The War of the Gifted
Prelude
The premise of The War of the Gifted was mostly started over the idea of there possibly being a military use for airships in the future. The Second Continent has already developed their own airship, which ran off of steam, seven years ago and people were already betting that military airship development wouldn’t have been too far away. This would have changed military operations entirely, as now people have aerial units to not only deploy soldiers from but also to attack with. The possibility of an aerial attack couldn’t be thwarted the same way that a naval attack or an straight ground attack could. Thusly, just the concept of building one was perceived to be a declaration of war-like intent.
So, thusly, the Third Continent hatched a plan. They noticed that the First Continent was growing too largely so, the idea was to incite a political or economic embargo against the continent. This didn’t go over well, though, as other leaders perceived this to be an attack on the First Continent’s growing prosperity and would stunt their growth (which was correct). The report of the Fist Continent possibly building a military airship made the Third Continent begin to build one as well in defense. The secret plan was discovered and the ship itself was to be destroyed.
The First Theatre
The Airship Unsear
The war’s real ignition happened in 2441 CE, with the mobilization of the airship Unsear, by the Third Continent (then known as the First Continent). Taking the idea of the Second Continent from seven years earlier, this airship was the first that was deployed primarily as a military airship. As the normal take was on militaristic airships during this time, the Fifth Continent (then known as the Fourth Continent) found this as a move to strengthen their military and after the denial of the Third Continent to its existence, they secretly organized the forceful dismantling of the airship. This was to happen during the christening flight of the ship within the naval territory of the First Continent. On this day, Crowned Prince Klenoa Marquis of the Third Continent and Crowned Princess Louise Galvandy of the Fourth Continent (then known as the Fifth Continent) were having a date on said vessel. As Louise had never been on an airship before, as the Fourth Continent was still behind in developing one, Klenoa took her out on the airship, believing that it would be fine.
However, everything wasn’t fine. The airship was attacked by Fifth Continent naval ships as they neared the border of the their continent’s naval boundary. Even though Unsear was able to defeat all of the enemies, the airship was badly damaged and hit the water. About thirty minutes later, the ship began to take water and everyone was subsequently evacuated, except Klenoa, who stayed behind with the captain to help defend the escape of all of the soldiers. An hour later, the ship was completely sunk and the captain and the remaining crew was all discovered to be KIA, except for Klenoa and other soldiers, whose bodies seemed to be too badly disfigured for people to actually be able to identify them.
The Fifth Continent couldn’t have seen this possibility happen: That their taken action would end up inciting a whole world-wide war. However, at this time, it wasn’t a large-scale war. The Third Continent took their military actions as militaristic intent and declared war on the Fifth Continent on April 2, 2441 CE (53 years ago in the current Geno timeline). Their ally, the Fourth Continent declared war of the Fifth Continent a couple of hours afterwards. Two days afterwards, the first wave of attackers towards the Fifth Continent were intercepted by vessels identified later as First Continent ships. At the same time, the First Continent declared war on the Third Continent, citing that the airship Unsear was a step backwards in the order of understanding one another and breeding peace.
Three Years and Counting
The first three years of combat had seen many changes in control and dominance. Most of the battles during this time period was naval battles, lingering on the outside of the Island Nations in the middle of Geno. Some battles, especially in the latter part of the third year, actually took place on sectioned pieces of land in the islands. This is the reason why three islands of Ku are actually deemed inhabitable, because of the fire bombs that were used during some of the battles. Even though the time on the land was the shorter of the two, they turned out to be more destructive than the naval battles to the largely neutral Island Nation.
Later on, the Fifth Continent, having been away from their homes the longest and facing a large onslaught from the other side, began to get weak soldier morale. More so, the Third Continent were able to create a couple of more airships. This helped decimate the Fifth Continent’s forces, only making their morale even worse. During this time, no real major battles had taken place and yet the Fifth Continent’s death rate was a little bit above the Fourth and Third Continents’ combined. This generated a sense of natural concern about how the battles were going and how they were not going in their favor. The Fifth Continent, however, had more men to spare, thusly, the war was kept to a close stalemate.
Then, around August of 2444 CE, the Seventh Continent (then known as the Sixth Continent) sold some of their blueprints of the military airships to the Fifth Continent. Now, the Fifth Continent resorted to using the exact same thing that they were so against in order for them to win the war.
The Battle of the Gifted
The Battle of the Gifted was waged on the Island Nations, nearest the Fifth Continent. At this point in time, the lack of battle morale from the Fifth Continent’s soldiers was resulting a slow but steady withdrawal to the edge of their controlled territory in the Island Nations. At time that this battle began, the whole point of this battle was to see if the Third and Fourth Continents would have been allowed to break through the forces and possibly bring an end to the war quicker by attacking the Fifth Continent.
This battle was important to both sides but what ended up being the real factor wasn’t the actual armies. Yes, the armies were a large factor, but this also was the beginning of a new age on Geno, embodied in four people. All four of them were relatively rookies on the battlefield, with the oldest one, Katana Tsubame, only had one year of military service beforehand. The youngest one, Raijin Mamudo, had just joined the army a good four days and this was his first major battle. However, they displayed the next step in ‘magic evolution,’ which was black magic. It was well-known that people could use things such as summon magic, that was limited to summoners however and not everyone could do that. This was the first time that people were allowed to use destructive magic where it could have been accessible to everyone, although no one knew it at the time.
But, during their first battle, their abilities rose up only little and far between. However, Derek Kingsley, a hand-to-hand fighter of the Fifth Continent, was able to permanently scar one of the best swordsman in the Fourth Continent by accidentally burning his body with his sword. It was later discovered that it was due to his fire magic flowing through the sword as he cut him. It was later confirmed as he also showed the ability to cut through steel shields by melting them. A little bit afterwards, a lancer, Raijin Mamudo, was able to set an explosion chain by using thunder magic, defeating three squads of soldiers simultaneously. This was weird because the actual people who were supposed to set off the explosion were actually caught en-route and were killed a few minutes beforehand. Thusly, Raijin technically acted without even moving much from his initial position. Shortly after this, the archer Sequoia Lansing was the only one able to survive an small earthquake over a fifty meter radius. This didn’t seem to be so unbelievable until it was discovered that the focal point was where she was standing. Finally, Katana Tsubame, a swordswoman, was able to use wind magic to behead five people at the same time.
Even though they didn’t spend all of their time out on the battlefield, those feats were enough to state that there could be a chance of some divine interventions. The four people of interest ended up being discovered to their armies but hidden to the general public, as the armies tried to figure out how they could do what they did out there.
Aftermath of the Battle of the Gifted
The result of this battle resulted in a tactical victory for the Third and Fourth Continents, even though they lost more soldiers. A few days later, the Third and Fourth Continents had their soldiers touch land on the Fifth Continent and after a week of preoccupying the land, the people had turned against the government and the Third Continent helped in overthrowing the government in a short but bloody revolution, hoping that a less radical ruler would come into power. This wouldn’t come though, as a new but gifted politician, known as Paris Laguna had gained the peoples’ favor by insisting that the continent and its rights must be protected. He also insisted that the war could still be won by sticking together, as they must still support the soldiers that are fighting hard to protect them.
Paris won on a thin margin, wrapping up pro-war supporters, as well as the soldiers for his plans and enthusiasm about the military. Soon after getting elected into office, Paris declared the continuation of the Fifth Continent’s war efforts and, only a few minutes afterwards, began his first strike towards the invading forces.
The Gifted Recession
Even though the Fourth and Third Continents were on the Fifth Continent’s land, the army seemed to be in worse shape. It was hot for the soldiers, who were used to sometimes fifty degree temperatures in their regions. The Fifth Continent’s climate didn’t really suit their own battle needs. Paris, when organizing the Gifted Recession, organized that against them.
It was a full-on joint effort between the First and Fifth Continents that utilized the sand dunes and the heat as a way to wage guerilla warfare on the invaders. By the time that the Fifth and Fourth Continent pushed the battle to the shores of the Fifth Continent, Paris was able to launch the Fifth Continent’s first military airship, the Juggernaut, which ended up destroying the retreating navy ships, killing a hundred soldiers and destroying four ships on its christening flight. This solidified the dominance of the Fifth Continent’s new government, so much so that the Sixth Continent (then known as the Seventh Continent) ended up aligning with the Fifth Continent, hoping that it could help defending it against a possible colonizing attempt by the Fourth Continent.
The Second Continent’s Decision
At this point, then, the war began to spread to the world’s middle, in the newly discovered Island Nation. During these clashes, the Sixth Continent’s ninja overpowered the new weapons on the Fourth Continent through guerilla warfare. With that, Paris began a campaign to push the front lines towards the Third Continent by using the power of the First Continent and the Sixth Continent. However, before Paris could make that push, the Seventh Continent (then known as the Sixth Continent) opened fire on the Fifth Continent, believing that they would lose markets if Paris had his way with the continents.
Now, with the amount of continents in the war for each side equal and the weak standing of the Eighth Continent, everyone’s eyes were on the Second Continent, which was supplying both sides while maintaining their neutrality. When the Second Continent continued to declare its neutrality, Paris became infuriated and launched an attack on the Second Continent. This attack ended up with the bustling of city Felistantè in flames, destroying the city, killing many of its residents, and solidifying the alliance with the Fourth and Third Continents.
A Refreshing Face
A month later, this new alliance launched an attack on the Fifth Continent, having been pushing back the front in the Island Nations. After another month of aerial assaults, the Third Continent gained aerial superiority and infiltrated a bunker where Paris was staying. At this time, Paris was revealed to an amnesiac Klenoa and with that, the infiltration was stopped and the Fifth Continent surrendered to the Third Continent a few days later. As soon as negotiations were set to begin, the First, Second, and Sixth Continents attacked the Fifth and Third Continents, citing them to have intentions to create an empire. At this time, the Fourth Continent joined the Fifth and Third Continents and the Seventh Continent enters a time of political unrest after months of war weariness and overthrew their government. This new government soon declared neutrality.
The Second Theatre
At this time, during the ‘Second Theatre,’ the four knights from the Battle of the Gifted were a larger factor. Now, hardened with military experience, these four people matched each other in military victories all during the war. However, the number of the knights was in favor of the “Marquis Tripartide” (as Klenoa and Louise got married during this time) and with their power, they were able to push the Second, First and Sixth Continents’ forces enough to enter a decisive and possibly final battle. However, this was not meant to be. Although powerful, the knights were also human and were getting tired from the constant battles. When these two large forces met during the Battle of the Lions, Sequoia first fought against Raijin and narrowly beat him. Respecting her power and falling in love with her, Raijin evaded almost indefinite execution by the Third Continent and joined Sequoia and her forces. Through the usage of their aerial forces, Sequoia and Raijin were able separate Derek and Katana from each other and then using the remainder of their forces and nearly all of their strength, they were able to kill both of them consecutively.
Shortly after this victory, Sequoia and Raijin helped push back the front to the Third and Fourth Continents and joined in the simultaneous attack of their capitals, killing Louise and King Marquis respectively. Hearing this, Klenoa wrote his final address, passing control to his Parliamentary Council and then committing suicide at his desk, effectively ending the war. The war officially ended Febuary 7, 2446 (48 years ago in Geno's timeline).
Aftermath
Magic Sentiments
It featured the Four Knights, who showed a physical dominance on the field that had never been present before. The Knights’ victories in battle made people aware of the basic abilities of black magic and popularized the idea of combat magic. On the other hand, as well, this also brought out a long-stemming hatred of summon magic (seen as another offensive magic) to a rise and anti-summoner sentiments ran through the continents shortly after the war, due to the lack of summoner interference in the war, as well as the confidence that black magic could eventually override the need for summoners.
Living Conditions
The war also did irreversible damage to some places on Geno. The islands of Leere, Vide, and Intet were deemed unlivable, all of them in the Ku Providence. Along with this, Klenoa’s attack on the Second Continent city, Felistantè, made that place a monument to the Second Continent and herded all of the survivors into the nearby city of Bèlisma. That has made Bèlisma overpopulated and slum-ish.
Politically
This turned out to be a pivotal point in Geno’s history in that it set up the social class rankings for the present. Along with this, the First Theatre actually marked the beginning of the political problems in the Seventh Continent that has stemmed to the present. The Sixth Continent’s withdrawal from political matters was also a result of this war, having noticed how badly they were treated during the War of the Gifted.
