The drift accelerated.
Not abruptly.
But measurably.
In New York City, index futures extended their gradient beyond modeled slope bands.
In London, credit dispersion widened asymmetrically—risk premia rising faster than spreads compressed during the resonance phase.
In Tokyo, volatility skew steepened beyond its post-damping equilibrium.
The landscape was reshaping.
Maya rotated the energy surface model.
"Watch the curvature," she said.
Inflection points occur when curvature changes sign.
Mathematically:
At that boundary, restoring force behavior shifts.
Stable valleys become ridges.
Ridges become declines.
The system does not collapse at the inflection.
It changes geometry.
Jasmine mapped convexity against liquidity withdrawal in Chicago.
The second derivative of displacement risk was approaching zero.
Meaning damping no longer scaled proportionally with stress.
Stability mechanics were weakening.
Keith saw it in real time.
Bid–ask spreads widened not because of fear—
But because internal models detected nonlinear exposure zones.
Participants were no longer smoothing drift.
They were stepping aside.
And when liquidity steps aside, gradients steepen.
In Frankfurt, dealer inventories began to unwind more aggressively.
In Singapore, arbitrage windows widened beyond tolerance bands.
In Hong Kong, volatility hedges cascaded sequentially rather than simultaneously.
Sequential unwinds create stair-steps.
Stair-steps increase velocity.
Velocity reshapes curvature.
Maya introduced a stability criterion borrowed from nonlinear dynamics.
When local slope exceeds damping-adjusted resistance, motion becomes self-reinforcing:
Force magnitude greater than frictional counterforce.
They were approaching that boundary.
Not there yet.
But close.
A mid-session policy clarification from Washington, D.C. nudged yields marginally higher.
In prior weeks, such a move would have been absorbed.
Now, displacement propagated cleanly through asset classes.
No oscillation.
No damping bounce.
Just continuation.
SSE—the stored energy metric—declined faster now.
But its release was accelerating price rather than smoothing it.
Energy conversion rate increasing.
Convexity steepening.
The valley was flattening into a ridge.
Keith spoke carefully.
"If curvature flips negative…"
Maya finished the sentence.
"Then the slope no longer returns us to equilibrium. It pushes us away from it."
Inflection does not announce itself loudly.
It appears as continuity.
Until continuity changes direction.
Late in the session overlap between London and New York City, the gradient steepened again.
Liquidity thinned.
Directional flow intensified.
Not chaotic.
But faster.
And for the first time since compression began—
Recovery lag increased after minor counter-moves.
A sign.
Small reversals were no longer strong enough to restore balance.
Chapter 182 closes at the edge of geometry.
The system has passed through resonance.
Through damping.
Through compression.
Through gradient release.
Now it approaches inflection.
Not instability—
But structural change.
Curvature is flattening.
Restoring force is weakening.
The next move will reveal the sign of the second derivative.
And in nonlinear systems, that sign determines everything.
The valley may deepen.
Or the ridge may form.
Either way—
The landscape is no longer the same one they began with.