"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 beneath a barrage of glyph fire, but Gregorio Aguilar had transcended the limitations of mere humanity. The Kamay ni Bathala pulsed vigorously at his wrists, its violet energy rippling across the fractured asphalt of Clark Highway as he sprinted forward with extraordinary speed. Mystic rounds whizzed past him, their trajectories warping midair upon entering the sphere of his aura. He required only a fraction of a second to reload.
The nearest assailant had scarcely finished cocking his rifle when Gregorio closed the distance, grappling the man and slamming him against the concrete divider in a brutal, seamless motion.
Without a moment's hesitation, a lightning-fast punch to the throat of the next attacker sent him crumpling to the ground, gasping.
A swift pivot launched a third adversary into the air.
Only one remained, paralyzed by fear. Gregorio locked eyes with him and delivered a devastating punch to the solar plexus, sending the man writhing into the dust. The battlefield held its breath, suspended in a brief, silent interlude.
Survival and desperation are cacophonous. 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. As he clenched his fist, the glyph bracelet surged, and the rifle began to dissolve. It did not explode or crumble; it simply ceased to exist. Atoms unraveled, and matter transformed into a ghost of itself, leaving only a faint shimmer. His voice, calm and resolute, rumbled low. "It doesn't destroy... it unmakes."
The words penetrated the man's core, engendering a different kind of fear—a fear not of death, but of oblivion, the unsettling realization 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 merely trying to return home from his night class. The rhythm of the drive and the familiar buzz of the radio served as his sanctuary after a long day of lectures. He never anticipated that the highway would erupt in glyph fire.
A searing, multi-colored light ripped through the night, a silent explosion that made the very air vibrate. Ahead, the highway melted into a canvas of impossible hues—runes and symbols he recognized from history books but had never believed to be 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 radiated 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 raced, 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 had never known existed—was all he managed before a wave of shimmering energy washed over him, and the phone in his hand turned to dust, disintegrating into a fine gray powder that sifted 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, engaging in 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 a mere veil; it was a mother's embrace, cloaking her from harm.
The first three attackers never stood a chance. Invisible strikes danced within the fog, shredding armor and bone. The last two, desperate, donned mystic goggles—glyph sensors blinking—only to realize 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 grown 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 incantation or 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 wide open.
The Highway Ledger - A Few Hours After The Decisive Battle
The low hum of portable floodlights was the sole sound on the deserted Clark Highway.
For eight years, Marco's role at the Bureau of Customs had revolved around meticulous details, but that night, he could not shake the feeling that something far larger was unfolding just out of sight. They had summoned him to inventory "recovered materiel" from a skirmish, but the scene resembled 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 bore five chalk outlines. The bodies had been removed, yet the outlines remained, surrounded by a subtle reverence from the medics moving around them. These were not ordinary soldiers. Their gear was top-of-the-line tactical equipment he had only seen in classified briefings, adorned with unfamiliar glyphs stitched into the fabric.
A lieutenant, his face etched with fatigue and lacking a name tag, shoved a clipboard into Marco's hands. "Log anything non-mundane," he instructed. And so Marco complied. The work served as his anchor amid the strangeness. The rifles engraved with Baybayin runes cleanly sliced in half. The armor plates bore 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 resembling moisture. They clung to the asphalt like a terrible, dewy rain, refusing to pool or run. He had never encountered anything like it.
"What about the attackers?" Marco inquired, his voice barely above a whisper.
The lieutenant stared at him for a moment, his eyes hollow. "Don't write that part down," he replied, his tone a flat warning.
Thus, in Marco's ledger, it simply read: 5x deceased, unidentified unit. 8x ruined weapons. Glyph residue present.
As he walked away, the hum of the floodlights fading behind him, he could not shake the sense that he had just been taking inventory for a war the rest of them were not 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 undertook was supposed to be a mundane file retrieval," Marian claimed, her words exhaling slowly.
Gregorio arched an eyebrow, curiosity mingled with unease. "What kind of file?"
Marian inhaled deeply before responding. "A file labeled 'Unnamed' was stored within a folder that masqueraded as a repository for site maintenance information. However, it was absent when I arrived. Whoever accessed it first is formidable; even I encountered challenges attempting 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.