Nahr dreamt of a corridor.
Long and hollow.
Lined with the shapes of Cores that had never moved — or had moved once, long ago, and then stopped forever.
The floor was metal, though it had been buried beneath ash.
The walls were bone, though no beast had died to form them.
At the far end of the corridor, a single lance stood upright.
A Galieya, forged of glass-black alloy.
Unclaimed.
Untouched.
Waiting.
He took a step toward it.
The air broke.
Not with sound.
With motion. With memory.
The moment Nahr's foot touched the ground, the corridor shattered like a reflection under strain.
He was no longer walking.
He was falling.
Through layers of ash, and memory, and things older than rust.
Wind passed him sideways.
Time bent inward.
Stone unformed beneath him, then returned, then reversed again.
And then—
Stillness.
He stood in a valley.
But it did not have edges.
No sky. No sun.
Just a colorless plain, and broken towers sunk into the earth like teeth.
Dust moved backward.
Cores walked in reverse.
Their movements jagged, like flickering glyphs on a broken terminal.
Nahr watched them.
A Core dragged its Galieya across the ground, its head hung low.
Its plating shimmered — once the same make as Nahr's own.
But warped now.
Split.
It turned toward him.
Then dissolved into particles of soot.
This wasn't the Glooming.
This was memory.
A deep projection — constructed from what the Weighing Hall had pressed into him.
What he had carried down.
What he hadn't let go of.
He stood still, unsure if stepping again would break this place as the last had.
But the plain shifted anyway.
Stone bent upward into a stairway.
Ash thickened into walls.
The world was arranging itself around his burden.
Around the false mark on his chest.
Around the unearned silence.
He understood now.
This was the beginning of the trial.
Not a test of strength.
Not even endurance.
It was a measurement of what he carried.
And whether it broke before he did.
A tone echoed through the dust.
Sharp. Electronic.
[Core ID Confirmed. Descent complete.]
[Status: Dormant.]
[Galieya: Standard class. Mark: False.]
[Configuration: Undefined.]
[Directive: Forming…]
His limbs tightened.
Not from fear.
But from compression.
Pressure at the chestplate — like a thousand false memories were trying to graft themselves into his frame.
He took another step.
This time forward.
The plain distorted.
The world blurred — and reformed.
A long slope now rose ahead, carved from melted stone and broken iron.
Twisting upward.
Vanishing into black.
And at its base, a chain.
Stretched like a spine.
Fixed to the ground.
Other Cores were affixed to it.
Fractured.
Slouched.
Some twitched.
Others blinked, like broken lights.
Mimics.
But not just mimics.
They were projections of old failures — trial constructs drawn from memory.
This wasn't their first time on this slope.
It might not be their last.
Nahr moved toward the chain.
The weight of it called to him.
Each link bore a notch — names that no longer existed.
Designations burned out.
Burden after burden.
As he reached for the shackle meant for him, the sky pulsed once.
Light split across the slope like a lash.
He was chained.
Locked.
Then the slope moved.
No legs. No wheels.
It carried itself forward, like a conveyor of rusted guilt.
He was walking now.
Without choice.
Without direction.
Only weight.
Time passed.
Maybe minutes.
Maybe years.
The constructs beside him flickered in and out of phase.
Some whispered static.
Others fractured mid-step, scattering data into the air.
One beside him fell.
The chain didn't stop.
It dragged the frame forward.
Grinding metal across stone.
Sparks caught in the air like false stars.
He didn't look back.
He kept walking.
The slope rose steeper.
Pressure increased.
His joints strained.
The Galieya across his back throbbed, as if it, too, remembered this place.
A Core in front of him turned.
Its face was his own.
But broken.
Split down the middle.
Its shell empty.
Its voice — his voice — buzzed.
"You will not reach the peak."
Nahr said nothing.
He lowered his head.
And walked forward.
"Your mark is false."
Still, he walked.
"You are unclaimed. Unchosen. You carry silence like it's earned."
He kept walking.
The slope cracked beneath his feet.
Stone fell away to the sides.
Exposing not a drop, not a depth — but echoes.
Below him, recordings of past trials played out in reverse.
Cores collapsing.
Shards breaking.
One voice repeating again and again:
"Burden must be earned."
He slipped once.
The chain jerked.
The constructs behind him howled.
But not in words.
Only static.
He regained footing.
Kept moving.
One by one, the constructs began to disappear.
Fading mid-step.
One shattered.
One blinked out like a glitched frame.
Another turned and walked off the edge.
The chain didn't stop.
Only Nahr remained.
Bound.
Ascending.
And then—
The slope ended.
A platform.
Flat. Empty.
And at the center: a single black shard.
Suspended above the ground.
Rotating slowly.
Weightless.
As he stepped forward, the chain disconnected.
His limbs unlocked.
The Galieya vibrated across his back.
The shard drifted toward him.
It did not speak.
Did not offer anything.
But he understood.
This was it.
Not power.
Not reward.
The burden.
He raised his hand.
And as the shard touched his coreplate, the mark across his chest — the false line he had drawn — burned.
Flickered.
Then faded.
In its place, a new symbol emerged.
One he did not recognize.
Not yet.
But one that had been waiting for him long before he was ever forged.
[Burden Accepted.]
[Mark Validated.]
[Galieya Status: Bound.]
[Configuration Identified.]
[Descent Phase One: Complete.]
Nahr did not feel stronger.
Only heavier.
But the slope behind him had vanished.
There was only forward.
And forward was enough.