Chapter 35 — The Great Fracture
🌍 Rumbling Across Nations
It began with trade embargos and ideology, not bullets.
When the Church of Innovation's influence spread across borders, the League's coalition of traditional monarchies and mana-orthodox nations felt their grip slipping.
Factories slowed. Ports refused to handle Britannian goods. Rumors of espionage filled the papers.
Edward watched the reports pile up across his desk in Windsor-Prime.
"They won't declare war," he murmured, "but they'll choke themselves trying to resist progress."
⚙️ The Industrial Mobilization
Britannia answered not with armies, but with innovation treaties.
All protectorates were invited to join the Industrial Compact—a cooperative system that unified shipping, manufacturing, and research.
Suddenly, half of Europe's economy depended on Britannian patents.
Steam-rail lines stretched from London to the Balkans. Airship routes bound the North and South.
Every embargo the League tried to enforce only isolated its members further.
💼 The Silent Conquest
By the end of the year, the map had changed without a single cannon firing.
Former rivals petitioned to join the Compact for access to Britannian technology and lunar trade.
Frontiers blurred into networks of commerce, shared universities, and innovation temples.
Charlotte delivered the final report to Edward:
"They called it a war of nations," she said. "But the only victors are those who can build."
Edward smiled. "Then let the world see that the age of conquest ends when minds unite."
🕊 The Peace of Innovation
At the closing summit, held in the Cathedral of Nations, delegates signed the Treaty of Concord.
The document didn't divide territory; it granted shared stewardship of development zones under Britannia's guidance.
The old empires kept their flags—but behind them, their foundries hummed with Britannian blueprints.
Edward looked across the hall, thinking of the angel's warning: "The greater the light, the longer the shadow."
"Then," he said quietly, "let us be the lamp, and not the flame."
End of Chapter 35