Emergent Gravity as Topological Geodesic Relaxation

The current Paper 43 benchmark does not claim that continuum Einstein gravity or a full lensing phenomenology has already been derived on a graph. It does show that, in the real scheduled `N=128`, degree `6`, mass-degree `8` Unified Phase 3 universe, the strongest selected peripheral geodesic bends measurably toward the distinguished mass sector. In the current reference run the path `46 -> 40 -> 34 -> 84 -> 78 -> 108` has total length `5`, approaches mass node `0` to within `1` hop, and yields an inward-deflection score of `2` hops relative to the nearer endpoint. The defensible conclusion is therefore that gravity-like geodesic bending emerges as a direct consequence of mass-induced topological relaxation in the live QGEFT lattice.