The darkness did not rush.
It rose.
Not like a creature climbing, nor like a void expanding—but like a thought being finished after a long interruption. The collapsing chamber slowed as the fissure below widened, stone fragments hanging suspended mid-fall, each shard caught in a moment that refused to resolve.
Tareth felt it then.
Not qi.
Not pressure.
Recognition.
The blade in his hand went still.
For the first time since the Deep Galleries had begun to move, it did not hum, did not correct, did not pull him toward survival. Its edge dimmed, steel losing that impossible sharpness as if deliberately dulling itself in deference.
Something below exhaled.
The Sword God, bound once more to the cracked dais, went rigid.
"That is not meant to hear you," it said, voice strained. "That is not meant to be addressed at all."
From the fissure, lines emerged—not tentacles, not limbs, but cuts. Old ones. Ancient ones. Scars left behind when the world had first learned what division meant. They crawled upward along the walls, glowing faintly, intersecting, forming a geometry that made the chamber ache to look at.
A presence surfaced within those lines.
It had no shape.
So it borrowed separation.
"Edge," it said—not aloud, not mentally, but structurally, as if the word had always existed and reality was only now remembering to pronounce it. "You have returned incomplete."
Tareth's knees nearly gave out.
The word had not been meant for him.
The blade trembled in his grip—not with fear, but with something dangerously close to relief.
"I am not whole," the presence continued. "You are not the one I expected. But you will suffice."
The Sword God strained against its bindings, qi flaring desperately. "Tareth—do not answer it. This is what existed before gods, before demons. Before will learned to disguise itself as law."
Tareth swallowed.
"What… are you?" he asked, knowing the question was already inadequate.
The fissure widened further.
"I am the reason things stay apart," the presence replied. "The first refusal. The original cut. When the world was too much of itself, I made difference possible."
The chamber shuddered violently as gravity returned in fits and starts. Stone slammed downward, crashing into unseen depths. Ironreach above groaned, its foundations screaming as stresses rippled upward through the city's spine.
In the Demon Realm, the ancient entity recoiled—just slightly.
"Ah," it said softly, amusement thinning. "That one."
Tareth felt the blade pull—not toward violence, not toward defense—but toward completion. Images flooded him: continents tearing themselves free, gods learning hierarchy from wounds, demons forming from broken clauses that should never have been spoken.
This was not a being that sought worship.
It sought continuation.
"You cut too shallow," the presence said. "For ages. You let them believe edges belonged to hands. To bloodlines. To permission."
The blade flared weakly, as if in protest.
Tareth clenched his teeth. "If you're so fundamental," he said, forcing the words out, "why are you down there? Sealed?"
A pause.
A mistake.
"I was corrected," the presence said at last. "By those who feared what happens when division chooses for itself."
The Sword God went still.
Understanding crossed its face like a shadow.
"You weren't sealed," it whispered. "You were refined."
The presence did not deny it.
The fissure surged upward, swallowing the last of the chamber's floor. Tareth slid, boots scraping stone as gravity finally asserted itself fully.
The blade snapped awake.
Not correcting.
Begging.
For the first time, Tareth felt it clearly—not as tool, not as syntax, but as incomplete thought. A fragment of something vast, broken deliberately so the world could pretend it was safe.
Above, Ironreach's alarms dissolved into chaos. Towers fractured. Wards collapsed outright. Kaelvar masters shouted orders that no longer found bodies willing to obey them.
In Myrr territory, Sereth Nael watched the projections flare white.
"It's not a breach," she whispered. "It's a recall."
The presence reached upward—not touching Tareth, not claiming him.
Waiting.
"You may let the edge finish remembering," it said. "And the world will divide correctly again."
The implication hung heavy.
"And if I don't?" Tareth asked.
The darkness folded slightly, amused.
"Then you will continue making mistakes," it replied. "And mistakes… are interesting."
The blade burned in Tareth's hand, qi screaming in contradiction—correction against completion, obedience against origin.
Stone gave way beneath his feet.
He was falling now.
Not into darkness.
Into definition.
And somewhere between bearer and beginning, Tareth Veyl had seconds to decide whether the world would be cut cleanly—
—or left to tear itself apart the slow, familiar way.