Above the Kingdom of Ye, high in the sky.
Over a hundred islands of every shape and size floated among the clouds, freed from gravity's grip. Some were covered in dense jungle, others were bare rock, and still others held the ruins of villages and towns.
Behind this fantastical sight lay a chilling silence.
The islands' surfaces were strewn with the bodies of animals and people. Their limbs were twisted, their eyes frozen in terror and pain.
A closer look revealed that nearly all had died from precise, fatal sword wounds. The clean edges of the cuts made it clear a master swordsman had struck them down.
Stranger still, each island was wrapped in a certain amount of seawater. As though held fast by an invisible force, the water clung to the islands' surfaces without dripping or spreading.
The islands formed a perfect ring, a vast floating archipelago that resembled a fortress in the sky.
At the very center of the ring stood one unusually conspicuous island.
Unlike the others, it held an elegant, old-fashioned wooden palace. Large metal instruments of peculiar design were scattered across its surface, their pipes crisscrossing and gears turning, lending the place an air of both advanced technology and mystery.
Low, stifled roars drifted from the jungle beside the palace. The beasts sounded restless and afraid. They seemed to fear something, pacing and roaring deep among the trees in a futile show of defiance, yet never daring to cross the boundary into the palace grounds.
Inside the palace, in a laboratory, Indigo, chief scientist of the Flying Pirates, stood hunched over, his face full of dread.
He held a test tube filled with scarlet liquid in both hands. Its contents swayed gently as he offered it to the man before him with trembling hands:
"Admiral,