But the Grand Design was adaptive. While its proxy fleets chased ghosts, it launched a more subtle counterstroke.
The Paradox attacks returned, but this time, they were personalized.
Leyla found herself momentarily paralyzed by a choice between saving Echo or saving Mira in a phantom vision. Mira experienced a spatial loop where she was forever falling away from her bonded. Ryn's cybernetics showed her endless simulations where her logical choices always led to the Circle's destruction. Kiera was bombarded with visions of every betrayal she'd ever committed, twisting into promises of future betrayals to come.
These were paradoxes of the heart and mind, designed to shatter their unity by exploiting their individual fears and loves.
The Circle reeled. The bond, under this assault, strained.
Echo, still weak from the resonance, fought back with the only weapon he had: truth. He pushed his will through the bond, not to negate the visions, but to frame them.
To Leyla: "You will never have to choose. We are one. Protecting one is protecting all."
To Mira:"You are the connection. You cannot fall from yourself."
To Ryn:"Your logic is a gift. Trust it, and trust us to be the variable it cannot calculate."
To Kiera:"Your past is the road that led you here. It does not dictate your destination."
One by one, he stabilized them, using his Sovereign Authority to reaffirm the consensus of their reality: We are together. We are strong. We are real.
It worked. The psychic paradoxes shattered. But the cost was high. The bond was scarred by the assault, and Echo was left spiritually bleeding, his newfound Reality-Weaving ability burnt out from overuse.
They had won the round. They had the location. They had survived the Design's counterattack.
But they were wounded, and the path home was now a deadly race against time and an enemy that could weaponize doubt itself.