1914, The Philippines
The world was tearing itself apart. In Europe, the machine of war, the ultimate expression of Kur's philosophy, had begun its grim work, grinding men into the mud of Flanders. The news, when it crackled over the primitive wireless or arrived on slow, fat steamships, spoke only of empires and fronts and casualties. It was the language of Control, screaming its final argument.
But in the sweltering, vibrant chaos of Manila, a different sound was growing. It was not a scream, but a quiet, determined voice.
Enki, using the name Lorenzo, a scholar of comparative religion, had been drawn to the islands by whispers. Whispers of a man, a former farmer and factory worker, who was speaking with a clarity that cut through the dense fog of centuries of dogma.
He found the man, Fides Manalo, preaching on a dusty street corner in Punta, Santa Ana. He was not a man of the established hierarchies. He wore simple clothes. His face was that of his people, and his voice carried the raw conviction of one who had found a key after a lifetime of being shown only locks.
"The Church of Rome has built a palace on the grave of Christ!" Fides declared, his voice ringing with a passion that was neither rage nor hatred, but a fierce, loving certainty. "They have buried the simple truth under layers of saints, popes, and pagan festivals! They have traded the Word of God for the word of man!"
Enki listened, his historian's mind reeling. This was not a reformation. This was a restoration. Fides was not arguing over the interpretation of a doctrine; he was swinging a sledgehammer at the very foundation of the Cage of Faith that had been built over 1,800 years.
"We do not need a foreign priest to intercede for us!" Fides cried out, his gaze sweeping over the captivated crowd. "We do not need to pray to statues! We need only the Bible, and the name of Christ! He is the head of the Church. Not a man in Rome! This is the Church of Christ!"
The Church of Christ. The words landed in Enki's soul with the force of a tectonic shift. This was it. This was the event. After centuries of watching the key be locked away, he was witnessing its liberation. The True Church was not just a hidden, scattered remnant anymore. It was being publicly, formally, and defiantly re-established. It was stepping out of the catacombs and into the sun.
Fides Manalo was not just a preacher. He was a planter. He was taking the original seed of the gospel, the one Enki had seen in the unwritten churches of the first century, and he was planting it in the fresh, untainted soil of the Far East, far from the corrupted hierarchies of the Old World.
Enki watched as Fides baptized the first members in the Pasig River, not in the name of a complex Trinity doctrine debated by philosophers, but in the simple, powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a direct, personal covenant. It was grace, unmediated.
He did not record this as a distant, academic observation. For the first time in centuries, he felt the stirring of the old hope, the hope he had felt in the garden of Ur. This was not a fleeting moment of peace like the Christmas Truce. This was the foundation of a fortress.
That night, in his small rented room, the sounds of the city mixing with the echoes of Fides Manalo's voice, Enki opened his Scrapbook. His hand did not tremble with age, but with a profound, rekindled purpose.
*Scrapbook Entry: "July 27, 1914. While the Old World lights its funeral pyre, a new fire is kindled here. A man named Fides—'Faith'—has done the impossible. He has not reformed the cage. He has walked out of it and is building a new house with the original blueprint. The Church of Christ is no longer a memory or a secret. It is a nation. The key has been removed from the man-made lock. The song is no longer wild and free by accident. It is being sung aloud, with purpose. The jury is no longer just being selected from the ruins. It is being convened."*
The Secret War had just found its general.