A few more days passed.
The five continents were almost together.
From several coasts, there was barely enough sea left to make the word distant feel appropriate. Mountains that had once belonged to another horizon now stood clearly beneath the same sky, while the last stretches of water between ancient continental shelves continued shrinking under the controlled spatial adjustments.
Lucien watched the final stages from Lootwell.
He did not intervene.
Lilith handled the restoration of the remaining shelves with the teams already assigned to her.
Nobody asked Lucien what to do.
That felt strange.
For years, whenever something this large happened, some portion of the work eventually reached him.
Now reports reached Vivian instead.
Requests moved through established command channels.
Problems were handled before Lucien even heard about them.
The rhythm he had spent weeks trying to create was finally working without him standing at the center of every part.
