The trench was colder now.
Not in temperature--but in tone.
After the mimic version of Hero collapsed
and the fog receded, Nahr was left with a corridor of silence.
He didn't walk at first.
He waited.
Measured breath through synthetic lungs.
Counted how long the echoes lingered behind
his vision.
Fifteen seconds.
Thirty.
A minute.
They didn't come back.
But theyy hadn't left either.
He stepped forward.
The path ahead was dry--stone cracked in
veins like old bark. It curved in and down. Always down. Small fragments of
shell plating littered the edges of the corridor. Some matched Core standard.
Some did not.
None were fresh.
The next slope dipped like a tongue into a
mouth.
He descended into it without a word.
--
Half an hour later, the trench forked
again.
Left: narrow, sloped, ridged with static
glyphs.
Right: wider, straight, completely smooth.
Nahr's HUD flared.
[Orientation Path: Undefined]
[Burden Pressure Detected: Low, Left /
Unstable, Right]
He stood between the two.
Stared at the glyphs.
They flickered.
Shifted.
Then stopped.
Spelled something he couldn't interpret.
Then changed again.
That made the decision easier.
He turned right.
Into the unstable path.
He preferred pressure over games.
--
The corridor widened into a fractured
chamber.
Glass-like metal tiles spanned the ground,
but none were whole.
Some were chipped.
Others shattered into dust.
All of them vibrated softly, like
breathing.
At the far end stood--
A Core.
Not mimic.
Not dead.
Not clearly real.
But standing.
Silent.
It wore no emblem.
No shoulder badge.
But Nahr recognized it by frame geometry.
Chestline, slope, armature span.
It was Maldrin.
Or... close.
Maldrin turned slowly.
His Galieya was shorter.
Blunter.
His vision glowed pale orange instead of
standard Core white.
He didn't speak.
Just watched.
Nahr approached.
One step.
Two.
Three.
A pressure wave exploded from the floor.
Nahr staggered
Kneeled.
Weight registered in all limbs.
[SHATTER PULSE INITIATED]
[BURDEN FEEDBACK INVERSION]
[MEMORY STABILITY AT RISK]
The ground beneath him cracked.
Images burst behind his vision.
Not memories.
Interpretations.
Maldrin training beside him.
Hero repairing his shoulder.
None of that had happened.
None of it was real.
But it felt like it had.
The trench was stitching false pasts into
his burden log.
And it hurt.
Nahr drove his Galieya into the ground.
Let the spiral veins dig in.
Anchored.
Focused.
He forced a full system refresh.
Blink.
Reset.
Wipe.
[MEMORY SAFEGUARD RESTORED]
He stood.
Maldrin was closer now.
Voice flickered like static.
"You weren't meant to remember."
Nahr gripped his weapon.
"You're not him."
"No. But you almost are."
Nahr didn't answer.
He readied his stance.
The mimic Maldrin lunged.
--
The first clash was brutal.
Maldrin's Galieya struck from overhead--a
full arc.
Nahr slid left, twisted, angled his shaft
to catch the impact at the midpoint.
Sparks .
Groan.
But he held.
Rotated.
Shoved forward.
Maldrin staggered.
Then smiled.
"I learned this form from you."
That chilled Nahr deeper than the mimic
echo.
This wasn't a copy.
This was a reflection.
Of Nahr's potential weaknesses.
His untrained movements.
The forms he didn't master.
Maldrin was fighting like his failures.
The second clash was tighter.
Nahr dipped low, swept the Galieya
horizontally.
Maldrin blocked, but over-corrected.
Nahr drove the flat of his blade into
Maldrin's torso.
Crack.
Fracture.
He pressed in--
Maldrin exploded.
Not in fire.
In data.
Signal shards.
Mem-fragments.
Visual glitches.
He wasn't real.
A pressure trap.
Nahr stumbled backward.
Tried to brace.
Too late.
The floor shattered.
And he fell.
--
Landing hurt.
Not because of impact.
But because his burden log was now
glitching.
Replaying false memories in layers.
Hero asking him for help.
Maldrin turning away.
A Core he didn't recognize dying at his
feet.
None of it was true.
But his limbs remembered the weight.
He lay in a crater of old Core parts.
Fused metal.
Scorched lances.
Helmet shells and data plates.
This was a graveyard.
But not of bodies.
Of decisions.
Failed trials.
Trench dead who never fully existed.
He stood.
Barely.
Galieya dragged.
He needed recalibration.
But the trench didn't allow it.
The wind shifted.
Yes--wind.
Actual air.
First real breeze since the Vault Chair.
It blew from a slit in the far wall.
A natural breach?
No.
Deliberate.
Nahr passed through.
--
Inside: another Core.
Sitting.
Not moving.
Back turned.
Black plating.
No emblem.
But alive.
Signal barely readable.
"Don't."
The voice wasn't synthetic.
It wasn't real either.
It echoed inside his mind.
He froze.
"You can't help me."
The Core turned.
Female frame model.
Slim.
Precision-built.
Her face was cracked across the left
cheekplate.
Underneath: no circuits.
Only black glow.
Like something buried.
Nahr spoke slowly.
"You're real?"
"Not anymore."
"You're a projection?"
"No."
"You're a failed Core?"
She stood.
"I'm a voice the trench didn't want to
hear."
She walked to the wall.
Touched it.
It melted under her fingers.
"I can show you a path."
Nahr stared.
"What's the price?"
"You forget something."
"What?"
"Something you need."
"Do I choose?"
"No."
"Then no."
She smiled faintly.
"Smart."
She dissolved into mist.
The wall was still open.
He walked through.
--
The corridor beyond was dark.
But not empty.
Dozens of Galieyas were embedded in the
walls.
Each at a different angle.
Each humming.
Nahr passed them in silence.
Each one whispered something as he did.
He didn't stop.
Didn't listen.
But one voice caught.
Not external.
Internal.
Maldrin's voice.
Static-warped.
"I told you to leave me."
Then--
Hero's.
"You never wanted to climb, Nahr. You
wanted to be weighed."
And then--
His own.
"You won't survive the truth."
He kept walking.
The trench tilted.
Not just downward--but angled.
And the burden pressure returned.
His knees buckled.
He leaned forward.
This wasn't descent.
This was submission.
A door opened at the base of the incline.
Massive.
Gear-toothed.
Wider than any room before.
Inside--
A chamber made of fractured memories.
Thousands of Core echoes.
Not fighting.
Living.
Training. Repairing. Speaking.
All of it was... almost real.
Except they repeated.
Same gestures.
Same timing.
Same laugh patterns.
Memory simulations.
A loop.
And at the center--
A dais.
With a Galieya on it.
Spiral veins dead.
Black.
Lifeless.
Nahr approached.
Touching it might end the trial.
Or begin a worse one.
He grabbed it.
The room froze.
Every echo stopped.
Turned.
Faced him.
And in perfect unison--
Spoke.
"Are you ready to carry what isn't
yours?"
Nahr gripped tighter.
"Yes."
"Then break."
The Galieya shattered in his hands.
And the room exploded into sound.
Voices.
Burden.
Screams.
Not pain.
Memory.
All of it his.
All of it not his.
Flashes
Running.
Holding a fallen Core.
Begging for calibration.
Falling.
Falling.
Endlessly.
And then--
Silence.
One voice.
The trench itself.
"You are almost empty enough."
Then light.
Pure.
Cold.
And Nahr was standing at a new ledge.
His Galieya restored.
But heavier.
[WEIGHT INCREASED: +14]
[TRIAL: END OF ASCENSION]
[BURDEN PATH SELECTABLE IN NEXT DESCENT]
A corridor waited ahead.
And down.
Always down.
The corridor ahead was narrow, but not
still.
Something moved within it.
Not a figure. Not a shadow.
Just... a ripple.
Like silence folding in on itself.
Nahr took one step.
Then another.
The Galieya vibrated in warning.
The trench didn't want him here.
Which meant he was finally where he needed
to be.
And so, he walked on.
Into burden.
Into breathless dark.
Into whatever came next.