“The examined life will only take you on a long ride to the limits of solitude, leaving you by the side of the road with your truth and nothing else.”
Return Route, Clark Highway
The night shattered under a hail of glyph fire, but Gregorio Aguilar was no longer just a man. The Kamay ni Bathala pulsed violently at his wrists, its violet energy rippling across the broken asphalt of Clark Highway as he sprinted forward with impossible speed. Mystic rounds whizzed past him, their trajectories warping in midair as they entered the field of his aura. He needed only a half-second to reload. The nearest assailant hadn’t even finished cocking his rifle before Gregorio closed the distance, grappling the man and slamming him into the concrete divider in one brutal, seamless throw. Without a second’s hesitation, a piston-fast punch to the throat of the next enemy sent him crumpling to the ground, gasping. A swift pivot sent a third attacker soaring into the air. Only one remained, paralyzed with fear. Gregorio locked eyes with him, then delivered a devastating punch to the solar plexus that sent the man writhing into the dust. The battlefield held its breath, a brief, silent interlude.
Survival and desperation are noisy. One of the men he had struck stirred, attempting to crawl toward a nearby rifle. But Gregorio was a flicker of motion, appearing before him with an outstretched hand. The moment he clenched his fist, the glyph bracelet surged, and the rifle began to dissolve. It didn’t explode or crumble; it simply ceased to be. Atoms unraveled, and matter turned into a ghost of itself, leaving behind only a faint shimmer. His voice, calm and resolute, was a low rumble. “It doesn’t destroy… it unmakes.” The words penetrated the man’s core, and a different kind of fear blossomed like a curse. This was not the fear of death, but of oblivion, the knowledge that his story—and every memory of it—could be erased.
The Highway That Bled Light
Meanwhile, Paolo – a student from a nearby university was just trying to get home from his night class. The rhythm of the drive and the familiar buzz of the radio were his sanctuary after a long day of lectures. He never expected the highway to erupt in glyph fire.
A searing, multi-colored light ripped through the night, a silent explosion that made the air itself vibrate. Ahead, the highway melted into a canvas of impossible colors—runes and symbols he knew from his history books but never believed were real. He slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt as two figures emerged from the chaos. One was shrouded in swirling mist, its form shifting and indistinct. The other glowed with a fierce, violet light that painted the asphalt a brilliant, electric purple. They fought with a terrifying grace against a host of attackers who moved like shadows, their forms flickering at the edge of his vision.
Paolo ducked low, crawling behind a traffic cone as the air filled with the screech of shattered asphalt and the thunderous crack of unseen forces colliding. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat drowning out the distant sirens. He fumbled for his phone, the camera app already open, and began to record. It was the only way he knew to make sense of the madness. Twelve seconds of footage—a fragmented, blurry testament to a war he never knew existed—was all he got before a wave of shimmering energy washed over him, and the phone in his hand turned to dust, a fine gray powder sifting through his fingers.
Goddess’ Wrath
Across the expanse of asphalt, Marian Dela Fuente counted. “Five,” she whispered. The Sundang ni Makiling pulsed, its voice echoing in her mind with the fierce love of a goddess. Let me know when you are ready. I will devour them alive. Marian’s lips moved in a silent prayer, a quiet conversation with her protector. A gentle mist enveloped her, transforming her attire into a celestial gown fit for a goddess as her form began to dissolve into smoke, gracefully rolling toward her intended targets. The mist was more than just a veil; it was a mother’s embrace, cloaking her from harm.
The first three never stood a chance. Invisible strikes danced within the fog, shredding armor and bone. The last two, desperate, donned mystic goggles—their glyph sensors blinking—only to find it was already too late. Marian emerged from the mist, an incarnation of wrath. Her blade carved spirals of divine choreography, cutting through the air with lethal precision. The attackers fell in agonizing awe.
Back at the center of the road, Gregorio called out, “All clear on your end?”
Marian flicked a bit of bloodless mist from her relic. “All hostiles neutralized, sir.” The Sundang ni Makiling hummed in her grip, a silent note of approval. She cast a glance at the fallen enemies. “You’ve gotten soft, Captain.”
He did not flinch. “Deadly force is always a last resort. We’ll need answers.”
But fate had other plans. Baybayin runes began to glow ominously around the survivors, and they imploded without an incantation or a trigger. A chilling silence, heavy with bloodshed, enveloped the scene. Gregorio and Marian gazed upward at the roof of a long-abandoned building, where sonic glyphs swirled in dynamic circles around a solitary silhouette. No words were spoken—only presence—the kind that rewrites destiny. Above it all, the scroll pulsed, sensing that the story had cracked wider.
The Highway Ledger – A Few Hours After The Decisive Battle
The low hum of portable floodlamps was the only sound on the deserted Clark Highway.
For eight years, Marco’s job at the Bureau of Customs had been about details, but as he stood there that night, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something far larger was unfolding just out of sight. They’d pulled him out to inventory “recovered materiel” from a skirmish, but the scene was a ghost town. There were no sirens, no rubberneckers, and no gawking crowds—just an unsettling silence and the long shadows cast by the sickly yellow lights.
The asphalt was marked with five chalk silhouettes. The bodies were gone, but the outlines remained, surrounded by a subtle reverence from the medics moving around them. These weren’t regular soldiers. Their gear was top-of-the-line tactical equipment he’d only ever seen in classified briefings, marked with unfamiliar glyphs stitched into the fabric.
A lieutenant with a face etched with fatigue and no name tag shoved a clipboard into his hands. “Log anything non-mundane,” he said. And so Marco did. The work was his anchor in the strangeness. The rifles had been cleanly sliced in half and engraved with Baybayin runes. The armor plates were marked with perfect slashes, but there wasn’t a single bloodstain. The violence was unnervingly precise, as if the perpetrators were surgeons of destruction.
Beyond the concrete divider, the road was coated in countless dark droplets of what looked like moisture. They clung to the asphalt like a terrible, dewy rain, refusing to pool or run. He’d never seen anything like it.
“What about the attackers?” Marco asked, his voice barely a whisper.
The lieutenant stared at him for a moment, his eyes hollow. “Don’t write that part down,” he said, his tone a flat warning.
So, in Marco’s ledger, it reads simply: 5x deceased, unidentified unit. 8x ruined weapons. Glyph residue present.
As he walked away, the hum of the floodlamps fading behind him, he couldn’t shake the sense that he’d just been taking inventory for a war the rest of them weren’t meant to see.
Bataan Highway
The highway to Bataan unfurled like a serpent carved from twilight, its edges softened by
the warm orange hues of the setting sun. The air was thick with the scent of saltwater and the promise of a long journey.
Marian’s car surged forward, purring not merely as a machine but as something ancient and sentient beneath its sleek hood.
Gregorio cast a sidelong glance, a smirk playing on his lips beneath the half-shadows. “Nice car, Marian. A sports car like this on an IT specialist’s budget raises questions about your current employment. And your extracurricular activities in the archives.”
Marian kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, her hands steady on the wheel. “I have bills to pay, Captain. So, I took on a few… hacking jobs. Rest assured, my identity remains intact. While I’m not at liberty to share specifics, you know how much I value anonymity, secrecy, and stealth. I extend that courtesy to my clients.”
“The last job I did was supposed to be a boring file retrieval,” Marian claimed, the words coming out in a slow exhale.
Gregorio arched an eyebrow, his curiosity mingled with unease. “What kind of file?”
Marian took a deep breath before answering. “A file labeled ‘Unnamed’ was stored within a folder that posed as a repository for site maintenance information. However, it was absent when I arrived. Whoever accessed it first is formidable; even I faced challenges trying to gain entry. The security encryption resembled that of an impenetrable fortress.
The remaining files were marked as Code: Black—Top Secret. Upon examining one of the concealed fragments, I discovered references to a ritual—not one of summoning, but something far more profound—an unnamed rite capable of realigning reality to the caster’s will.”
Silence enveloped them as the car continued its journey. The world outside the windows shimmered. Glyphs danced faintly across the dashboard, responding to Gregorio’s aura.
The highway seemed to dissolve into a pale veil, and reality felt as though it had been rewritten around them, an optical illusion of the highest order.
Then the mist parted.
Before them stood a fortress silhouetted against the dying sun. Cliffs cradled its foundations, while the open sea roared far below. Vines dared not reclaim its walls; its presence was eternal and forbidding.
Gregorio whispered, as if afraid to disturb the ghosts. “We swore we’d look after each other if we ever made it out alive.”
Marian pulled over, and they stepped out in silence. Memories surged—discipline honed under spiritual fire, glyphs etched into flesh and soul, five orphans forged into weapons against the void.
Before them loomed The Orphanage—the training ground of the Sandata Unit.
Not a home. Not a sanctuary. A crucible.
And the reckoning was far from over.
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