As mana ran out everywhere, entire economies and industries began to shut down. Without crystal power, a huge amount of magic devices were rendered useless and even those which could be powered manually by mages began to go unused as hiring mages became more and more difficult and expensive.

Some managed to pull together and adapt peacefully, giving up on power and luxury and magic, all but returning to the iron age. These were mainly small nations like Kiwi Ko, the Northern Sea People, the remnants of the Midlands Sea People, and half the East Sea People, those in the southern seas.

The other half of the East Sea People (of the islands off the northern coast), along with many larger nations, turned to martial law to maintain order. Practically all of them quickly declared war upon other nations and directed the rising hostility of their people outwards. The entire south-western continent exploded in war, affecting even the Azte Empire, which spanned the southernmost region of the north-western continent and the narrow neck of land to the south-western continent.

The other powers of the north-western continent, however, managed to avoid the worst of it, turning to Libertaria's newly developed technology. Steam power, electricity and telegrams dominated; railways stretched across the entire north-western continent as many powers joined Libertaria or their closest ally, Torres. In time to come, these two powers alone would fill almost all of the north-western continent (except the strife-filled Azte lands).

Over on the eastern continent, the Dragon Empire dominated. While everybody else and their uncle flat out ran out of mana, somehow, the Dragon Empire was able to maintain a steady supply. No matter how hard their neighbors tried, they were unable to learn the secrets or source of this supply. Already, the price the Dragon Empire demanded for their Red Crystals was unaffordable. Entire nations had practically gone bankrupt vying for them in auction only to use them up at terrifying rates. War erupted on every side, countries swallowing countries in a single week, but the Dragon Empire remained steady and unaffected the whole way through, merely snapping up a few smaller neighbors at its convenience.

The Hyung and the Yellow Empire very quickly burst out into a three-way war, each citing grievances and atrocities enacted by the other ages ago. The Yakh tried to raid Mendev, but were practically slaughtered. Mendev itself at first tried to rely on Ecclesia, but once the crystals ran out, even Ecclesia had a shortage of mages to manually power all their essentials.

In fact, Ecclesia seemed to be getting it worse than Mendev. While Mendev could point to them and blame them for not sharing, the residents and citizens of Ecclesia felt ent.i.tled to the services and mana of Ecclesia's mages for their every need and convenience. A whole lot of grumbling and complaining rose up from the citizenry, while the mages shot back complaints with even more acridity. "If you don't like it, you go power your own devices!"

When several cases of magi getting kidnapped and practically enslaved appeared, there was a huge uproar from the magic community and the entire place almost erupted into civil war.

It was around that time that the majority of the Church of Light disappeared. Their priests and priestesses, the families of their clergy and all known confirmed members of the Church of Light were suddenly nowhere to be found. Even their airs.h.i.+ps had disappeared. The only priests remaning were the old, stubborn bible thumpers, who refused to let slip even a hint of where all the others had gone.

But the worst of the strife happened across the north midlands continent. Bereft of mana, the once-haugty Midlands nations attempted to put aside all the grievances of their world war, and unite in an attempt to seize the Last Mana Lode from the Wilds.

Together, they succeeded and for the s.p.a.ce of two hours, peace and joy rang througout the nations!

But then they discovered the terrible, inevitable truth.

The Last Mana Lode was nowhere near as big as the rumors claimed. It was, in fact, practically surface-deep and looked to be mainly formed from the dredges of crystals already spent in the past. The whole thing was a trick, and they had paid dearly, soul-crus.h.i.+ngly dearly, to discover it.

This was the downfall of six different governments. Some descended into civil war. Others were swept up in anarchy. All of them suddenly faced fierce retaliation from the now-local Wilds, while just having spent the last dribbles of their mana and exhausted their mages.

Among them all, Ashdale withdrew from the continent entirely. Now existing only in their islands off the coast, they engaged in a long and heated discussion as to how to solve the problem while maintaining the entire time that the most important thing was not to fight over it. The arguments were getting outright furious when one day, a prominent academician by the name of Professor Marakovichi received an unexpected call from the Wildlands, referred to by none other than Mandy Summers.

That day, he went to the council and brought up a startling proposal. Five hours later, a Very Important call was made to Libertaria. With that, a desperate race to adapt electricity began.

Meanwhile, in the middle east, blood stained the streets red. Otta, Paleres, Ira and Kuasa Besar turned on each other. The Brotherhood of Six fought its own members tooth and nail in what would soon be described as the bloodiest family feud in history. As the weeks pa.s.sed Otta was suppressed from both the northern Midlands nations gone crazy and Paleres to the south. As Otta crumbled, Paleres found little in way of winnings from trouncing them and thereafter turned eyes and raiding bands toward the desert… toward Fal'Herim.

***

"We've been what…?" Remian stared.

"We've been raided." Tim answered. "Supply convoys robbed, our crews killed… one particularly strong raiding band even tried to attack Fal'Herim itself. They plundered four districts before they were beaten back, and almost reached our Industrial District. I have to go back and raise a security force…"

"Would Khar'al-dras be willing to help out?"

Tim shook his head. "Khar'al has already gone back to sleep. The war with the Spectres took a heavy toll on him and he needs years, decades to recover. It's the same for the Emperors, isn't it? We can't rely on our big guys to fight off the raiders."

"But we can't send forces to help you either. There are still hundreds of loose Spectres roaming the south. The Church airs.h.i.+ps are doing a nice job patrolling our perimeter, but it's up to us to clean them out." George frowned.

"Is it?" Remian asked. "What if we were to abandon the south?"

"You wanna tell Mindy that?" George shook his head. "I wouldn't."

"Mindy would have to understand. With the Church guarding the borders, we could just leave the Spectres alone until after we ensure the safety of the Industrial District. Keep in mind, this includes her own s.h.i.+pyards. As for the south, clearing out the remaining Spectres could take years. In order to deal with them, we need reliable supply lines, and a strong industrial base. Otherwise, if we have no way of replenis.h.i.+ng our losses, after taking enough casualties, we would practically lose both the north AND the south."

"Half." George bargained. "We send half our forces north, but we keep half here. I don't want to rely entirely on strangers for our security."

"Half, then." Remian relented. "But the new stuff built at Fal'Herim stays there to defend it."

George paused. "Mindy has fifty Wasps at the Speckled Highlands. Her Moon Owl Lord prepared a plateau for three hundred, and she had a hundred before, but we took heavy losses since then… a good many of them had already been sent back to Fal'Herim for repairs."

"We can leave the fifty to help clean up the Spectres. The ones sent back for repairs will suffice." Tim nodded. "What about your gunboats?"

"I have twelve active, forty in the drydocks." George grimaced. "They weren't very tough to begin with and they don't have the kind of speed that Mindy's Wasps have. Would you believe it? I only have the crews for five of them. They keep coming back with badly damaged s.h.i.+ps and just swap damaged gunboats for fresh ones on their next patrol."

"How did Mindy get the crews for hundreds of Wasps?"

"She hired Adventurers. Thing about Adventurers is they love flying the Wasps. Something about them being much faster, more maneuverable and less likely to get shot down than my gunboats." George grumbled. "They wouldn't crew one of my gunboats unless I offered triple pay."

Remian sighed. "George, we need new airs.h.i.+p designs. Designs that don't rely on mana, or use as little magic as possible. Whether your Gunboats or Mindy's Wasps… they're all going to have to be replaced."

***

Tim headed back to Fal'Herim with Salim's ex-mercenaries crew and Marcus' tattered remnants of the Iron Legion, leaving George with Song Chen and the Wildlands Defense Force and Mindy's fifty Wasp fleet.

To be honest, the majority of Salim's crew and Marcus' Iron Legion remnants all ended up brought into the city for the sake of better medical facilities. Between the two of them, the remaining combat-worthy members only numbered thirty in total, and these in desperate need of rest.

But that was fine. Tim wasn't planning to rely on them to fight off Paleres any way. He was reasonably sure that these raiding bands were just the start of the conflict. In time to come, they might very well have to face the full might of Paleres' military proper. No, these guys were here just to fill in the ranks and gaps for the time being while he worked on his real plan.

Meanwhile, Remian showed George some rough sketches of his plan to replace the airs.h.i.+ps.

"This… this isn't an airs.h.i.+p." George gulped.

"No, without magic, using airs.h.i.+ps with our current level of technology is just too risky for comfort." Remian grimaced. "What you're looking at is a land-based mode of transportation. While it's originally meant to be a transport, it's possible to add arms and armor."

"What do you call it?" George asked.

"It's called a train." Remian explained. "To use it, we're going to need to lay out tracks."

***

It wasn't what Remian dreamed about, but given the current available materials and engineering capabilities of KarGoth, it would do as a temporary measure. At least for the next twenty to forty years or so.

Jim actually wasn't unfamiliar with steam engines, and Arnold was very interested in Libertaria's designs. It seemed that outright buying parts for railway tracks and trains might even be possible… at the right price.

"I'm so glad Libertaria's already developing steam power." Remian heaved a sigh of relief. "What kind of prices are we talking about?"

Jim told him and Remian choked.