The Endless Sea was covered by thick, dark clouds year-round. Only the flames sparked by thunderstorms striking the surface illuminated it. But most of the World Islands floating above were blessed with clear skies and gentle weather. The World Barrier held back the erosion from outside, shutting out the storms.
Not every floating World Island was so vast, however. In some broken worlds, the interior was like a drafty wooden shack. Though most of the wind was kept out, they still remained gloomy.
Reefs had appeared in these waters, which should have been bottomless, in defiance of all reason. A closer look revealed that these "reefs" were actually the peaks of mountains submerged beneath the sea.
Using these "reefs" as supports, people had built platforms between the mountains and linked them all together, forming a magnificent city that looked like a mountain stronghold.
The city was supported by "reefs" below and was mostly suspended above the water, like a gigantic offshore drilling platform.
This broken world had only a few Wish Power Wells, whose extracted power was just enough to keep the world running day to day.
Normally, a World Island that could barely balance its books and had such a poor environment would be of little interest. Ordinary people wouldn't come here.
It was also a place that wasn't even worth the trouble of developing.
But as the World Island went without oversight and came to offer a sense of "freedom," where anyone could come and go as they pleased, the place known as Three Mouth Reef gradually became a famous black market nearby.
Precisely because there were no rules, the people who came and went were invariably tough characters. Aside from the lowest-ranking people involved in the "service industry," anyone who came to trade in earnest was at