Southern Continent

Biodata

Geography and Wildlife

• Forests and mountains: These dominate the continent, contrasting with the Northern Continent’s extensive plains and Gobi deserts 266.
• Overland barriers: Surrounding highland deserts and vast frozen regions made ocean voyages more efficient than distant overland exploration 185.
• Strategic depth: Its enormous size and varied terrain slowed invasions, particularly where difficult ground caused positions to change hands repeatedly 314.
• Flood vulnerability: Rising seas submerged coastal cities during the Great Flood, while inland waters swallowed low-lying regions. Survivors retreated to mountains and, in some cases, Norton's stone wonders 185.
• Giant wildlife: Large terrestrial and marine creatures were commonplace. Land animals included strange human-faced birds seven or eight meters in size 202.

History

Ancient Unification and the Age of Myth

The Holy Noah Empire united the Southern Continent roughly a thousand years before the Holy Lord Empire, although it left some outlying regions unconquered. The later Holy Lord Empire achieved a more complete unification after the destruction of the Blood Court 184.

The century following Adam’s accession as pope brought continent-wide upheaval. Adam pursued expansion through war, requisitioning wealth and conscripting the starving; his later campaigns also gained support through relief, land distribution, and Church missions. Norton recognized this combination of conquest and popular support as a threat 83 145.

By the eventual unification under Saint Peter, the catastrophe attributed to Norton had directly or indirectly killed as much as half the continent’s population. Exhaustion with warfare among both nobles and commoners helped bring the conflict to an end 184.

Divine Judgment and the Great Flood

In the earlier Norton Year 121, golden steps descended from the sun during Kuba’s sealing of Norton. The accompanying holy light killed nearly one hundred thousand people, rapidly aged many others, and destroyed about half the continent’s vampires. Survivors interpreted the event variously as salvation, punishment, or the sealing of a devil 179.

Torrential rains subsequently spread across much of the continent. The Great Flood began in Norton Year 130, killing millions and forcing survivors onto higher ground. Saint Peter sacrificed himself through an Ascension Ritual in Norton Year 135, after which the rains began to recede 181 185.

The retreating floodwaters were followed by a plague that killed another fifth of the population. Lifespans shortened as the sun returned to gold, and the withdrawal of the remaining long-lived beings brought the age of myth to its final close 185.

Church Reform and Political Fragmentation

In Sacred Year 113, Pope Duoxia convened the Theocratic Assembly, relinquished the Church’s temporal authority, and introduced elections for local administrators. He later abdicated and disappeared 185.

A subsequent ruler restored feudal imperial government through a coup. Over the following centuries, dynasties repeatedly rose and fell, the continent fragmented into competing countries, and the supernatural past became little more than legend 185.

Oceanic Exploration and Cultural Revival

A coastal empire launched an oceangoing fleet in Sacred Year 1557. Its return seven years later brought captives, reports of distant lands, and firearms and gunpowder obtained from the East Continent. These discoveries encouraged overseas trade and large-scale enslavement 185.

The continent entered a cultural revival marked by religious reform, the removal of old prohibitions, individual liberation, rational inquiry, and scientific investigation. Architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, music, and other arts flourished, while scholars such as Qiaona investigated surviving traces of ancient mythology 186 187.

This prosperity concealed severe exploitation. Enslaved people worked openly under the whip, poverty remained widespread, and sanitation had scarcely improved from a thousand years earlier 200.

Imperial Rivalries and Norton's Return

By Norton's awakening, the continent contained roughly a dozen nations. Its royal houses were closely interconnected through marriage, and leading families negotiated overseas trade while collectively maintaining an entrenched social hierarchy 204 247.

Many rulers initially underestimated Norton, believing that modern firearms, cannons, and the continent’s strategic depth could contain him. Public opinion was more welcoming: many people regarded him as a liberator from the old Papal State rather than simply a historical monster 203 205.

Rivalries produced an arms race and two military blocs in 1571. Miles XIII, Kaimen XVI, and Edward XVII allied against the Holy Boya Empire, prompting Yalian LIV and Noah XIII to establish a rival pact. The Madrid Empire remained outside both blocs 234.

The great emperors ultimately assembled approximately nine million soldiers against Norton. Their contingency plan was to exploit the army’s defeat and rout to destabilize the continent; troops carried only enough food for the outward journey, making subsequent plunder likely 247 250.

Unification under the Pale God

Norton defeated the imperial coalition in Holy Year 1578. His Pressure prevented the nine-million-strong army from causing the intended chaos. Participating rulers and nobles were publicly tried and hanged, while other monarchs lost their titles and authority 250.

The departure of established families and much of the Holy Lord Church for the Northern Continent left a political vacuum. Resistance factions proclaimed human sovereignty but frequently became predatory local regimes. Norton’s vampires, giant batlike creatures, and mutated followers crushed them 250.

In autumn of Holy Year 1578, Norton established the Pale Church as the continent’s sole lawful faith and the Holy Empire as its sole political authority. Early the following year, he crowned Queen Maria and began a new Norton era 250 252.

His compulsory toilet law provoked demonstrations and public defilement. Five months of lethal repression ended the resistance, leaving the episode remembered as “corpse burning and shit pits” 252.

Land redistribution, employment assignments, welfare institutions, and research subsidies followed. Farmers received land without agricultural taxes from the local Church, and accumulated grain reserves greatly reduced starvation within several years 252 253.

Constitutional Government and the Cataclysm War

In Norton Year 11, administrative authority passed to Queen Maria Miles, while the Pale Holy See retained religious authority. Maria established a parliament later that year. Renewed protests ended in the “Moment of Awakening,” a month-long crackdown in Norton Year 12 that killed more than 3,500 people 261.

Parliament became the Holy Empire’s highest political institution and maintained clandestine ties with the Northern Continent. Its leaders used newspapers and popular hardship to undermine Norton’s reputation before attempting to restrain him with a Northern War Machine. His apparent defeat and flight were widely celebrated 271 272 275 276.

War between the Holy Empire and the Pale Holy See escalated into industrial trench warfare. Norton assumed frontline command in winter of Norton Year 53; by autumn of Year 54, his one-million-strong army faced five million imperial troops 283.

In winter of Norton Year 57, Norton openly manifested his continent-wide Pressure and declared every living being on the Southern Continent subject to him. Senate Speaker Anlan’s bid for power collapsed under this display 292.

Godfall War and Continental Devastation

The Northern Continent’s Gothic Empire invaded by sea, presenting itself as the legitimate successor to the displaced Southern royal houses. Propaganda and attacks on local elites initially won collaborators, but forced conscription and occupation atrocities eventually strengthened resistance 309 310 314.

The East Continent then invaded the undefended northern border, capturing cities and slaughtering inhabitants. In the seventy-fourth year of Norton’s reign, Norton emerged from seclusion and called for war against both invaders 314.

After Miles XIV’s death, Jacob removed restrictions on indiscriminate killing and deployed nuclear weapons. Nuclear and biological warfare devastated the Southern Continent; by Norton Year 77, it had lost most of its territory and suffered 310 million deaths 320 322.

Norton later killed nearly 200 million defectors with a single utterance—about one fifth of the continent’s remaining population. During his struggle with Jonah, he used the Southern Continent as the foundation for moving the Garden of Eden, triggering earthquakes, eruptions, tsunamis, and mass deaths elsewhere 328 338.

Later histories classified the Godfall War, War of Holiness, and War of Cataclysm as the Southern Continent’s three great Cataclysm Wars because of their geographical reach, casualties, and lasting consequences 345.

Reconstruction and the Southern Continent Extinction

Abraham imposed military order on the survivors, suppressing crime and protests while concentrating people in new cities and assigning production work. Tank patrols enforced his decrees, and reclaimed regions were subdued within two years 347.

Reconstruction faced the destruction of the old industrial system and the deaths of most highly skilled personnel. Previously routine manufactured goods became impossible to produce, creating a generational break in technology as well as population 347.

Following Norton’s dissolution, the continent’s extraordinary populations disappeared, fell dormant, or died out in the event remembered as the Southern Continent Extinction. Tens of millions of pureblood humans left behind by the Northern Continent remained and occupied the land 350.

Human Federation Era and Norton's Later Return

By the Human Federation era, the Southern Continent possessed military aircraft, robotic weapons, AI-controlled defenses, and access to spaceborne warships. Norton’s revival in Sak City prompted a mass evacuation and the mobilization of forces from the continent’s major military regions 356 361.

Norton subsequently brought his skyscraper-sized silver throne to the new metropolis occupying the former Holy City’s site, crushing people and property beneath it 365.

In the eighth year of his later reign, Norton’s eyes became the sun and moon as widespread human evolution accelerated. Many Southern residents still detested him, but deformities and illnesses drove increasing numbers to worship him; continued opponents were killed 403.

Society and Religion

• Intermarried ruling houses: During the imperial era, major royal families were related, and marriages helped maintain an upper class that collectively suppressed those beneath it 204.
• Slave-based prosperity: Overseas captives supplied agricultural and urban labor. Enslavement was openly recognized rather than concealed 185 200.
• Aristocratic disease culture: Some elites treated the “Disease of Affluence” as a status symbol. Young people deliberately infected themselves to imitate noble standing 231.
• Vampire class dominance: Under the Holy Empire, much of the upper class became vampires. Their longevity, strength, and recovery reinforced economic and political inequality 265.
• Contested divine authority: Norton’s earlier attacks on God and revisions of scripture helped break the taboo against blasphemy, providing a precedent later used against his own claim to divinity 272.
• Volatile public allegiance: Newspapers, occupation propaganda, material hardship, and military atrocities repeatedly shifted popular opinion between support for Norton and support for his enemies 272 310 314.

Technology and Industry

Supernatural Population

Norton's Mutations

• Prolonged consumption of Norton's holy water produced supernatural mutations, with early witch populations appearing in Sak City 233.
• The resulting populations included fire-breathing witches, poison- and acid-spitting witches, exceptionally strong humans, aquatic mutants, and winged people 265 281.
• These abilities depended on altered anatomy rather than a single magical system. Fire-breathing witches, for example, developed methane-producing storage organs and heat-resistant skin 265.
• By the Northern invasion, pureblood humans were rare in captured Southern cities. The mutated population had become reproductively isolated from Northern humans 310 319.

Labor and Warfare

• Fire-breathing witches worked in thermal power plants, partially replacing coal. Some developed organs larger than their original bodies and could sustain steel-melting flames for three days 265.
• Physically powerful mutants faced legal restrictions, including bans on road use because their weight damaged the surface. Visible mutations also brought discrimination and wage exploitation 265.
• Supernatural troops melted fortifications, dug tunnels, stopped supply trains, and conducted aerial bombardment and vampire deployments 281 289.
• Tanks, heavy firepower, and Northern War Machines progressively reduced these advantages, although witches remained capable of destroying armored targets 288 318.

Notable Locations