Prologue – Whispers of the Spirit Forge
“In the Beginning, There Was the Forge”
??? — The Spirit Forge
The single torch was a lonely star in the deep cavern, its flicker painting the rough-hewn walls with a ghostly, dancing light. Shadows clung to the rock like ancient scars, stretching and collapsing with every tremor of the flame. The air was heavy—a quilt woven of damp earth, metallic tang, and a silence that seemed older than time itself. It was not the silence of peace but of something vast holding its breath.
The cavern stretched endlessly, its ceiling lost in darkness, where stalactites hung like the teeth of some sleeping titan. Veins of luminous stone ran through the walls, glowing faintly as though the mountain itself remembered fire. Pools of still water mirrored the torchlight, casting warped reflections that rippled even when untouched. Every sound—the drip of condensation, the flutter of unseen wings—was swallowed into an oppressive hush.
A figure emerged from the depths, their silhouette blurred by the wavering light. Hooded, still, and impossibly ancient, they carried themselves with the poise of one who had lived through countless dawns. Beneath the shadow of the hood, their eyes shimmered faintly, reflecting both the wisdom of centuries and the exhaustion of bearing witness to too much. The figure did not speak. Instead, they listened—to the heartbeat of the stone, to the faint drip of water echoing from stalactites, to the jungle’s muted song far above the cavern. Every vibration told a story, and the Forge whispered them all.
“In the beginning, there was the Forge.”
The voice was not spoken in air but born in stone, resonating from the cavern walls themselves. It was the voice of storms and prayers, a resonance of a thousand chants whispered into the bones of the earth. The words thrummed through the figure’s chest, both command and confession.
“Before flame. Before tide. Before the written word. The Sandata relics were mine. I gave them to the world—to be found, to be fought over, to be misunderstood, stolen, and guarded.”
The torch sputtered violently, its flame vanishing before surging back in an unnatural blaze. Fire swept across the chamber walls, illuminating a vast mural of runes and glyphs etched into stone. The cavern became a library of forgotten memory. Spirals, sigils, and fractured fragments of history glowed faintly, as if awakening from long dormancy. Each line was a story, each mark a scar left by gods and mortals who had bargained with forces too great to contain.
The figure raised their hand toward the mural, tracing the glowing symbols with reverence. Every rune pulsed faintly under their touch, echoing with the lives of those who once bore them. A thousand relics, a thousand destinies. Some wielded with honor, others with cruelty, all bound by the Forge’s silent will.
But the Forge did not create in kindness. It created in necessity. It was not mercy that birthed the relics, but balance. For every blade that could heal, another was forged to destroy. For every shield of protection, there was a scythe of despair. The Forge was neither good nor evil. It was the pulse of creation itself, uncaring of how its gifts were spent.
The cavern pulsed. The Forge’s heartbeat—a slow, deep rhythm that had throbbed for eons—suddenly faltered. The ground shivered, pebbles scattering across the dirt floor. The pulse stopped.
And silence fell.
But it was not the silence of still water. It was the silence of a predator, poised. The silence of a storm’s breath before the lightning split the sky. Something had awakened, not with sound but with absence.
The Forge had spoken, and its story was only beginning.
The Origin of Spirit Breaches
Before relics found their wielders, before the first oath was sworn in blood, the world itself had already begun to fracture. These fractures were called Spirit Breaches—rents in the veil between the mortal plane and the Spirit Realm.
No single event birthed them. Instead, they were the scars of forgotten wars between gods and mortals, places where divine wrath once struck the earth and left the boundaries thin as paper. Each breach pulsed with memory—sorrow, rage, betrayal—and from those emotions, Echoes were born: twisted manifestations of the dead who had not crossed over, or of prayers that were never answered.
At first, the breaches were small—whispers in forests, shadows in caves, or strange lights above the sea. A hunter would vanish after following a will-o’-the-wisp. Fishermen told tales of voices rising from the tide, begging to be let ashore. Shamans, the early babaylans, burned offerings of rice and blood, their chants weaving fragile nets to contain the fractures. For a time, it was enough.
But as humanity’s grief and violence deepened through centuries of conquest, colonization, and unending wars, the wounds widened. What was once a faint shimmer became a floodgate, and the Echoes learned to crawl, then to swarm. They carried the shapes of ancestors twisted by rage, soldiers drowned in the cries of their own dying comrades, or faceless silhouettes woven from collective fear.
The ancients tried to contain them with rituals, offerings, and sacred wards, but their efforts only delayed the inevitable. Breaches could not be destroyed; they could only be sealed, and even then, the seals weakened over time.
Some say the first breach was a result of a forgotten pact, a covenant between man and spirit broken by betrayal. Others whisper that an ancient figure, known only in legend, had a hand in its creation. His name is seldom spoken, but his influence echoes through the ages—a shadow tied not to gods, but to a man who sought to rewrite fate itself.
Thus, every breach is both a curse and a prophecy: a reminder that the world itself remembers its wounds, and that the dead are never truly silent.
And when the largest breach in history tore open in 2013, the Sandata Unit was sent not to fight an army, but to stitch reality itself back together.
The Origin of the Sandata Unit
Far above the cavern, in the shadows of modern Quezon City, power stirred again—not divine, but man-made. Beneath forgotten streets, sealed by military concrete and whispered secrecy, lay a vault known only as God’s Locker.
Inside, the Philippine Military launched an experiment born of desperation. The program had a name that sounded more myth than mandate: **Project Sandata.**
Its goal was audacious. Reckless. To weaponize myth itself. The generals and scholars who conceived it believed that relics—the fragments of gods and heroes—could be bound to human hosts, creating an army who could defend the nation against the encroaching tides of spirit breaches.
The price of such ambition was cruel.
Hundreds of orphans were gathered—children with no ties, no families, no pasts. Blank slates. They were told they had been chosen for greatness, but in truth they had been chosen for their disposability. God’s Locker became both crucible and grave.
The trials were merciless. Each child was exposed to relic energy—raw, unfiltered echoes of power too immense for mortal minds. Sigils burned across their skin, glyphs etched into bone. The air inside the chamber was thick with screams, prayers, and silence—silence when the prayers went unanswered. One by one, bodies failed, either collapsing into ash or living husks. Some children’s minds shattered outright, leaving behind shells that breathed but no longer recognized themselves.
The walls of God’s Locker bore witness. Baybayin wards carved deep into the concrete pulsed faintly, sealing away the volatile power and trapping the children in their torment. Every failure left behind a resonance—a note of pain that vibrated in the steel girders and iron vents.
But five endured.
Not because they overpowered the relics, but because they harmonized with them. Where others broke, they bent. Where others burned, they tempered. The Forge’s echoes had chosen them, though none knew why.
Their names would one day become legend whispered in shadow:
– Gregorio Aguilar, bearer of *Kamay ni Bathala*.
– Marian Dela Fuente, chosen of *Sundang ni Makiling*.
– Agosto Santos, wielder of *Kampilan ni Lam-ang*.
– Renato Ramirez, shield-brother with *Kalasag ni Bernardo Carpio*.
– Maximo Imperial, voice of the *Sumpit ni Dumalapdap*.
They did not emerge unscarred. Each bore wounds etched deeper than flesh. Their eyes carried the weight of children who had seen gods and lived. Their bond was forged not in trust but in shared survival, a family of necessity rather than choice.
Their training began immediately. Hardened military officers drilled them in tactics and combat while esoteric scholars taught the forbidden science of relic resonance. Their lives became a blur of blood, sweat, and arcane fire. By day they endured the crucible of combat drills; by night they studied grimoires and chants older than the archipelago itself.
And when they were ready—if readiness could ever be claimed—they were loosed into a world oblivious to the dangers beneath its skin.
The Sandata Unit fought shadows that did not cast light. They sealed breaches that tore open in the heart of cities, silenced horrors that spoke in forgotten tongues, and recovered relics whose touch could unravel a nation. For ten years, they existed as ghosts, unknown protectors. Every victory was erased, every wound hidden.
Then came 2013.
The Basilan Spirit Breach. The largest ever recorded. A wound in reality itself, gaping and hungry. The Sandata Unit fought, and though they sealed the breach, the cost was unbearable. Classified, redacted, whispered about but never recorded.
The aftermath was swift and merciless.
The five returned to shadows, guardians stripped of even their names. The world slept on, never knowing how close it had come to ruin.
But the Forge remembers.
As the years passed and the world moved on from the chaos of the Spirit Breaches, the Sandata Unit was quietly dissolved. Official records were erased, and their existence was reclassified as an unauthorized black operation. Yet, the government’s watchful eyes never truly left them. Though they now lived under the guise of normalcy, their every move was subtly monitored, ensuring that the powerful relics they wielded remained under tight control.
Their story did not end—it was buried.
And buried stories have a way of clawing back to the surface.
