Prologue

It was the year 1970 on the world calendar and the Flower Continent was celebrating the day of its founding. Within each of the fifty cities, there were citizens roaming the streets and having a wonderful evening.

A sense of pride filled each one of these individuals as they ate and drank the entire night. There was no telling how long such a wonderful feeling would last, and so no one ever took these celebrations lightly.

Though, every other day of the year, the cities were filled with both bloodshed and tears, this day every major power would halt their advancements and allow the entire continent to be filled with cheers and laughter.

Putting this into place was a more recent government intervention across the entire continent. Without this ceasefire existing, there was no telling how much worse those with very little or no power would feel.

Unlike the other four continents around the world, the Flower Continent when solidified, decided to have an iron rule put into place for its citizens. Such an occurrence was something that the entire world did not expect, but eagerly watched as it was announced.

This rule was that any citizen would be allowed to try and achieve power by any means necessary, if it did not impact the government's job of both dealing with controlling the populace and threaten the government's rule. Stirring up the populace was something that the government understood would happen, but they still chose to move forward with.

Declaring such a rule, allowed the government to allow its populace to become stronger while the weak suffered greatly. Having many military achievements and wanting to expand its power into other continents and smaller lands, by giving the populace the choice of either joining someone locally or joining the government, they would be able to recruit enough soldiers to match their goals.

Using this method as a general iron rule across its lands, this allowed the government more control than it usually would have, since those who did not want to get involved would quickly try to join the military so that their families would be safer.

The consequences did not settle in at first, but once some notable physically dominant figures within the cities and surrounding areas got word of what this actually meant, things spiraled out of control. However, even years later, the government still allowed such a rule to exist, because it made the overall goal of theirs to become a reality in even less time.

What was able to occur overnight, those who held the highest amount of wealth, started to hire these figures to help them take control of their particular districts and had given themselves the title of "Crime Lord".

Slowly but surely, each of the fifty cities were split up between upwards of five different families and factions officially and all the average citizen could do was to join these organizations, or to lose their rights whether to just live their lives or to conduct their own smaller businesses. But, a strange peace finally was seen across the continent where crime was always running rampant to begin with.

On the outside looking in, the Flower Continent only cared about military expansion and had their eyes on a smaller continent rather close. Therefore, as long as buildings weren't blown up or corruption made its way into the government's higher ranks, officials did not mind what happened within its borders.

The second part of this iron rule, was that if firearms were used in a power struggle, both parties involved would be taken down by the government. This was also a way for the government to remain in control of the continent regardless of what went down. Coupled with the fact that there were more than triple the amount of military units now created, there was no way anyone could now oppose the government openly.

Though it was not publicly announced, many of these power struggles would also not allow any weapons to be used and those involved, would leave it up to their fists to see who would come out on top and rule. There were times when it would escalate to using weapons, but this was still rather rare between even those who had the most influence.

It has been over sixty years since this iron rule was introduced, and although smaller factions tried to build up their power to oppose the Crime Lords of their respective districts, the current Crime Lords had an almost undeniable position.

The first twenty years were indeed bloody, and every day citizens across the continent were found dead for either opposing these stronger powers or being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was only until one organization decided to create an alliance with several others in multiple close cities. With this happening, other organizations were forced to rush and do the same to make sure they would not be bullied slowly into submission.

Once these alliances were created across the entirety of the continent, power struggles became a rare sight unless an organization tried to backstab others in their alliance to cause them to not send backup when they got into trouble.

No one understood why such alliances would even be created since the goal for every Crime Lord was to build their influence as far as they could. However, this gave said Crime Lords a sense of ethics, even if the majority of their business earnings came from crime or the blackmarket.

Foundations were continuously built to help create more opportunities for the average citizen, but if they chose not to join said local Crime Lord, they were forced to at least work for someone who would pay the Crime Lord for their protection.

Overall, the only time someone would be found dead in the streets, would be due to unpaid debts, or if they were caught committing a crime that could not go unpunished.

This peace between cities and their Crime Lords would not last, as the most dominating continent in the world, set their sights onto the Flower Continent.