"When gods wage war through men, there is no retreat—only the echo of faith against the storm."
The Road of Saints
The storm descended like a gaping wound.
Lightning lashed the sea as the Balanghay surged through the waves, crashing upon the flooded remnants of the Obando Air and Naval Port—a vast expanse now engulfed in fire and shadow.
As its bay doors opened, the Babaylan Saints leapt into action.
Five streaks of relic light struck the ground, shockwaves radiating across the submerged steel.
Beneath the surface awaited the Engineered Anino Relic Wielders—warforms constructed from fragments of Anino ng mga Anito, infused with black smoke and relic alloy.
Thousands moved in unison, their voices chanting distorted echoes of forgotten prayers.
Commodore Juan Luciano was the first to hit the ground, the Habagat ni Silang alive in his grip. Wind swirled around him, forming a spiraling barrier of stormlight.
"Razor Hurricane!"
The trident whirled. A cyclone erupted outward, sending rings of compressed air slicing through the vanguard and hurling cranes and transports into the depths.
The next wave surged forward, bodies aglow with crimson glyphs. Luciano dropped into a low stance, his trident poised beneath his arm, and thrust upward.
"Plasma Thrust!"
Lightning surged through the ranks, vaporizing ten foes at once. He pivoted, channeling a gust into a defensive spiral.
"Habagat Shield, up!" His voice resonated through the comms. "Infantry, advance!"
The Babaylan Infantry charged.
Hundreds of armored soldiers flooded the dock, relic rifles flashing, bayonet spears humming with electric charge. They advanced beneath Luciano's wind field, each squad pulsing with synchronized resonance beacons
.
"Hold the line!" a sergeant commanded.
The tide crashed against them, Anino bodies fragmenting under the disciplined rhythm of rifle fire.
Magdalena Ramos landed amidst the chaos, her Tanikala ng Guni-Guni unwinding in arcs of mirrored light.
"Memory Coil!"
Six spectral chains swung in staggered rhythms, their reflections intertwining into a net of illusions. The Anino hesitated, disoriented by mirrored echoes of their own forms.
She lunged, twisting midair—
"Dream Fracture Assault!"
A glass-like force rippled outward. The affected enemies froze, ensnared in recursive visions of their own disintegration.
Magdalena landed forcefully, her voice cutting through the rain. "Infantry—sector clear, shift east!"
A claw swept from her blind side. She rolled beneath it, snapping her chain upward.
"Phantom Veil Projection!"
The strike split into ten reflected versions, each phantom chain cleaving a separate enemy before dissolving into mist.
Mia Torre stood at the center of the tumult, water swirling around her as the Aklat ng Katotohanan spun above her like a tempest of living scripture.
She flicked her wrist.
"Truth Script Burst!"
Pages detonated outward, glyphs exploding into luminous shards that pierced enemy cores.
"Illusion Corridors!"
The ground contorted—docks and runways warped into mirrored halls, transforming the port into a labyrinth of reflections. The Anino stumbled, their targeting glyphs faltering amidst the distorted geometry.
Yet some adapted, navigating through inverted planes of light.
"They're rewriting the code!" she shouted.
Hermano's calm voice interjected. "Then we write faster."
The Banal na Parusa flared gold in Hermano Lopez's hands.
"Chain of Heaven Glyph Strike!"
Golden shackles erupted from the inundated ground, binding two dozen Anino mid-sprint. He raised the relic high.
"Judgment Smite!"
A pillar of sanctified fire cleaved the battlefield. The bound enemies disintegrated, their glyph cores collapsing into vapor.
"Anchor formation!"Hermano commanded.
"Link your generators to the chain lattice!"
Glyph engineers complied, embedding relay rods into the dock's structure. The entire pier illuminated in a golden geometric pattern.
Then the sea erupted.
A new tide surged—faster, heavier, each body resonating with fissured glyphs.
From the horizon, thunder responded.
Babaylan Destroyers breached the storm—four black silhouettes adorned with luminous runes.
"Destroyer Alpha to Command—targeting confirmed!"
Their sigil cannons fired.
Myth-tech shells arced overhead, detonating upon impact and folding the sea inward. The concussions vaporized entire ranks of Anino, the explosions reverberating like divine percussion.
Cheers erupted—then silence.
Through smoke and foam, the Anino re-formed, each fragment pulling itself back together into denser frames.
Luciano's gaze sharpened. "They're absorbing the shockwaves." He adjusted his stance.
"Changing tempo."Crispulo Toledo roared through the battlefield on Takip-Silim, the Anino relic trailing ribbons of black vapor.
"Shade Phantoms!"
Four silhouettes detached from his form, surging ahead.
"Chain-Hook Bind!"
Smoke-forged hooks pierced two Anino simultaneously; Crispulo spun Takip-Silim into a drift, wrenching them apart with centrifugal force.
He vaulted off the bike, blades extended.
"Smoke-Steel Blade Assault!"
Each strike left an echo of condensed vapor. His phantoms mirrored every motion, transforming one man's actions into a dozen simultaneous slashes.
He landed heavily, rolling as the Smoke Cushion Recovery absorbed the impact. Takip-Silim circled back, its engine growling like thunder.
"Infantry—follow my phantoms!"
The squads complied, firing relic rounds through the haze to amplify his assault.
The eastern quay trembled.
Mia tore a page from her book. "Truth Inversion!"
The horizon flipped. Gravity reversed for an instant, throwing the enemy skyward in disarray.
"Magda—now!"
"Illusion Rewrite!"
Their relics synchronized. The inverted world folded into itself—mirror and truth converging.
"Reality Rewrite!"
An entire wave of Anino vaporized, their cores imploding under impossible geometry.
Luciano raised his trident skyward.
"Heaven's Hammer!"
Lightning responded. It struck the breach anchor directly, splitting it.
The port vanished in a single blinding flash.
Smoke enveloped the water.
The Destroyers signaled: "Reloading—two minutes to next barrage!"
Hermano steadied his relic. "Then we hold for two."
The dock transformed into chaos incarnate.
Luciano held the front—Razor Hurricane arcs countering claw strikes with fluid martial precision.
Magdalena's Memory Coil spun around him, chains striking in time with his trident thrusts.
Mia's pages sealed every rift they created.
Crispulo's Shade Phantoms slashed through flankers before they could reform.
Hermano's Judgment Smite chained them all in unison, their rhythm pulsing like a single divine heartbeat.
Above them, the Destroyers fired again—two shells crossing in a luminous X that cleaved the night apart.
Still, the Anino tide pressed onward.
Rain, fire, smoke, shadow—each moment folded into the next as the Babaylan Saints advanced, a cohesive force of faith and fury carving through the unending darkness toward Bulakan's burning skyline.
Hermano raised the Banal na Parusa, his voice unwavering.
"The tide may not relent—but neither do we."
Lightning cracked as they charged anew—storm, chain, truth, shadow, and judgment united against the infinite.
They did not falter.
The Road of Serpents
The same thunder that announced the Babaylan Saints' arrival over Obando now chased a storm inland toward Bocaue.
Lightning sliced through the night, stitching the sky and earth into a single battlefield.
Where heaven flashed, the ground answered with flames.
Beneath the storm, Battle SUVs of the Ahas ng mga Lakan roared through the flooded streets, rune-engines howling and sigil armor blazing in the torrential rain.
They weren't retreating — they were charging into the inferno.
The road to the Capital blazed ahead like a fiery prophecy.
The convoy hit the interchange, dodging heavy fire. Sigil rounds streaked through the storm, lighting the watery highway.
The Bakawan Elites moved in tight formation, firing glyph rifles in bursts from the hatches.
"Keep formation!" Raja's voice cut through the static.
The convoy roared back.
The first explosion ripped the road apart.
Concrete crumbled, the center lane vanished in flame, and two SUVs soared before crashing down as flaming wreckage.
"Ambush—front and rear!" Maximo barked.
Raja kicked the door open mid-skid, boots hitting asphalt. Haring Sawa unraveled around his arm in a blaze of gold and green, serpents snapping with the thunder.
The Pamana ni Lakan pulsed faintly inside its sealed case in the lead vehicle — reacting to something unseen, far ahead, as if the storm itself had a heartbeat.
"Push forward," Raja ordered, voice like iron through the rain. "We break through here."
"Hydra Coil—Deploy!"
Seven serpents struck outward, vaporizing the flood as they hit. Each impact blasted through the enemy line, turning the ambush into smoke and twisted metal.
Kalawit leapt from the top hatch of a moving SUV, Dugong Itim igniting in his grip. He landed among the wreckage and spun his scythe — a crimson arc cutting through the chaos.
"Runic Ignition!"
The weapon screamed to life, etching red light through the flood. A second later, the left lane exploded, swallowing attackers creeping along the bridge.
"Orb Containment!"
A black sphere expanded midair, inhaling fire and debris before collapsing. The shockwave turned the rain backward.
"Left flank clear!" he yelled. "Send the convoy through!"
Raja's serpents coiled over the lead vehicles, crushing figures rising from the smoke.
The Bakawan gunners leaned out of shattered ports, rifles howling. Sigil grenades arced overhead like inverted lightning.
"Keep pressure!" Raja commanded.
The convoy responded as one. Doors opened mid-roll.
Natalia's SUV drifted beside his, tires screaming across broken asphalt.
She was already moving before it stopped — vaulting from the roof, landing astride Kasakiman, her spectral engine roaring awake.
Her voice sliced through the storm.
"Hunger Twins!"
Two phantoms split from her, leaving mirrored streaks of violet fire.
They darted ahead, weaving between SUVs as she followed, karambits drawn.
Raja glimpsed her cutting through the mist — every swing a flash, every motion deadly.
A second SUV roared past, its driverless chassis sliding in a controlled drift.
Putik launched from its roof, landing on Katrayduran, his molten engine spitting sparks as it hit the ground.
"Balisong Storms!"
Glyph-etched blades fanned outward in synchronized arcs, detonating on impact.
Each explosion twisted water and flame into a chaotic bloom.
He laughed through the comms. "They want a storm—let's drown 'em in one!"
Natalia's voice replied, sharp and amused. "Try to keep up!"
They crossed mid-turn, her twin bikes flanking him in mirrored paths.
"Cross-pattern—execute!"
Her spectral phantoms curved behind his path as he hurled another storm of balisongs.
The intersection vanished in light.
When the blast cleared, nothing moved.
Maximo crouched on a broken barrier, the Sumpit ni Dumalapdap glowing like a coiled serpent of sound.
"Echo Veil!"
The air warped around the convoy, bullets deflecting in rhythmic pulses.
He inhaled deeply.
"Sonic Dart Rounds!"
He blew compressed mana into the flute, each projectile curved and rebounded, detonating with surgical precision.
What survived Kalawit's void arcs now fell to invisible percussion — every shot a note in a deadly symphony.
Kalawit dropped beside him, cloak flicking through steam.
"Good tempo."
Maximo smirked. "You're on rhythm."
Raja charged through the opening, serpents glowing bright enough to turn night into molten day.
"Venomous Ripple."
He struck the road. The ground fractured under his palm, splitting open as serpents of green lightning erupted, devouring what remained of the Anino ambush.
Pamana ni Lakan pulsed again in its containment sheath — a golden heartbeat beneath the thunder's roar.
Raja ignored it. He only looked forward, eyes fixed on the dark horizon beyond the flames.
"Flank steady," Kalawit reported. "But they're not breaking."
"They don't have to," Raja replied. "We do."
The Bakawan Elites surged forward, glyph rifles firing in relentless cadence.
Sigil grenades burst overhead like dying stars, raining energy on the burning lanes.
Putik's Katrayduran drifted alongside Natalia's spectral convoy.
Their trails formed a spiral of fire and light that ripped through the midsection of the Anino line.
Maximo's sonic barrage synced with their motion, compressing the explosion into a focused blast that tore apart the overpass.
Kalawit used the debris, jumping from a falling girder.
"Void Clash!"
The scythe met the ground, void and matter collapsing together.
The resulting implosion consumed everything within reach, leaving only rain and silence.
For a moment, Bocaue vanished beneath the storm.
Then the wind shifted, revealing wreckage, flame, and rainwater carrying ash downstream.
Raja stood at the center of it all, Haring Sawa dimming as he lowered his arm.
Behind him, the lead SUV burned in quiet defiance, its sealed relic case glowing faintly through smoke.
Pamana ni Lakan pulsed once—steady, deliberate, patient.
Kalawit landed beside him, boots cracking debris.
"Path's open," he said. "At least for now."
Raja didn't answer immediately.
He stared north, past the ruins and rain, toward the silhouette of the Capital faintly glowing through the haze.
"The Capital is ahead," he said finally.
"We move."
Natalia's twin bikes rolled into formation beside him, one fading into mist as she drew level.
Putik throttled up beside them, molten heat hissing against rain.
Maximo stood atop an overturned vehicle, reloading in rhythm with the storm.
The convoy reassembled — scarred, silent, unbroken.
Engines roared as one.
They pushed forward, cutting through flood and flame, the storm following in their wake.
Pamana ni Lakan glowed once more in its containment — a single flash, unseen but felt, reaching northward as if answering a distant call.
Thunder rolled again, bridging sky and earth.
And the serpents of Lakan advanced toward the Capital.
The Road of Heroes
The thunder that accompanied the serpents' advance rolled northward, reverberating across the devastated plains of Bulacan. In its aftermath, the sky erupted anew—streaks of violet and gold bled through the stormfront. From beyond the shattered Bocaue interchange, the roar of another engine responded.
The Kabalyero emerged from the horizon, cutting through rain and smoke, its Glyph treads leaving a fresh scar across the flooded avenues of Malolos. Where the Babaylan Saints had descended by sea and the Ahas armies clashed by land, the Sandata Unit now struck from the storm itself—divine instruments converging on the same blazing heart.
The Kabalyero's engines snarled as it spat gravel and glyph-spray into the dusk of Malolos.
Runic Gatling pods unfolded along the cruiser's flanks, unleashing a torrent that shredded through the ranks of Anino—spells and engineered bodies disintegrated into sigil-fragments that sparkled like disturbed constellations. Gregorio's voice pierced the cacophony of rotors and gunfire:
"Kabalyero — Combat Mode, Authorization: Captain Kamay."
The cruiser responded with a staccato of warded lead; corridors of tracer-sigils carved safe paths through the tide, while standing rounds obliterated the first three rows of Anino, reducing them to smoke.
The Kabalyero's runic Gatling pods maintained a relentless suppressive rhythm, tracer-sigils tearing through formation after formation; each burst gouged the cobbles, igniting glyph-prints into smoldering embers.
The team vaulted out—Gregorio first, with Kamay ni Bathala humming into violet spirals; Renato sliding to the right, Kalasag expanding prismatic plates; Marian dissolving into mist with the Sundang at her hip; Agosto landing with the Kampilan ablaze.
The Kabalyero continued its barrage, its Gatlings a relentless metronome that shredded formations and ruptured the pavement into glyph-scorched craters.
Gregorio activated voice-control and authorized full combat mode—turret arcs and flank Gatlings persisted in their devouring rhythm as the team hit the ground running; MID-Zeta declared the corridors clear for thirty heartbeats.
Gregorio anchored his stance into Kisap Mata, synchronizing Kamay and his body—purple spiral glyphs swirling until his eyes flickered like struck amethyst. He blinked; the world folded. He moved like a blade of lightning and iron: flash-flicker strikes, each impact a drumbeat that disassembled Anino torsos into ragged sigil-sheen.
As synchronization peaked, he unleashed the Godfist Strike—concussive violet fists detonating through the enemy shield-line, armor splintering in echoing detonations that caused a three-carriage overpass to collapse into a maw of rubble. The aftershock rolled like an angry sea; streetlight pylons bent and snapped.
Gregorio's Echo Pulse followed the Godfist—afterimages hammered nodes untouched by the strike, twin waves unmaking chassis and freezing nearby glyph anchors.
Soul Thread pulsed to synchronize Renato and Marian into his timing, allowing the Godfist's shockwave to find mirrored targets.
Renato anchored them.
Kalasag ni Bernardo Carpio blossomed into overlapping screens—Wall of the Giants—capturing projectiles and redirecting runic arcs back into the advancing waves.
He pivoted the mirrored facet of Heaven's Mirror, reflecting blasts that detonated within Anino ranks, transforming their own sigil-cores into incandescent shrapnel. Bridges of concrete shuddered; a municipal fountain erupted, showering prismatic water across the battlefield that evaporated under the heat of myth-energy.
Renato slammed an Anchor Pulse into the cobbles; the ground absorbed the Kalasag's runes, birthing a momentary prism spike that forced a Wielder formation to re-route—kinetic refraction then folded an incoming volley into the plaza, obliterating three emitter crates.
Marian moved like the weather. The Sundang ni Makiling exhaled mist—Goddess' Wrath—enveloping enemies in a fog that obscured sensors and muted animatronic motors. From that vapor, she unleashed silent crescent slashes: initially invisible, then manifesting as arcs of white mist that cleaved through voidsteel, severing Anino limbs and flinging them into glyph-cratered hedgerows.
An engineered Anino collapsed against an overturned jeep; the rusted chassis groaned under the pressure.
Marian's Vapor Phasing created openings for Agosto—her mist concealed the dimensional seam he carved next.
Agosto's Kampilan blazed a path of fire. Each swing of Kampilan ni Lam-ang traced burning vortices—Volcanic Crescents of heat and blade—that seared through Anino chassis and eradicated corruption-mist. He vaulted onto a wrecked billboard mid-arc, slamming the sword down with such force that it fractured the street—tiles sheared, bas-relief sigils imploded, and a slab of masonry rolled like a dying wave into the enemy's flank. His laughter resonated through the devastation as he synchronized strikes with Gregorio's flash-steps; fire met violet, and Anino constructs burst like overripe fruit.
Agosto's Dimensional Rift Slash opened a narrow crimson seam beneath a cluster of emitter-crates; the seam expelled heat and a collapsing spatial edge that shredded the crates from below, sending relic-ash and molten runes spraying into the square.
Combination moves unfolded without the need for words. Gregorio's Kisap Mata phantoms danced through the Kalasag bulwark while Marian's mist wove between fists and blades—Gregorio delivered a reappearing Godfist that struck an Anino command node, Renato's mirrored reflection ricocheting the blast into a second node, and Agosto's Kampilan concluded the sequence with a volcanic crescent that vaporized the corrupted sigil-array. The explosion detonated traffic lights into a rain of incandescent runes; a service tunnel roof collapsed, sending glyph-laden dust spiraling into the air like a funerary plume.
Soul Thread and Aetheric Resonance pulsed through the quartet—Soul Thread linked Gregorio to Agosto, ensuring the Rift Slash seam opened precisely where Gregorio's afterimages would deliver the final blow; Aetheric Resonance amplified the strike, enabling the cascade to obliterate two entire emitter nodes simultaneously.
They acted as a singular entity: Gatlings tore through the initial onslaught; Gregorio closed in and shattered; Renato held the line and redirected fury; Marian and Agosto cleaved open the seams. The Anino surged again—wave after engineered wave—only to be consumed and cast into the ruined avenues.
Each attack atomized portions of the boulevard: glass turned to ash, lampposts bowed like spent sentinels, and the cobbled parade square split, a fault line extending toward the capital.
A buried water main ruptured beneath Kampilan's seismic blast, sending geysers of hot, glyph-laced water surging through a lane—electric transformers exploded, sending halogen flashes across the rain-slicked wreckage.
Gregorio stood amidst the devastation, chest heaving, Kamay cooling to a slow pulse.
Around him, allies regrouped—Renato's shields flickering with residual prisms, Marian's mist dissipating in the heat of carved glyphs, Agosto wiping the Kampilan's edge on a fallen banner. He keyed the Kabalyero: "Keep the corridor open." The cruiser responded with another furious hail of runic rounds, securing their advance for the next block.
Gregorio tightened the Soul Thread and whispered a tactical cadence; Kisap Mata afterimages flickered in perfect offset as the Kabalyero's Gatlings shredded the next wave—Echo Pulse primed to reveal any hidden nodes while Renato's Wall of Giants braced for the follow-up volley.
They had yet to reach the Heart. However, the path behind them was marked by the ruins they had wrought, and the road ahead—scarred, smoking, and teeming with enemies—was theirs to claim.