The path to Mt. Pulag was unlike any Lukas had walked before.
They began their ascent under a sky veiled with thin clouds, the morning air sharp with pine and wet moss. The trees here were taller, older, their trunks carved with ancestral sigils Lukas couldn't read but somehow understood—sigils for protection, memory, and sacrifice.
As they climbed, the world below vanished in layers of fog. Villages turned to specks, and then to silence. Only the wind remained, brushing through the grass like breath across the skin.
At the ridge, Kalem paused and touched a stone marker—three triangles stacked into a spiral.
"This is the gate," he said.
"To what?" Lukas asked.
"To the place where gods remember being human."
He stepped aside, letting Lukas lead.
---
The summit of Mt. Pulag was unlike anything Lukas had imagined. Above the clouds, the stars still shimmered in daylight. The sea of clouds that surrounded the mountain looked like a frozen ocean, endless and still. At the center of the summit was a stone circle—ancient, worn smooth by centuries of wind and prayer.
In the middle stood a lone figure.
She was cloaked in robes of woven bark and silver thread, her skin dark like mountain soil. Her eyes shimmered—not with light, but memory. Lukas felt it at once: the weight of her presence.
Kalem knelt. Amihan bowed.
Lukas stayed standing.
The woman turned to him. "You bear the fire."
He nodded. "I need to know what it means."
She stepped forward and placed a hand over his chest. "Bathala's flame is not just power. It is origin. It remembers the first creation, the first breaking. And you... you are its final vessel."
"Why me?"
"Because Bathala chose humanity. Not immortality. His fire must rest in someone who can still feel pain."
Lukas looked down. "What happens if I gather all the shards?"
"You will become a bridge," she said. "Between what was divine, and what is now forgotten. But bridges can collapse. And others seek the shards—for power, not balance."
"Others?" Lukas asked. "You mean the corrupted bearers?"
"No. I mean Maligno."
The name echoed across the summit like thunder.
---
Centuries ago, Maligno had been a celestial spirit—neither god nor beast, but guardian of the twilight between realms. When Bathala split his power into shards, Maligno opposed him, believing that mortals were unworthy of divine trust. He gathered his own followers, corrupted by rage and grief—Aswang, Sigbin, Tiyanak, and others who had once served the old gods but had since turned feral.
"He has risen again," the woman said. "And he seeks to reforge the shards into a blade—not of protection, but conquest."
Lukas clenched his jaw. "How do I stop him?"
"You gather the shards. But more than that… you must awaken the Echoes of Bathala—those who once carried the flame. Their memories lie dormant, but you can call to them."
"Where?"
"In dreams. In silence. In blood."
She held out her hand.
In it was the third shard: a feather-shaped crystal, glowing with an inner wind.
Lukas reached out. The moment his skin touched it, he felt something unlock in his bones. Air wrapped around him, lifting him an inch off the ground. For a moment, the summit vanished—and he stood in a storm of wings, light, and voices.
Then it was gone.
And he was standing once more among the clouds.
---
That night, as they made camp below the summit, Lukas sat alone. The third shard now formed a wind-like tattoo across his collarbone. When he breathed, he could feel the sky itself pulse through him.
But it wasn't just the power.
It was the voices.
He could hear them now—faint echoes of those who had come before. Their pain. Their choices. Their warnings.
Amihan joined him beside the fire.
"You did well," she said.
Lukas chuckled without humor. "I don't feel like it."
She handed him a piece of dried fruit. "None of us do. That's what keeps us from becoming monsters."
After a moment, Lukas asked, "Have you ever wanted to walk away?"
"All the time," she said. "But if I don't fight, who will?"
Lukas nodded. He stared into the fire.
"I saw something up there," he said. "Not just memories. I saw Maligno. And he saw me."
Kalem joined them, his face grave. "Then he knows you've found the third shard."
"What now?" Lukas asked.
Kalem looked up at the sky, toward the east. "Now we go to Mindoro. That's where the fourth shard lies. But it won't be unguarded."
"More Aswang?" Lukas asked.
"No," Kalem said. "Worse."
---
Far away, in a forest choked with shadow and bone, a figure walked barefoot across a field of skulls.
Her eyes were silver. Her tongue forked like a serpent's. In her hand, she held a twisted shard—black and jagged, humming with corruption.
Behind her, hundreds of creatures knelt.
She smiled.
"The Heir draws near," she whispered. "Let him come."