The cube pulsed beneath Nahr's hand.
Just once.
A ripple passed through the floor—softer than gravity,
harder than heat. It didn't knock him back. It pulled him forward.
Behind him, Slate stood rigid. Kelar rested a hand on the
wall, steadying himself. Hero's Galieya was halfway drawn, not in readiness,
but in instinct. He didn't like what the trench had become.
The cube's glyphs split apart, peeling away like metal
paper, revealing… nothing.
The inside was hollow.
But not empty.
The Vault wasn't a container.
It was a speaker.
The floor beneath them deepened.
Soundlessly, the platform descended.
Not by rail.
Not by engine.
But by will.
The trench lowered them, deeper than they had ever gone.
No weight pressed on their shoulders.
But all of them grew heavier.
As the descent ended, walls emerged—towering shelves of
broken Galieyas, shattered emblems, fragmented memory plates.
And lining the air itself—
Voices.
Not shouts.
Not commands.
Just fragments.
Repeats.
Words they'd spoken.
Words they hadn't.
Some from other Cores.
Some from them.
Nahr looked up.
A text line formed across the chamber ceiling in glowing
script:
[BREACHING MEMORY BINDERS…]
[YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO FORGET WHAT YOU FAILED TO
UNDERSTAND.]
Kelar coughed suddenly.
Deep.
Hard.
A wet sound.
He leaned forward, catching himself on his knees.
Slate grabbed his shoulder.
But Kelar shook his head.
"I'm fine."
He wasn't.
Nahr stepped off the platform.
The ground was semi-translucent.
Below it: motion.
Like shadows moving without light.
Each step brought new images to the surface—shards
of their pasts.
Nahr saw the hallway he'd abandoned early in his training.
The day he let another Core walk into a mimic trap because
he hadn't wanted to slow down.
He saw her name again.
Not spoken in years.
"Haldrin."
The floor hissed—her memory disappearing the moment he said
it aloud.
Slate moved next.
He passed a different panel.
A child's handprint.
Then a white lance.
Then the moment he buried his Galieya in a silent Core's
back.
Kelar followed behind, slower now.
Stumbling.
Each step left behind a smear.
Of breath.
Of blood?
Nahr stepped back to him.
"You're unstable."
"I'm fine."
"Your core's blinking."
"I said I'm fine."
He wasn't.
Hero walked toward the center.
At the heart of the Vault sat a cylinder—metal, floating,
humming with echo feedback.
A warning orb.
A memory condenser.
These weren't often seen.
They weren't for storage.
They were for containment.
A script line blinked above it:
[CHOOSE A BREACH.]
[RECEIVE A TRUTH.]
[RISK A LOSS.]
Nahr read it.
Looked to Hero.
"We open it?"
Hero shrugged.
"We came this far."
Nahr placed his palm to the orb.
The room didn't shake.
It breathed.
Inward.
And from the ceiling fell—
A chain of light.
Linked together in distorted geometry.
And from it dropped—
A body.
Not human.
Not Core.
Not mimic.
Just… concept.
It didn't move.
But it wept.
Soundlessly.
The light-body pulsed.
Then whispered, not in voice—but in pressure:
"I remember what you let happen. Do you?"
Nahr fell to his knees.
His vision doubled.
Every regret he'd boxed away broke open.
And one returned:
The truth about the Vault Chair.
The first chair he ever touched.
It hadn't been assigned to him.
He'd stolen it.
Rewrote his assignment route to access it early—before he
was burden-rated.
That act started everything.
The trench's silence.
His exile.
Maldrin's refusal.
Hero's burden-mirroring.
It all began because of that.
The light-body faded.
Slate stared at Nahr, vision wide.
Kelar groaned.
Collapsed.
His shoulder burst into static sparks.
The trench pulsed again.
This time, angrily.
Text screamed across their HUDs:
[TO CARRY A STOLEN BURDEN IS TO BREAK THE LINE.]
[CORRECTION REQUIRED.]
[OFFER TRUTH OR OFFER FLESH.]
"What the hell does that mean?" Slate asked,
backing up.
Hero gripped his Galieya. "The trench wants
reparation."
"For what?" Slate snapped.
Hero didn't blink. "Nahr's lie."
Slate turned to Nahr.
"You brought us here."
Nahr looked up.
"I didn't know it would follow."
"But it did."
"Then we fix it."
Kelar screamed.
His arm seized.
Shoulder-plate melted in a hiss of blue energy.
Slate moved to him.
Then flinched.
The energy passed into Slate's chest.
His burden spiked.
Hero made a choice.
He stepped into the center of the Vault.
And offered something no one expected:
A decision.
"I'll take it."
Nahr stared. "No."
Hero nodded. "It's mine too. You stole the chair. But I
stayed silent."
"You didn't know."
"But I guessed. And I followed anyway."
He drew his Galieya and pressed the hilt to the orb.
The energy transferred.
His spiral veins darkened.
But Kelar stopped seizing.
Slate stood upright.
The Vault calmed.
And the trench—
It paused.
Like it had been fed.
Then the orb shattered.
Light everywhere.
Falling like ash.
Then—
Darkness.
When vision returned, they were outside the Vault.
On a sloped ledge, facing upward.
Not downward.
The Vault was gone.
Sealed behind a collapsed seal of fused stone.
No return.
Kelar coughed, blinking.
Alive.
Stable.
Slate stood, rubbing his chest.
"Why are we above?"
Nahr looked up.
A spiraling ramp led higher.
To a faint red glow.
Above that—
Wind.
Not heat.
Not silence.
Air.
They were closer to the trench's upper limit.
Closer to the breach point.
Hero's voice was calm, but low.
"We're going up."
"Not down?" Slate asked.
"Not this time," Nahr replied. "The trench…
it's turning."
"What does that mean?"
"It's not testing anymore," Hero said.
Slate blinked.
"Then what is it doing?"
Nahr looked into the red light.
And said the first honest thing in hours:
"It's waiting for us to finish the trial it
couldn't."
The ramp coiled upward like a broken helix.
It wasn't smooth.
It wasn't stable.
And it wasn't quiet.
Every few meters, the stone hissed beneath their feet—not
cracking, but shifting, as if the trench resented giving them height.
As if ascent was a privilege they hadn't earned.
Slate walked behind Nahr, his vision half-closed, still
recovering.
Kelar didn't speak at all, not even to complain. His
shoulder hung at a strange angle, but he refused help.
And Hero…
Hero walked at the rear, his Galieya quiet, his posture
wrong.
Each step he took sparked faint blue static where none
should exist.
They reached a plateau.
A small one.
Flat. Bare.
Above them, a narrow fissure glowed with dim crimson.
Wind whistled down from it—hot and dry.
It didn't feel like fire.
It felt like breath.
Like something large… and very old… was just exhaling.
Nahr stood in the center of the platform, shoulders tense.
"This is the break point," he said.
Slate swallowed.
"Of what?"
Nahr looked at him.
"At the trench's patience."
A faint, low hum echoed from the fissure above.
Then a new glyph appeared, burning in the stone beneath
their boots.
Not drawn.
Branded.
Just one word.
PREPARE.
Kelar stepped forward, breathing heavily.
"If it's a fight…"
"It won't be," Nahr said.
Hero stepped up beside him, voice steady but cold.
"No. It'll be worse."
Because in the Red Ring, no burden would be added.
Only taken.
And what it left behind…
Was choice.
Above them, the air shimmered.
The glyph flared once.
And then the next gate began to open—
Upward.
A thin, spiraling aperture carved into red-lit stone.
No light passed through it.
Only memory.
Only pressure.
Only silence.
And something inside it was listening.