"When darkness learns to move, survival becomes a race against your own shadow."
When the Sky Breaks Open
Bangkok, Thailand
At the same time as Ricardo and Sybill escaped Bilibid, the Adarna tore through low clouds as Bangkok's skyline revealed itself. Glittering towers, golden spires, and the dark river winding through the city like a slow exhale.
But none of it mattered.
Not when the sky itself was breaking open.
A Spirit Breach loomed over the Chao Phraya River; a massive, spiraling rupture the size of Basilan's disaster.
Jagged light cracked across the clouds, and Echoes - skeletal silhouettes woven from mist and memory poured out in relentless waves.
Below, Bangkok burned.
Prasert Rattanachai and the Royal Guardian Corps Relic Division were already knee-deep in the swarm.
Bodies of Echoes dissolved into vapor across the bridges, streets, and temple grounds but every one that fell was replaced by ten more.
Casualty cries cut through the comms.
"Sector Three collapse - Guardian Line breached!"
"We lost the eastern ward! They're everywhere!"
"Pull back! Pull ba - AAGH -"
Agosto Santos - Kampilan ni Lam-Ang in hand, he waded through the chaos, teleport-slashes carving crimson arcs across the street.
Prasert's Phra Saeng Khan Chaiyasi glowed with golden sovereignty, each swing vaporizing Echoes in radiant bursts.
But even they were being pushed into retreat.
Inside the descending Adarna, Joaquin Santillan braced himself against the tactical display as Bangkok's city map flooded with red.
"Gregorio, Renato - listen carefully," Joaquin said, voice firm but rapid. "Agosto and Prasert are holding the inner cordon, but they're being swallowed. Your objective is to reinforce their position and secure the Crown of the Naga's vault before the swarm reaches it."
Gregorio Aguilar tightened the last clasp of his Myth-Tech Nano Suit.
Kamay ni Bathala glowed beneath the armored weave—violet light pulsing calmly despite the chaos below.
"Mark the drop zone," Gregorio said.
Renato Ramirez secured the Kalasag ni Bernardo Carpio against his chest, the badge form syncing into the nano-plates with a low mechanical hum.
"Ready when you are."
Below the breach, thunder rolled
not from the storm,
but from another explosion in the city below.
Joaquin tapped the console.
"Adarna, open rear hatch. Prepare external deployment."
Warning lights flared red across the bay.
"HATCH OPENING. STAND CLEAR."
Wind blasted inside as the rear doors split apart, revealing Bangkok's burning avenues far below.
Gregorio stepped to the edge of the hatch.
Renato beside him.
Bangkok was being eaten alive.
"Go," Joaquin ordered. "They won't last long."
Gregorio leapt.
Renato followed.
They dove headfirst from the Adarna into a sky full of fire -
parachutes ripping open as they shot straight toward the ground…
…and toward the breach consuming a city.
The Battle Begins
The city shook.
Not from earthquakes -
but from the swarm.
Echoes poured out of the breach in a spiraling torrent, hitting the streets like a living stormfront. Shrieking silhouettes tore through markets, temple courtyards, overpasses, scattering debris and bodies alike.
The Royal Guardian Corps Relic Division fought in collapsing formations, shields locked, glyph-forged rifles tearing through mist and bone.
But for every Echo they felled, five more slammed into the lines.
"Hold the line! HOLD!"
The captain's order was drowned as an Echo lunged, claws slicing through his armor. His vision spun sideways -
streetlights flickering, rain steaming off his blood.
A Guardian kneeling beside him shouted,
"Captain! CAP..."
A second Echo dragged the kneeling man screaming into the breach-light.
The captain's last sight:
the breach pulsing like a second sun above the river,
splitting the sky open.
Meanwhile, Gregorio's parachute snapped open with a violent crack, slamming against crosswinds scorched by the swarm.
Below him, Bangkok was a battlefield.
Flashes of golden light marked Prasert's position.
Phasing slashes - Agosto.
Gregorio stabilized, Kamay ni Bathala glowing through his suit.
Renato fell in beside him, Kalasag plates warming with kinetic charge.
"Contact in five," Renato called over comms.
Gregorio nodded.
"Cut the chutes early."
They did.
Parachutes severed.
Gravity seized them -
dropping them like metal spears straight into the warzone.
At the frontlines, Agosto teleported through a collapsing overpass, Kampilan ni Lam-Ang carving dimensional lines that dismembered three Echoes at once.
He landed beside Prasert just as another wave surged.
Prasert's Phra Saeng Khan Chaiyasi erupted in a golden arc. A sovereign slash that vaporized a dozen Echoes in its wake.
"Agosto!" Prasert shouted, breath ragged.
"We cannot hold much longer!"
Agosto skewered an Echo trying to flank him.
"Just keep swinging!"
But even he was being pushed back—
Teleport slashes losing ground
against a tide that did not fear death
because it wasn't alive to begin with.
An explosion shook a nearby block.
Flames burst from a shattered building as Guardians were hurled from the windows by invisible claws.
Prasert's jaw clenched.
"We're losing the city."
Near Gregorio and Renato's landing zone, a young Guardian sprinted through an alley, Echoes racing behind him.
He tripped, scraping skin, tasting dust, and hearing bones crack behind him as other Guardians fell.
He looked up.
Above the burning skyline, two figures plummeted through the smoke.
One glowing violet,
one shimmering with kinetic force.
He whispered,
"Reinforcements…"
Then an Echo's claw tore through his vision,
and he saw nothing more.
Gregorio smashed through a billboard frame, landing in a crater of shattering concrete. The impact vaporized the first Echo before it could reach him. Kamay ni Bathala pulsing once, hard, like a heartbeat made of violet thunder.
Renato landed beside him, Kalasag absorbing the shock in an azure flare before redirecting it. A kinetic pulse blasting a dozen Echoes backward.
Gregorio stood.
Echoes swarmed the street from all sides.
"Move," he ordered.
They did.
The Cross-cut -Battle Erupts
Agosto blink-slashed above a fallen Guardian, cutting down the Echo mid-lunge.
Prasert unleashed a radiant shockwave, engulfing the temple steps in gold.
Renato intercepted a flanking surge with a redirected shock pulse, shattering the pavement.
Gregor punched through an Echo's chest, violet force obliterating three more behind it.
The four fronts of battle collided with the swarm.
Bangkok shaking under their combined assault.
Still, the tide did not end.
Echoes crawled across rooftops, leaping.
Echoes slithered across walls, clawing.
Echoes burst from sewer grates like rising steam.
The city was drowning in memories of pain made flesh.
A squad attempted to retreat across the bridge - the bridge buckled.
Echoes swarmed the center support.
Concrete cracked.
Metal bent.
The entire structure tilted sideways before collapsing into the river below, dragging soldiers and monsters alike.
A Guardian clung to a railing, screaming for help as Echoes pulled him down by the shoulders. His fingers were slipping...
Then an explosion of violet light incinerated the Echoes tearing at him.
He looked up.
Gregorio stepped through the smoke.
Breathing hard.
Eyes lit with purpose.
"Stay with your squad," he said.
The Guardian nodded, trembling.
"Yes, sir."
Gregorio:
punching through Echo after Echo, leaving shockwaves of violet concussive force.
Renato:
absorbing the swarm's momentum, redirecting kinetic waves like controlled detonations.
Agosto:
teleporting through narrow alleys, slashing Echoes in spatial bursts.
Prasert:
wielding the Phra Saeng Khan Chaiyasi with regal precision, every swing a bright arc of sovereignty burning through the night.
Bangkok had no air left.
Only smoke, screams, and the sound of steel and relics shattering the endless tide.
The Evolved Breed
A fresh wave surged from the breach - denser, faster, sharper than any before it.
Agosto gritted his teeth.
"They're adapting!"
Prasert sliced three Echoes, golden light trailing behind his blade.
"Hold the line!"
Renato slammed his Kalasag into the ground, a kinetic shockwave exploding outward.
Gregorio leapt above them, Kamay blazing.
Their paths converged.
The battlefield tilted.
The swarm roared.
And the four warriors
began carving their way toward each other toward the only chance the city had left.
When Warriors Converge
Amid the burning maze of Bangkok's streets, four fronts of battle finally collided.
Gregorio broke through the last row of toppled market stalls with a burst of violet light, Kamay ni Bathala smashing an Echo into vapor. Renato followed half a step behind, Kalasag redirecting a fresh surge into a ruptured bus, turning the entire vehicle into a kinetic shrapnel blast that tore through dozens of Echoes.
Across the plaza, Agosto Santos teleported into existence mid-air, Kampilan ni Lam-Ang carving a dimensional arc that bisected a flanking swarm. He landed hard, boots grinding against cracked stone. Prasert Rattanachai met him on the steps of a shattered shrine, his blade burning gold through the shadows.
Prasert's eyes widened with relief.
"Aguilar! Ramirez!"
Renato answered by slamming his Kalasag into an Echo trying to blindside Prasert, sending it rocketing into a collapsed taxi.
"Glad to see you alive, Prasert!"
Agosto blinked beside Gregorio, Kampilan humming.
"Took you long enough!"
Gregorio didn't smile, he didn't have time.
"Status?"
Prasert blocked an incoming leaper, his blade flaring. "Bad. The Guardians are breaking. We can't hold the cordon."
Agosto shouted while cutting down another cluster,
"The breach is growing! Echoes are mutating faster!"
Gregorio raised his voice, command slicing through the chaos.
"Then we fight together."
The four formed an instinctive cross-pattern each covering the other's blind spots as the Echoes surged again.
The next wave hit like a tidal surge.
Gregorio caught the lead Echo by the skull, crushing it in a violet blast that rippled through the street. Agosto teleported five meters ahead, cutting a path wide enough for Prasert's golden shockwave to follow. Renato intercepted a sweeping tide on their flank, redirecting its force straight upward sending shrieking silhouettes flying into the breach-light above.
Royal Guardians nearby witnessed the formation - four warriors moving like a single organism and their morale spiked like flame in oxygen.
One Guardian, bloodied and shaking, saw Gregorio punch through a dozen Echoes in a single charge. He gasped, breath hitching with renewed hope.
"The Sandata Unit is here! HOLD THE LINE!"
Another Guardian screamed with fresh strength:
"For the Kingdom! PUSH FORWARD!"
The Corps tightened formation, emboldened by the arrival of legends they thought too far to matter.
Prasert swung his Phra Saeng Khan Chaiyasi in a sovereign arc of pure gold blazing through fog and bone.
Agosto followed with a teleport-slash, carving dimensional tears through the densest clusters.
Renato pivoted left, shoulder-checking Gregorio just enough to redirect his momentum—
"Goyo! High right!"
Gregorio spun, violet energy erupting from his fist as he obliterated the Echo lunging from the rooftop.
Every exchange was clean.
Every movement sharpened.
Every blow essential.
Four relic wielders—four storms—finally reunited at the heart of a burning city.
And for the first time that night,
the swarm reeled backward.
The Echoes shrieked in unison, staggering under the synchronized assault.
Bangkok's defenders pushed forward as one force—steel, relics, and renewed will.
Gregorio's voice cut through the battlefield:
"We push to the breach! MOVE!"
And the warriors moved—
driving back the tide by sheer force of unity.
The Horde Intensifies
The breach pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—
and the battle shifted.
Gregorio felt it immediately:
a pressure drop,
a cold drag across his spine.
"Something's changing," he warned.
Prasert pointed sharply.
"Agosto—left!"
The first one emerged:
A Preta Variant.
Still an Echo—
but distorted into a predatory silhouette:
-Low posture, limbs stretched into blade-like angles
-Claws hooked and serrated
-Hollow eyes glowing with feral instinct
-Movements jittering, then turning impossibly smooth
-Bodies slipping cleanly between patches of shadow
Then the rest arrived.
Falling straight from the breach into every pool of darkness in the city.
In an instant—
Shadows under overturned cars
Shadows behind burning walls
Shadows cast by ruined pillars
Shadows beneath living, breathing Guardians all twisted upward into snarling shapes.
A Guardian near the river glanced down his own shadow stretched beneath him, warped and a Preta rose from it, claws punching through his ribs before dragging him into dissolving mist.
His squad reeled back in panic.
"They're coming out of our shadows!"
"Keep moving! Don't stand still!"
"Watch the ground! WATCH THE—"
A Preta snapped one of them backward mid-sentence.
The perimeter collapsed.
Pretas flickered through the battlefield appearing from darkness, disappearing just as fast.
Renato caught one mid-rise with his Kalasag
**KRNNNG** absorbing its pounce before blasting it backward into a shattered taxi.
"They're faster," he gritted out. "And using every shadow they can."
Gregorio crushed two Pretas with a violet shockburst.
"They're hunting through darkness, not air."
Prasert's Radiant Sovereign Slash burned three Pretas into vapor only for more to crawl out of the expanding shadows behind him.
Agosto blinked in -
"Flame Spiral!"
A corkscrew of crimson fire ripped through the nearest pack.
He landed hard, breath sharp.
"They're multiplying faster than we're killing them."
The city darkened under their assault:
-Pretas leaping from alley shadows
-Pretas slicing upward from collapsed structures
-Pretas dragging Guardians into rupturing pools of black
-Pretas circling the Sandata Unit with feral precision
Renato intercepted another—
catching it mid-transition and hurling it upward in a kinetic blast.
Prasert slashed through a half-collapsed shopfront, gold light exploding across the shadows and forcing Pretas to recoil.
Agosto blinked between rooftops, carving ambushes before they fully surfaced.
Still...
More kept coming.
The Pretas moved like living fractures—
warps of shadow attacking from every angle the darkness allowed.
Bangkok trembled beneath the evolved swarm.
Gregorio looked up at the breach—
its spiral widening, its glow deepening.
"We seal it," Gregorio said, urgent and calm.
"Before night falls or Bangkok doesn't have an hour left."
Above them, the breach pulsed again as if ready to flood the city with worse.