There was another problem.
Confusion.
The public had spent months preparing for something to happen around the five continents.
Now news would spread that Black Mass monsters were attacking faction territories throughout the void.
People would begin wondering where the real front was.
The seas?
The void?
Their home cities?
The conquered worlds?
Should elite forces leave the continents?
Should they stay?
Too many different answers could damage the very readiness they had spent months building.
Worse, the Black Mass did not need everyone to make the same mistake.
It only needed every faction to make a different decision.
Fragmentation would do the rest.
Lucien could not allow that.
•••
He sent new instructions to Lootwell's deployed forces.
They were to assist the local defenders and stabilize damaged boundaries, but they were not to pursue retreating Black Mass groups deep into unknown regions of the void.
