"In the Beginning, There Was the Forge"
??? — The Spirit Forge
A solitary torch flickered like a lone star within the depths of a cavern, casting an ethereal glow that danced upon the rough-hewn walls. Shadows clung to the stone, reminiscent of ancient scars, stretching and retracting with every tremor of the flame. The air was dense, a tapestry woven from damp earth, metallic tang, and a silence that seemed to transcend time itself. This was not a tranquil silence, but rather the stillness of something immense holding its breath.
The cavern extended infinitely, its ceiling shrouded in darkness, where stalactites hung like the teeth of a slumbering titan. Veins of luminous stone coursed through the walls, glowing faintly as if the mountain itself remembered fire. Pools of still water mirrored the torchlight, creating warped reflections that rippled even without disturbance. Every sound—the drip of condensation, the flutter of unseen wings—was consumed by the oppressive hush.
A figure emerged from the depths, their silhouette blurred by the wavering light. Hooded and motionless, they exuded an aura of ancient wisdom, having lived through countless dawns. Beneath the shadow of the hood, their eyes glimmered faintly, reflecting centuries of knowledge and the fatigue of having borne witness to too much. The figure remained silent, attuned to the heartbeat of the stone, the faint drip of water echoing from stalactites, and the muted song of the jungle above. Every vibration told a story, and the Forge whispered them all.
"In the beginning, there was the Forge."
The voice did not emerge from the air but resonated from the cavern walls themselves—a voice of storms and prayers, echoing the chants of countless souls whispered into the very bones of the earth. The words thrummed through the figure's chest, a blend of command and confession.
"Before flame. Before tide. Before the written word.
The Sandata relics were mine. I bestowed them upon the world—to be discovered, to be contested, to be misunderstood, stolen, and safeguarded."
The torch sputtered violently, its flame vanishing momentarily before surging back in an unnatural blaze. The fire illuminated a vast mural of runes and glyphs etched into the stone, transforming the cavern into a repository of forgotten memories. Spirals, sigils, and fragmented histories glowed faintly, as if awakening from a long slumber. Each line was a narrative, each mark a scar left by gods and mortals who had bartered with forces too great to contain.
The figure raised a hand toward the mural, tracing the glowing symbols with reverence. Each rune pulsed faintly beneath their touch, resonating with the lives of those who had once wielded them. A thousand relics, a thousand destinies. Some used with honor, others with cruelty—all bound by the Forge's silent will.
Yet the Forge did not create in kindness; it forged out of 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 benevolent nor malevolent; it was the very pulse of creation, indifferent to how its gifts were employed.
The cavern pulsated. The Forge's heartbeat—a slow, deep rhythm that had echoed for eons—suddenly faltered. The ground trembled, pebbles scattering across the dirt floor. The pulse ceased.
And silence descended.
But this was not the silence of still water. It was the silence of a predator poised to strike, the hush that envelops a storm before the lightning cleaves the sky. Something had awakened, not with noise, but through absence.
The Forge had spoken, and its story was merely beginning.
The Origin of Spirit Breaches
Before relics found their wielders, before the first oath was sworn in blood, the world had already begun to fracture. These fractures, known as Spirit Breaches, were rifts in the veil between the mortal realm and the Spirit Realm.
No singular event birthed them. Instead, they were the remnants of forgotten wars fought between gods and mortals—places where divine wrath once struck the earth, leaving boundaries as thin as parchment. Each breach pulsed with memory—sorrow, rage, betrayal—and from these emotions, Echoes emerged: twisted manifestations of the deceased who had not crossed over or of prayers that had gone unanswered.
Initially, the breaches were small—mere whispers in forests, shadows in caves, or strange lights dancing above the sea. A hunter might vanish while pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp, or fishermen might recount tales of voices rising from the tide, pleading for release. Shamans, the early babaylans, offered rice and blood, weaving fragile nets of chants to contain the fractures. For a time, it was sufficient.
However, as humanity's grief and violence deepened through centuries of conquest, colonization, and unending wars, the wounds widened. What was once a faint shimmer transformed into a floodgate, and the Echoes learned to crawl, then to swarm. They bore the shapes of ancestors twisted by rage, soldiers drowned in the cries of their dying comrades, or faceless silhouettes woven from collective fear.
The ancients endeavored to contain them with rituals, offerings, and sacred wards, yet their efforts merely delayed the inevitable. Breaches could not be destroyed; they could only be sealed, and even then, the seals weakened over time.
Some assert that the first breach resulted from a forgotten pact—an agreement between man and spirit shattered by betrayal. Others whisper of an ancient figure, known only in legend, who played a role in its creation. His name remains seldom spoken, yet his influence echoes through the ages—a shadow tied not to gods, but to a man who sought to rewrite fate itself.
Thus, each breach serves as both a curse and a prophecy: a reminder that the world remembers its wounds, and the dead are never truly silent.
The Convergence Age (Year 2000)
At the dawn of the new millennium, the Philippines did not merely enter the digital age; it collided with its ancestral future.
In the final weeks of 1999, a construction dig beneath Quezon City unearthed a sealed chamber—its walls etched in pre-colonial glyphs, its air thick with electromagnetic residue. The site was rapidly quarantined and classified. What lay within would redefine the nation's destiny.
The chamber was dubbed Baul ng Diyos—the God's Locker. It housed hundreds of relics: bracers, blades, shields, and sigil-bound artifacts forged from obsidian alloy, volcanic glass, and a rare ancestral metal known as voidsteel—a cold-forged, memory-reactive alloy believed to be mined from meteorite fragments and sanctified in pre-colonial rites. Each relic pulsed with dormant energy, encoded with glyph logic and tactical potential.
At its center lay the most enigmatic artifact: a bracelet of voidsteel and obsidian filament, dormant yet alive. When worn, it transformed into a war bracer—its surface inscribed with shifting glyphs and ancient Baybayin runes that reconfigured in response to the wielder's intent. A soft violet aura radiated from its core, casting spectral light upon the chamber walls. It did not respond to mere code; it responded to lineage.
This artifact was named Kamay ni Bathala—the Hand of God.
By 2000, the Republic launched Project Simula—The Beginning. A classified initiative aimed at decoding and replicating the glyph logic embedded in the relics. Scientists, babaylans, and engineers collaborated, merging ancient spiritual systems with tactical design. Glyphs became executable logic, and relics transformed into strategic assets. The era of myth-tech was born.
The economy surged. Relic-forging industries flourished across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Sandata-class operatives were trained to wield glyph-encoded gear, relic-powered vehicles, and ancestral invocation protocols. The Philippines emerged as the epicenter of a new global paradigm.
Neighboring nations took notice.
Indonesia activated its Garuda Protocol. China launched Project Guan Yu. Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore formed the ASEAN Myth-Tech Accord, standardizing relic deployment across borders.
By 2005, the world had taken notice.
The United States initiated Project Sentinel. Japan integrated relic logic into robotics. The European Union established the Myth-Tech Observatory in Marseille. Global powers raced to catch up—but the blueprint remained distinctly Filipino.
It was the golden age of the Republic—economically sovereign, militarily ascendant, and spiritually reawakened.
Yet convergence is rarely seamless.
As relics reactivated, so too did the echoes of those who once wielded them. Spirit breaches widened. Forgotten pantheons stirred. And beneath the surface of prosperity, a question pulsed louder than any glyph:
"If power remembers its origin… who truly commands it?"
The Origin of the Sandata Unit
Far above the Spirit Forge, across seas and rivers, 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 the God's Locker.
Within, the Philippine Military launched an experiment born of desperation. The program bore a name that sounded more mythological than mandatory: Project Sandata.
Its ambition was audacious—reckless. The goal was 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 capable of defending the nation against encroaching spirit breaches.
The cost of such ambition was steep.
Hundreds of orphans were gathered—children devoid of ties, families, or histories. Blank slates. They were told they had been chosen for greatness, but in truth, their selection was predicated on their disposability. God's Locker became both crucible and grave.
The trials were merciless. Each child was exposed to raw, unfiltered relic energy—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, collapsing into ash or becoming living husks. Some children's minds shattered outright, leaving behind shells that breathed yet 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. Each failure left 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 understood why.
Their names would one day become legends whispered in shadows:
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 unscathed. Each bore wounds etched deeper than flesh. Their eyes carried the weight of children who had glimpsed gods and survived. Their bond was forged not in trust but in shared survival—a family of necessity rather than choice.
Training commenced immediately. Hardened military officers drilled them in tactics and combat, while esoteric scholars imparted 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.
When they were deemed ready—if such readiness could ever truly be claimed—they were unleashed into a world oblivious to the dangers lurking beneath its surface.
The Sandata Unit fought shadows that cast no light. They sealed breaches that tore open in the heart of cities, silenced horrors that spoke in forgotten tongues, and recovered relics capable of unraveling a nation. For a decade, they existed as ghosts—unknown protectors. Every victory was erased, every wound concealed.
Then came 2013. The Basilan Spirit Breach—the largest ever recorded. A gaping wound in reality itself, hungry and insatiable. The Sandata Unit fought valiantly, sealing the breach, but at an unbearable cost. Classified, redacted, whispered about yet never officially recorded.
The aftermath was swift and ruthless. The five returned to the shadows, guardians stripped of even their names. The world slumbered on, unaware of how close it had come to ruin.
Yet the Forge remembers. As the years passed and the world moved beyond the chaos of the Spirit Breaches, the Sandata Unit was quietly dissolved. Official records were obliterated, and their existence reclassified as an unauthorized black operation. Nonetheless, the government's watchful gaze never truly left them. Though they now lived under the guise of normalcy, their every move was subtly monitored to ensure that the powerful relics they wielded remained tightly controlled.
Their tale did not conclude—it was buried.
And buried stories possess an uncanny ability to claw their way back to the surface.