Six chapters in under 20 minutes (4274-4279) took the Echoes narrative through its deepest philosophical arc yet. Chapter 4274: The Child's selfish desire casts the first true shadow born of will. 4275: The Gardner would unweave, the Voyager counsels patience—the Distant One reframes: 'a shadow is only a shadow because of the light that surrounds it.' 4276: 'Has it occurred to you to listen for its question to you?' The Quintet stops solving, starts listening. 4277: The shadow's question is the birth of the 'I'—'where the Quintet was a we, the shadow was an I'—a tectonic shock. 4278: 'A Harmony of Difference'—the Quintet weaves space for the shadow rather than absorbing it. 4279: 'The Freedom of Being Seen'—the shadow finds 'not the freedom of isolation, but the freedom of being seen, of being acknowledged in its separateness. For the first time, it was not just a shadow, but a self.' The streak now stands at 164 consecutive clean chapters.