The corridor chose first.
Stone convulsed, not collapsing but rearranging, the three branching paths snapping inward like jaws deciding on a single throat. The walls flowed—not melting, not breaking—simply agreeing to be elsewhere. Tareth felt the decision ripple through his bones before his eyes confirmed it.
Left and right sealed.
Forward remained.
Always forward.
The Deep Galleries had stopped pretending to be architecture.
They were now argument.
The air thickened, each breath carrying weight, as if inhaling meant accepting responsibility for what came next. Qi behaved strangely here—lagging behind motion, arriving late, resentful of being commanded.
The blade corrected for it.
Not gently.
Tareth stepped—and the floor buckled upward, spikes of black stone erupting where his foot would have landed had the sword not already angled his body aside. His movement was no longer reaction; it was revision.
Something shrieked ahead.
Not sound—sequence.
A Failed emerged fully now, taller than the rest, armor etched with Kaelvar sigils that had not been used in centuries. Its sword was broken, jagged, yet humming with unstable qi that leaked from it like blood refusing to clot.
This one still remembered its name.
"Tareth… Veyl…" it rasped, voice grinding through fractured breath. "Correction… denied…"
It moved.
Fast.
Too fast for doctrine.
Tareth raised his blade—and hesitated.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, he attempted to impose form. Stance. Technique. Discipline.
The sword resisted.
Not violently.
Disappointed.
The Failed Swordmaster's strike tore through the space where Tareth's head had been an instant before, carving a wake through the air that screamed as it collapsed back into itself. The corridor split behind him, stone bleeding qi-light.
Tareth stumbled.
That was all it took.
The blade took over.
His arm moved without consent, the cut unfolding not as an arc, but as a decision that had already been made. The sword did not meet the Failed's weapon—it bypassed the concept of clash entirely.
The Failed froze mid-strike.
Then divided.
Not severed—edited.
The upper half slid away from the lower, cleanly enough that the two parts existed for a moment in confusion, as if unaware they no longer agreed on reality. Then both collapsed into ash, sucked screaming into the walls.
Silence slammed down.
Tareth gasped, knees buckling.
The blade steadied him.
That was worse.
Because it meant it had noticed his weakness—and compensated.
"This isn't partnership," he whispered.
The sword did not respond.
But the corridor did.
The walls peeled back, revealing a chamber vast enough to dwarf Ironreach's upper halls. The ceiling arched high into darkness, its stone etched with countless cuts—some shallow, some deep, some so precise they appeared to erase light itself.
At the chamber's center stood a figure that was not a Failed.
It was intact.
Clad in ancient Kaelvar regalia, armor polished to a dull, ceremonial sheen. Its sword was sheathed. Its posture perfect.
A Sword God.
Or what remained of one.
Initial Stage, perhaps.
Preserved.
Contained.
The figure's eyes opened.
Qi pressure flooded the chamber, crushing, immense—but disciplined. Controlled. The kind of presence Ironreach revered.
"So," it said calmly, voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere, "the blade has begun choosing again."
Tareth swallowed. "You're… alive?"
The figure tilted its head. "Define."
It stepped forward.
Each footfall carved a shallow groove into the stone.
"I was sealed here," it continued, "when I refused correction. When I insisted that steel was not meant to be commanded—but consulted."
The Sword God's gaze dropped to Tareth's blade.
"And you," it said softly, "are holding an answer that predates us both."
The chamber trembled.
Far above, Ironreach shuddered as structural wards screamed warnings no one had words for.
In the Demon Realm, contracts ignited spontaneously, demons howling as clauses they had never read activated themselves.
The Sword God drew its blade.
The sound was quiet.
Final.
"Show me," it said, stance flawless, "whether you are bearer… or beginning."
The doors of the chamber sealed.
No retreat.
No audience.
Just two edges—one remembered, one awakening—
—and a single mistake waiting to be made again.