"Even gods withdraw when mortals unite—blade, oath, and storm aligned to reclaim the heart of their land."
Reclaiming the Shores
Rain poured in heavy sheets across the Bulakan shoreline, flattening the sea into a surface reminiscent of hammered steel and transforming broken seawalls into jagged teeth.
Where New Malacañang had once anchored the horizon, only a halo of stormlight remained—an absence shaped like a verdict.
In that empty silhouette, the last Anino-engineered wielders advanced—rank upon rank clad in blackened cuirasses, their masks etched with blank expressions, halberds and hooked blades glowing with counterfeit glyphs.
President Esperanza Sinukuan was the first to move. Her shadow elongated and then expanded, enveloping her like a cloak.
The Punyal ni Sinukuan tilted in her palm—steel too dark for rain to touch—and then cleaved through the storm with a whisper.
"Umbra Sever."
The cut traveled not through air, but through light. The foremost line of Anino paused in confusion as the world before them dimmed; shadows lifted off the ground, slicing through their ranks in a precise, deadly blade-path.
Masks shattered. Halberds clashed against rock. Three fell soundlessly, the rain stitching closed the spaces where they had stood.
To her right, Joaquin Santillan transitioned from a sprint into a low slide, violet sigils flaring along his knuckles as he parried a hook-blade and stepped inside the wielder's guard. Two clean strikes to the body—ribs then sternum—produced a concussive pulse that sent the enemy reeling. Joaquin pivoted, raising his forearm to intercept a descending glaive with reinforced plating; he rolled the shaft, twisted his wrists, and sent the weapon flying into the surf. A third enemy charged high with a crescent axe—Joaquin struck an elbow into the armpit, rendering the attacker unconscious, then stamped on the ankle for good measure. Efficient. Final.
"Left flank folding," he reported, his voice steady over the comm network. "Shadow lanes open. Push."
The sea responded with unexpected colors.
Prasert Rattanachai emerged through the mist like daylight. Phra Saeng Khan Chaiyasi traced radiant arcs that curved with temple precision; each slash left a golden crescent suspended in the rain for a heartbeat before sweeping forward into the Anino press.
The first wave collided with those crescents and disintegrated—venomous cloudlets hissing into nothingness, counterfeit sigils unraveling into wet dust. Prasert anchored his feet and executed a longer cut; a golden wave unfurled knee-high and swift, severing armored ankles beneath masked bodies without drawing blood.
"Hold them at the knee," he murmured softly, almost as a prayer. "Let the tide choose the rest."
To Sinukuan's left, Tsubame Hayashi-Hime navigated the chaos with focused determination. Tombo Giri spun a silver ring around her—bell-clear, quiet, implacable. A great sword crashed down; she guided it aside with a quarter-step and a rising spearline that scraped sparks from the haft. Reversing the flow, she executed an Aerial Arc that disarmed two additional weapons with precision. When a lance lunged for her throat, she did not recoil—she accepted. The spear's tip rode the inner arc of Tombo Giri, meeting stone; Tsubame's follow-through traced an ellipse so exact it might have been inscribed, ghosting a collarbone that decided to fracture a moment later.
"Three more," she warned, already pivoting.
"See them," replied Yoo Min-Jun—his voice calm, his blade clearer. Bonguk Geom rose, and the rain itself seemed to straighten. Fog retreated in a corridor from his feet to the enemy line; illusions—cheap Anino decoys woven from light and fear—burst like bubbles in the wake of silver refraction. A hook-dagger operative lunged from the thinning mist; Min-Jun's Haechi Resonance Cut bisected the strike and left the attacker's mask ringing with a verdict that rendered him unconscious in the surf.
"Left-left," he added. "Two behind Tsubame, one low."
The ground trembled; the storm's pitch shifted.
Ari Sujatmiko planted Tombak with a short, assertive pulse. A blue ripple rolled out along the sandy shore like a dropped drumhead—order rushing into chaos. Ancestral Pulse severed counterfeit glyphs off three Anino halberds simultaneously; the weapons transformed from predatory to mundane in an instant. Ari's next thrust did not seek flesh; the spearpoint entered the shadow beneath a charging captain, collapsing the man mid-step as if his strings had been cut.
"Void Sever," Ari breathed. "Off your feet, please."
Opposite him, the rain took on a different harmony.
Nine faint stars flickered into orbit around Dr. Han Wei. The Nine Veins needles spun at shoulder height, silent, their violet coronas sketching meridian lattices across the battlefield visible only to him. One needle sang forward into an Anino operative's forearm—the weapon dropped, muscles rebooted, no bloodshed. Another pair crossed a Glaive's haft in a tiny tuning-fork kiss; the weapon shivered, then sagged as its counterfeit resonance collapsed. A triad volleyed past Joaquin's shoulder, sealing two glyph wounds that threatened to trigger a chain reaction across the shore.
"Field stable," Han said, his eyes half-lidded. "Your pulse stays with you. Keep moving."
"Much obliged," Joaquin replied, pivoting through two more enemies with a shoulder bump and a rising knee, hands swift as lightning and just as final.
The next wave of Anino arrived heavier—tower shields layered with red grids, halberds forming a spear forest that pressed the shoreline into a killing alley. Behind them, a pair of engineered heavies advanced wielding paired chain-scimitars, links humming, arcs low and lethal.
"Break the screen," Sinukuan commanded.
"On me."
She advanced into the alley and turned off the world.
"Night Mantle."
The storm did not darken; it became blind. Shadows lengthened under her command, a velvet geometry that slipped between falling rain and the eyes behind those masks. She eliminated angles. The chain-scimitars sliced through the air where she had been, finding only sand. Her punyal carved a brief line across the nearest tower shield; the cut disregarded the metal, focusing solely on contrast. Black poured from the incision; the shield-bearer knelt as though the night had become too heavy to bear.
"Joaquin," she called.
He was already there, reading the stagger, stepping inside the timing of the tower-line with a series of compact strikes—hip, chest, temple—knuckles flashing violet at impact, the suppression glyphs on his gloves dimming the enemy's false resonance with each hit. He maintained a mean and short rhythm: one-two-three, breathe, turn. When the chain-scimitar heavy reared to ensnare him, Joaquin caught a link with a forearm, cutting the circle in half with footwork, kneeing the wielder into a shoulder throw that ended in sand and sleep.
"Center, collapsing," Min-Jun announced.
"Window for three seconds."
"Take it," Sinukuan commanded.
Prasert obliged—two golden arcs intersecting into an X that tore through the middle tier from ankle to rib, a Victory Wave following to sweep bodies wide from the path.
Tsubame threaded the X like a needle through silk, spear blooming in a tight whirl that lifted a tower shield and returned it to its owner's chest with persuasive finality.
"Right echelon attempting to flank," Han noted, eyes tracking patterns invisible to the others. Two needles clicked—Precision Strike into knee meridians—transforming the flank into a tripping hazard.
"On them," Ari replied, Tombak tilting to read the field's spirit topography. He executed a low line that avoided contact with the man in front of him—only severing the hook tethering that man's life to a counterfeit glyph. Tether Severance whispered; the operative folded inward, alive, breath ragged, weapon silent.
The engineered Anino commander arrived last—mask ridged, halberd towering over Prasert, body sheathed in a lattice of red lines that crawled like ants. He did not charge; he measured. Eyes tracked Sinukuan, then Joaquin, then the five beyond. He positioned his halberd in a low guard, waiting for the storm to come to him.
Sinukuan did not hesitate. She traced a small circle with the punyal—no larger than her palm.
"Abyssal Cut."
The halberd met her line only to discover that the line was a hole. Steel encountered absence, momentum evaporated, stance opened.
Joaquin seized the free shoulder with a short cross. The commander reacted with a reflex so supernatural it was impressive, dragging a back-edge cut toward Sinukuan's hip.
Tsubame's shaft snapped down—clang—and Tombo Giri laid the blade flat against the sand.
Min-Jun deflected the attack's wake with a half-beat Resonance Counter, redirecting more ambition than weapon.
"Hands," Han murmured. Two needles flicked—metacarpals numbed. The halberd finally understood the ground.
The commander stepped back and launched a high attack—tenacity to admire.
Prasert concluded the exchange: a golden crescent slashed through the rain at rib height, followed by a second that rolled over the first like a tide crossing itself.
Armor parted. The commander knelt, bewildered, then succumbed to the storm's embrace.
Silence did not return, but the pattern altered. The Anino line faltered—some broke and fled toward the shattered piers; others raised their weapons upright as if planting them might yield an answer. It did not.
"Drive them to the water," Sinukuan commanded. "We finish this here."
And they did.
Sinukuan concluded the final charge herself. Three engineered wielders approached abreast, weapons angled for her shoulders and hip. She stepped through their shadows.
"Shadow Quell."
Their weapons struck the spaces she once occupied. The night enveloped their wrists; fingers relaxed without consent. She intercepted one blade mid-fall, using it to suppress the other two with a single downward crescent, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on the rain. When she spoke, it was not for them.
"Bulakan stands."
The sea seemed to concur.
For a prolonged moment, there were only boots in water and breath in steel. Then Joaquin lowered his hands and surveyed the line one last time.
"Contact nil," he reported. "Shore secure."
Ari lowered Tombak; its ocean-blue glow softened and dissipated.
Min-Jun allowed the Geom's corridor of clarity to collapse back into rain.
Prasert turned his blade, and the gold in the storm reverted to mere light.
Tsubame rested Tombo Giri on stone and offered a subtle bow to nobody in particular.
Nine faint stars returned to orbit around Han, dimming to memory.
Sinukuan exhaled—steady and deliberate—and sheathed the Punyal.
Behind them, beyond the shattered piers and the ruined seawall, the absent silhouette of New Malacañang loomed like a question that had ascended and refused to descend.
Ahead, the surf rebuilt the shoreline one breath at a time.
"We're done," she stated. "On this ground."
Lightning stitched the horizon. Thunder finally arrived, belated to its own announcement.
The shore did not respond.
It didn't need to.
Reclaiming the City
The rain transformed the Capital into a swirling tableau of motion and sound.
Buildings emitted flickers of firelight through their shattered concrete structures, while the marble plaza was disrupted into uneven waves that caught reflections of the relentless storm.
Amidst the chaos, three forces advanced—Sandata, Ahas ng mga Lakan, and Babaylan Saints—each engaged in a fierce battle against the remnants of the Engineered Anino Relic Wielders that had inundated the city following the ascension of the Heart.
The Sandata Unit spearheaded the offensive from the eastern approach.
Captain Gregorio Aguilar led the charge, his Kamay ni Bathala blazing a fierce violet against the tempest. With each strike, the air fractured, and his blows landed with such power that they bent armor inward and crushed stone walls behind them. One swing sent an enemy soldier crashing into a column; the next shattered the pavement within a wide radius around his feet. He fought in close quarters, each impact reverberating with the concussive force of air being folded and released.
Marian Dela Fuente moved fluidly beside him, her Sundang ni Makiling glimmering as her form dissolved into mist. The vapor wove through the enemy lines, thickening with each pass as Anino forms fell, their armor cleaved from within. Where she reemerged, the mist trailed like a cloak—her silhouette framed by rain and lightning. The wind carried a faint scent of iron and earth, as though the forest had accompanied her into the city.
Agosto Santos surged through the central avenue, his Kampilan ni Lam-Ang slicing through both distance and space. He vanished between strides, reappearing precisely where the next attack would land. Each teleportation left a distortion in its wake, and as the echoes converged, entire lines of Anino crumbled as if they had been erased. The blade hissed against water and shrieked against steel, the air folding under the intensity of each strike.
Renato Ramirez secured the rear flank, his Kalasag ni Bernardo Carpio absorbing volleys of relic fire cascading from the upper balconies. Each impact dented the shield, but when he thrust it forward, the accumulated force erupted outward—transforming the deluge into a shockwave that sent debris tumbling down the street. He steadied himself as another Anino collided with the barrier, shattering upon impact like glass.
From the west, the Ahas ng mga Lakan advanced in precision formations.
Raja, wielding his serpent weapon Haring Sawa, commanded it to writhe around him like a halo of scaled light, its movements fluid yet deadly. Each snap of its jaws tore through Anino armor, leaving only empty shells in its wake.
Kalawit followed closely, brandishing the Dugong Itim, which carved arcs of pure void that devoured color in its path; even the rain seemed to evaporate around it.
Natalia flitted among the shadows, her Karambit ni Kain tracing red arcs through the darkness. She moved too swiftly for the eye to capture; with each intersection of her blades, another adversary fell silently.
At their center strode Maximo Imperial, raising the Sumpit ni Dumalapdap to his lips. He released a single, piercing note that tore through the air, a cone of sound crashing through the Anino ranks, unraveling bodies and armor into mist before the echo could dissipate. As he altered his tone, the melody transformed into a low growl, an audible curse that crawled beneath the skin—those who heard it staggered, their relics shrieking in protest before crumbling from within. Maximo advanced as he played, each breath a force that shattered stone and silence alike, the cursed harmonics intermingling with the rain's static.
Putik joined him on the flank, effortlessly spinning the Balisong ng Dahas through his fingers. With a flick, the drenched earth erupted like liquid glass—an explosion of mud and debris that engulfed the Anino line.
To the south, the Babaylan Saints pressed forward through wind and water.
Hermano Lopez swung the Banal na Parusa in wide arcs; its chains carved trenches into the ground, snapping back with the sound of thunder.
Juan Luciano's Habagat ni Silang flashed silver, summoning storms to its call—each strike propelled by gusts that shredded the remnants of fallen relics.
Magdalena Ramos cracked her mirrored whip; reflections of herself radiated outward, disorienting the remaining enemy ranks before retracting back into her form.
Mia Torre stood at the periphery of the conflict, the Aklat ng Katotohanan open in her hands; its light spread across the plaza like calming water, dissolving the last vestiges of counterfeit glyphs.
Crispulo fought just beyond her illumination, his relic Anino coiling into a living shadow that mirrored every movement. When he struck, his shadow followed a heartbeat later, folding enemies inward before vanishing again.
Each relic left its mark on the environment.
Columns shattered under redirected shockwaves, while pools of molten earth spread where Putik's blades had whirled. Sections of asphalt lifted, cracked, and fell back in fragments that hissed into steam. The plaza itself trembled—a broken heart still beating.
Suddenly, a cluster of Engineered Anino burst from the upper promenade, unleashing a barrage of stolen relic pulses into the square. Gregorio raised both arms, intercepting one blast with his forearm; the violet energy rippled and rebounded into the balcony, causing the structure to cave inward with a roar of dust and metal. The shockwave reverberated through the plaza, rattling bones and forcing the rain into curtains that fell sideways.
Through the haze, Raja raised his blade in acknowledgment toward the Sandata formation.
"We're done here," he stated, his voice cutting through the static. "The Heart is gone. The rest are echoes."
Hermano Lopez responded with a pull of his chain.
"Then we bury what remains."
Gregorio stepped back from the wreckage, the glow from his bracers diminishing. His breath fogged in the cool air; the adrenaline of battle began to dissipate with the rain.
The last of the Engineered Anino fell without ceremony, their armor cooling as steam rose like incense.
Around the plaza, relic light dimmed one by one, leaving only the flicker of lightning to illuminate the fractured skyline.
The combatants stood beneath that light—twelve figures from three factions, inhaling the same heavy air.
None spoke of victory. The city was beginning to breathe again, but it was a slow and painful breath.
Marian allowed her mist to recede. Agosto lowered his sword, the edge still resonating faintly from its distortions.
Raja's serpent coiled around him once before dissipating.
Hermano's chains lay slack in the pooling water.
Gregorio gazed toward the horizon where New Malacañang had vanished into the clouds.
"Fight another day?", he murmured. "It would be suicide if we continue on", Hermano responded in agreement. "I find it hard to believe agreeing with you two.", replied Raja with a smirk.
Thunder rolled distantly, soft and heavy—the sound of a door closing. And for the first time that night, the rain began to sound like rain again.
Rico Velasquez Report
The helicopter's rotors sliced through the bruised dawn, navigating the ash and fog that still enveloped the reclaimed Capital. Inside the cabin, Rico Velasquez steadied the camera feed, his voice calm, tempered by fatigue.
"This is Velasquez reporting from the Capital perimeter. No further engagements have been detected since the reclamation. The atmosphere is… quieter now."
The Meeting in Biñan
One week after the Battle of Bulakan.
Rain fell softly over Biñan, Laguna—fine mist carried by a wind that bore the faint scent of rust and earth. The old textile mill loomed at the town's edge, its steel roof sagging under the weight of time. A single lamp flickered on the second floor, casting a narrow beam of yellow light onto the flooded ground below.
Maximo traversed the corridor in silence, his footsteps steady and echoing through the hollow structure. He approached a door marked by an old red stripe and knocked twice—firm and deliberate.
The latch clicked open
.
Kristel appeared in the doorway, barefoot and composed, her eyes sharp with the calm of someone who had witnessed too much. The dim light behind her revealed a room stripped down to essentials—maps folded on a table, cables humming quietly along the wall.
Maximo stepped aside.
From the shadowed hallway, Gregorio entered—presentable, his uniform pressed, hair neatly styled. Though the storm of Bulakan had faded from his face, its imprint lingered in his eyes. His movements were precise, each step imbued with the quiet weight of unfinished business.
Their gazes met, and in the silence that ensued, the atmosphere in the room shifted palpably.
Kristel said nothing, nor did Gregorio.
The silence stretched, not heavy but alive—an understanding too raw to articulate.
Maximo gave a small nod and turned away, his silhouette receding down the hall until only the sound of rain remained.
The door closed. The generator hummed. Outside, the storm deepened, slow and steady, like the heartbeat of something waiting to reemerge.
The High Council of the Anino ng mga Anito
Above the storm, the Floating Fortress of New Malacañang drifted unseen—its silhouette cloaked in mist, relic conduits glowing faint indigo beneath the clouds. The fortress thrummed with life, its machinery intertwined with memory and myth, its heart pulsing like a living storm.
Inside the Grand Hall, the High Council of the Anino ng mga Anito convened around a table of obsidian and light. Maps and projections shimmered across its surface—fractured outlines of the archipelago, breach markers glowing faintly red.
Lakambini stood first, her Abaniko ni Urduha closed against her wrist. "He's on the move again," she stated with a steady tone. "Navigating the Void's corridors."
Dimagiba stepped beside her, his reflection flickering in the glass. "The Other Gregorio," he affirmed. "He approaches our plane."
The map stuttered, its light splitting into two silhouettes—one anchored over the archipelago, the other drifting through the void between realms, drawing closer with each heartbeat.
Ambassador Tala Martinez lifted the Panulat ng mga Makata, ink of nothing dripping from its nib. "Two paths converging," she murmured. "And when they intersect, the world may forget which belonged here first."
Senator Datu Alon adjusted the sheath of Dahong Palay at his waist. "Then we must prepare the stage before the collision. Timing will determine who writes the memory."
Lakambini glanced at Dimagiba, who had already straightened, the stormlight outside outlining the hardened edges of his armor.
"The relics," she said quietly. "We will require them."
Dimagiba nodded. "The Makiling Codex, the Crown of the Naga, the Garuda Wings, the Kusanagi, and the Dragon Seal. I will retrieve the first two. You manage the rest."
Tala's quill scratched across invisible parchment. "And what of the Republic?"
Lakambini's gaze drifted toward the window, where lightning arced like a sigil across the clouds. "Let them believe peace prevails. The higher they rebuild, the more profound their fall when the heavens open once more."
A low vibration rippled through the hall as the fortress altered its course, its engines whispering through the storm.
Dimagiba turned. "We act on the next pulse."
Lakambini snapped her fan open with a quiet click. "Then the stage is set."
The hall dimmed. , the Floating Fortress ascended higher into the clouds, vanishing from sight. Only the thunder remained—low, patient, and drawing ever closer.