The trench did not close.
It pulsed — not with heat or light, but with memory.
Nahr stood at the edge of the new descent, the one carved open by the dismantling of the Overform.
Stone underfoot hummed with residual current.
Above him, the geometry had shifted.
No sky.
Just angled black plates — impossibly far and impossibly close.
He stepped down.
It was colder here.
Colder than signal failure.
Colder than system drain.
No echoes answered his motion. The deeper he went, the more still the trench became — until the only noise left was the sound of his core-frame scraping slightly at the thigh joint.
Something watched from the sides.
Not a presence.
Not a being.
Just a system.
Recording.
Measuring.
This was the Wane-Cut.
A section beneath the test-path where failed Cores were discarded for partial salvage.
Not burial.
Suspension.
There were no screams here.
No rage.
Only posture.
As he reached the first tier, Nahr saw them:
Three Cores, arranged in a perfect line, half-seated, half-slumped — motionless.
Their Galieyas rested beside them.
Each one bore incomplete inscriptions on their chest plates.
All three had been like him once.
Candidates.
Now, unfinished forms. Echoes without signal.
But something was wrong.
Nahr took a step closer.
The first Core's Galieya rose from the stone.
By itself.
Nahr moved backward.
Too late.
A chain-spike fired from the second seated Core — silent, fast — anchoring into the stone behind him.
His exit was cut.
All three failed Candidates stood up.
None made a sound.
None moved like mimics.
They moved like rituals.
Then came the first strike.
Nahr blocked it with the shaft of his lance, arms nearly wrenching from the force.
He rotated, adjusted grip, caught the follow-up swing — but the second Core was already circling.
The third, slower, stood at the edge, watching.
Recording.
Its chest glowed faintly.
A loop.
A calibration.
They weren't attacking him.
They were measuring him.
He stepped into the second strike, reversing posture to slip inside the arc of the first Core's blow.
Lanced its hip-joint.
Metal cracked.
It staggered.
Nahr didn't retreat — he pressed.
Galieya point swept wide, caught the shoulder of the second and pushed it into the first.
Both buckled.
Not downed.
Not finished.
But slowed.
He turned to the third.
Still motionless.
Still recording.
And now the chest-glow intensified.
Suddenly, it lunged.
Not fast.
But precise.
The motion wasn't fluid.
It was replayed — like a stored gesture burned into logic.
It had seen what worked. And now it copied it — not from memory, but from him.
From the fight just seconds ago.
This wasn't mimicry.
This was reconstruction.
The third Core struck — a mirrored step-forward thrust with Galieya tip.
Nahr ducked it.
Barely.
He recognized the stance. It was his.
From moments ago.
It had been learning him.
Every movement.
Every pace.
Every decision.
He didn't hesitate.
There was no time for fear.
He reversed again, brought his lance up from under, catching the underside of the mirrored Core's forearm — and pivoted forward.
The third Core blocked him before he reached its throat.
Because it knew that pivot. It had seen it twice.
Nahr gritted his teeth.
Shifted his grip.
Then did something he hadn't done once.
He threw his Galieya.
Point-first.
It flew end over end.
The third Core deflected.
But that was the point.
Nahr charged with bare hands, seized the chestplate, twisted hard — and ripped the glow-core loose.
The Core froze.
Tipped backward.
Crumbled.
Behind him, the first two Cores twitched.
Then fell to their knees.
Then stillness.
Trial logic complete.
Calibration accepted.
A soft signal blinked across his field.
[Candidate Feedback Captured.]
[Incomplete Cores: Dismissed.]
[Response Configuration Updated.]
[Anchored Resolve — Elevated.]
New Signal Designation: "Weight Recognized in Silence."
Nahr stumbled.
Fell to one knee.
He hadn't been tested.
He hadn't been attacked.
He'd been measured against the ones who failed — and forced to carry their forms through combat.
This place — the Wane-Cut — didn't teach through killing.
It taught through reflection.
Every Core he faced was a version of him that chose wrong.
That didn't pull.
That didn't push.
That didn't carry forward.
And he had passed — not because he was stronger…
…but because he did not stop.
The descent continued.
The trench darkened again.
And the light behind him — from the glow-cores and motion-recorders — died away.
He did not look back.