Before the islands, there was the Sea.
Not waves.
Not tides.
Not salt and foam.
Formless depth.
When Aseru and Sorai lowered the Tidemark Lance into chaos and stirred, the droplets that fell became land. What remained became the World Ocean — the vast memory of that first motion.
It is older than the islands.
Older than shrines.
Older than mortals.
The Ocean is not governed by a single great kami. Instead, it is a layered ecology of lesser presences:
Tidal whisper-spirits
Storm-borne sky entities
Deep current watchers
Reef-bound memory fragments
Sea pacts are not worship.
They are negotiation.
Fishing clans maintain rites to calm waters and honor migratory spirits. Stormreach mariners read wind-patterns as scripture. Ships that ignore ritual acknowledgment often find their hulls splintered against unseen reefs.
The Ocean reflects more than sky.
On rare nights, a radiant line appears at the horizon — brighter than moonlight. Sailors call this the Raised Plain. Some believe it is a reflection of the Celestial Expanse. Others claim it is a distortion where distance loses meaning.
No vessel has reached it.
Currents bend strangely near its appearance.
In certain regions, the Ocean feels heavier.
Water chills without wind.
Lantern flames burn low.
Reflections ripple independently.
These are Yoru’mei pressures — places where the Under-Shadow leans upward. The sea does not rot there, but it listens.
Shrine mediators monitor these currents carefully. If the Ocean ever turns stagnant, the balance of Asorai would fracture.
Despite its mythic weight, the Ocean is also practical:
It carries rice between islands.
It defines fishing territories.
It isolates clans and connects them.
It swallows the careless.
There are no true maps of its depths.
Only routes remembered.
The islands were dripped into existence.
The Ocean was never shaped.
It remains what it always was:
Possibility.
Still.
Waiting.