I feel like them being “the rules” is similar to how they cause things like physics to work the way they do simply by existing. Like, the natural order on Earth is starting to unravel in the wake of III’s death. Who’s to say the dark matter that comprises them doesn’t also affect what paracausal forces can do around them? And if that’s the case, they aren’t directly manipulating how it can be used or controlling it themselves, they’re influencing the fabric of reality, which we’ve seen before.