A wet schlorrch echoed through the corridor, thick and final. Erulak’s head snapped around, cloak of shadows rippling as he took in the scene. Axxye lay in two neat halves, each sliding apart like butchered meat, the air still shimmering faintly where the gateway had been attempted.
For a long moment, Erulak only stared. Then the realization settled -- slow, sharp, and delicious. The fool hadn’t waited for the doorway to stabilize. He had marched straight into the vertical slash of his own making, as if eager to be judged by the very weave he commanded.
The Fade tilted his pale head, lipless smile curling upward. “So,” he rasped, voice a scrape of mockery, “you opened the door… and walked into the blade.”
As he stepped closer, a sudden whirr-click-grind erupted from his belt. A ridiculous little contraption of spinning cogs and twitching springs lurched into life, desperately trying to unsheathe the dagger at his belt and scalp both halves of the corpse. The blade half-jerked free before catching, buzzing in place like a stuck bee. Erulak slapped it aside and the gears gave a sad clunk and jammed, smoke puffing faintly from the mechanism.
A rivulet of blood pattered onto the stones, steady and rhythmic. Erulak let the sound linger, like applause for the performance he had just witnessed. With a soft hiss that might have been laughter, he turned back into the darkness.
The Great Lord’s Chosen indeed.