Angron was falling.
The wind howled past his ears, like countless voices shouting into them.
Gravity dragged his body downward at tremendous speed, the air streaming past him in visible white currents.
His gaze locked onto the Bone Giant rapidly growing larger below him, onto the enormous fist swinging straight toward him, formed from a hundred billion bones.
Yet in his perception, time seemed to slow.
He felt the emotions around him.
They were not his own emotions, but emotions rising from below.
From the Palace borne upon the Bone Giant's back, from the slaves chained into its foundations, from the people looking up at the sky in the squares, on the streets, and in every corner.
Their emotions surged like a tide, pouring into Angron's awareness, into the depths of his soul.
He felt the oppression those slaves endured: the pain that stretched on day after day, year after year, the despair of being stripped of all dignity and hope, the numbness of gritting their teeth and enduring the lash.
He felt their longing to be saved.
That faint yet stubborn hope, like a candle flame that refused to go out even in the darkness; that longing to have someone break their shackles, silently prayed for with every breath.
And of all those emotions, the one Angron felt most strongly was hope.
Like countless tiny streams, that hope converged on him from every direction, gathering into a warm, powerful torrent that poured into his chest, into his heart, into every part of his body.
They hoped to be saved.
They hoped a better future would come.
They hoped the figure descending from the sky before them could break their shackles and utterly shatter the darkness that had oppressed them for thousands of years.
Countless feelings of hope gathered within