The whole layer deployed at once.
That was the first thing that felt wrong about it. Every previous World-Ending Event had scattered kingdoms across a world too large to see from any one position. This time, standing on the edge of the Sundered Shelf at dawn, Almond could see other kingdoms' banners on the horizon in three directions.
The world they had been given was smaller than the ones before it.
"That's not a good sign," Marcus said, reading the same horizon. "They're not spreading us out. They're concentrating us."
"Because whatever's coming doesn't need us spread out to reach us," Rudra said.
The Sundered Shelf itself was a plateau the size of a small country, split down its center by a canyon so deep the bottom of it had never been surveyed. Ananta Regalon held the eastern half. PeakWicked held the western, close enough that John's banner was visible across the gap.
Four hundred thousand Regalons stood on that shelf. Eleven thousand volunteers stood behind them.
