/voidlight he has healing nearly on the level of gold compounding, and the benefits of pewter, plus the boost of the shardplate on top of that. TLR will have to hit him repeatedly to break his shardplate and even do damage. He can counteract the atium with lightweaving to produce an effect similar to what happened when 2 allomancers burning atium face off. This could also serve to make it difficult for TLR to tell where szeth actually is. He can transport himself into the cognitive realm if he needs to avoid an attack by TLR, and could probably reappear behind/next to him. He can soulcast, potentially even soulcasting the air around TLR to stone or something like that which would probably cause TLR to expend a lot of his power to escape either through compounding pewter or tapping weight. And of course if he actually manages to touch TLR, he can harm him in a variety of ways, such as burning him to a crisp with division (though he can probably heal from this a few times at least), lashing him into space (WoB has confirmed this is possible, let's see how long his gold can keep him alive in 1° Kelvin temperatures), or of course just scratching him with nightblood. I highly doubt gold compounding could heal him from that. He can manipulate the matter surrounding him, etc through surges like a bondsmith or a stonewarden. His flight makes him more mobile than TLR. The main thing I see TLR has going for him in this matchup is his feruchemical speed, not sure how szeth could counteract that, but it would still take TLR quite a few hits to harm him. He could potentially soothe/riot him, but szeth had shown that he can fight effectively while in great emotional distress (weeping as he easily slaughters soldiers and shardbearers).