15. A device comprising: one or more components to: receive a word, of a block of words within traffic, on which to perform forward error correction, each word of the block of words including respective encoded bits and respective sets of reliability bits for identifying a respective level of reliability of each one of the respective encoded bits, identify, within the word, least reliable positions that correspond to a subset of encoded bits associated with one or more lowest levels of reliability, generate a set of candidate words based on different combinations in which the subset of encoded bits can be inverted, identify a first pair of words of the set of candidate words, the first pair including a first candidate word and a second candidate word, the first candidate word including a most reliable bit, of the subset of encoded bits associated with the first candidate word, that is not inverted, identify a quantity of errors associated with the first candidate word, determine whether the quantity of errors corresponds to an odd value, invert a parity bit associated with the first candidate word when the quantity of errors corresponds to the odd value, select the second candidate word when the parity bit, associated with the first candidate word is inverted, and perform forward error correction, on the word using the second candidate word based on selection of the second candidate word.
18. The device of claim 15 , where the one or more components are further to: generate a first distance between the first candidate word and the word, generate a second distance between the second candidate word and the word, determine whether a difference between the first distance and the second distance is greater than a threshold, the threshold being based on a quantity of errors, per word, that the device can correct, discard the second candidate word when the difference between the first distance and second distance is not greater than the threshold, and perform forward error correction on the word, using the first candidate word, when the second candidate word is discarded.