"Dong!"
It was a grand peal of a bell beyond the power of words to describe.
Clear and far-reaching, it carried a sacred quality, as though it had washed away all worldly impurities. The sound waves transformed into visible golden ripples, spreading out in every direction from the bell tower atop the giant vine. They passed effortlessly through the thick clouds of the White-White Sea.
Upper Yard, among the ruins of the southern jungle.
Wyper lay in the dirt, covered in blood. His arm, broken from overusing the Reject Dial, hung limply at his side.
He had been on the verge of losing consciousness, but the instant he heard the bell, his eyes flew open.
Large tears welled uncontrollably in his fierce, lone-wolf eyes, then slid silently down cheeks smeared with gunpowder and dirt.
"It rang. The Light of Shandora really has been lit..."
Wyper clenched his teeth, a whimper like that of a wounded beast rising in his throat.
Four hundred years.
Ever since their homeland, Jaya Island, had been swept absurdly into the sky by the Knock-Up Stream, the Shandians had endured four hundred years of blood and tears. The Skypieans drove them from their land, and the so-called "god" enslaved them. Generation after generation, their warriors had spilled their blood in the forest that had once been theirs, sacrificing even their lives.
They had fought so desperately for more than just the land of their homeland.
They had also fought to fulfill the great promise between their ancestor, the great warrior Calgara, and Mont Blanc Noland, the explorer from the Blue Sea—a romantic vow that had endured until death.
"We're in the sky! We're here, Noland!"
Wyper scooped up a handful of soil from his homeland and wept uncontrollably.
Four hundred years of fate, hatred, and oppression