The point of the Middle branch remained communication devices.
But beneath that public purpose were deeper ones.
Gather allies.
Strengthen the continent.
Create a stable public system.
Plant Lootwell's influence in the center of the Big World.
Lucien did not want to become the overlord of the world.
That sounded exhausting.
It also sounded like the kind of title that made fools either kneel too quickly or rebel too loudly.
Lucien wanted something more useful.
Influence.
Enough influence to push decisions when opposition became dangerous.
Enough trust to make people listen before disaster arrived.
Enough strength to stop those who mistook freedom for permission to ruin everyone else.
He knew things most of the world did not.
The Abyss. The locked timeline. The Primordial Incarnations. The Black Mass consciousness. The barks of the Tree of Creation. The Origin Core.
All of it pressed behind his decisions like a storm no one else could see.
