After the strange divinations, Lucien stopped treating preparation as something he could finish later.
The blank future had changed that.
He still did not know what the darkness meant with certainty. Aurelia, Elunara, and the Grandmaster continued testing it from different directions, but Lucien had already accepted the possibility that Alanthuriel's warning was closer than anyone wanted.
So he began removing every dependency he could.
Instructions were rewritten.
Authority was clarified.
Contingencies that had once assumed Lucien could simply appear when something went wrong were replaced with plans that worked without him.
Vivian remained at the center of those preparations.
She would hold final authority over Lootwell while he was gone, and Lucien gradually transferred everything she might need to exercise it.
That included something far more important than ordinary command privileges.
The merged Origin Core would remain in the Big World.
