The past doesn't just haunt—it guides. And sometimes, it fights back.
[Setting – Underground Crypts beneath New Intramuros]
The air was damp, thick with the scent of old blood and forgotten dust.
Sam held a flickering torch in one hand, his kampilan sheathed on his back. Beside him, Valencia and Rael moved cautiously, eyes adjusting to the dim glow of runes carved into the stone walls. The deeper they went, the more the markings began to shift—no longer in Baybayin or Latin, but in a script that twisted unnaturally, resisting comprehension.
"This place isn't on any map," Rael whispered.
"It's pre-Rift. Older than the Archives," Valencia said. Her voice trembled, just barely. "Only the founders knew it existed."
"Then why was it calling to me?" Sam asked.
He didn't expect an answer. But the whisper came anyway.
Because your blood remembers.
[Flashback – A memory not his own]
A young man—a farmer, nameless—kneels before a burning shrine in ancient Mindoro. His eyes are alight, not with fear, but with recognition.
Above him, a celestial figure descends. Not Lapu-Lapu. Not Rizal.
It is the First Flamekeeper. Unknown in history. Forgotten by design.
He passes a seed into the farmer's chest.
"One day, you will bloom with fire not to destroy, but to awaken."
[Back in the Crypts]
Sam staggered.
"Did you see that?" he asked, voice strained.
Rael raised an eyebrow. "See what?"
Sam looked down at his hand. It was glowing.
The flame wasn't from the torch.
It was from him.
Valencia's eyes widened. "That's not Sunfire... That's Origin Flame."
Before Sam could respond, the ground beneath them cracked.
Runes flared red.
A dome of energy slammed down around them—and in the center of the chamber, the air rippled. A figure appeared, wrapped in robes woven from shadow.
Not a Rift Beast. Not a Court agent.
A Guardian.
"The Roots remember the traitors," the Guardian said. "You walk with the Echoes, boy. But the Echoes do not walk with you."
His voice was like rusted metal dragged across bone.
Rael stepped forward, twin blades drawn. "Sam, this isn't just a test. It's a sentence."
Valencia nodded, her Vein surging with wind and spark. "Then we fight our way into the truth."
[Cut to – Court of Logos: Observation Wing]
The Director of Rift Strategy stood before a glowing map, her fingers tracing Sam's trajectory.
"Activate Protocol: Echo Collapse," she ordered.
A subordinate hesitated. "Ma'am, that will destabilize the entire southern grid—"
She didn't flinch. "Then let it fall. If the boy reaches the Root Flame, he rewrites the contract. And we lose the Abyssal Bond."
[Back in the Crypts – Battle Breaks Loose]
The Guardian's cloak peeled away, revealing tendrils of petrified bark and obsidian thorns. It wasn't alive—it was grown.
Sam unleashed the Origin Flame.
But it didn't burn.
It remembered.
Images poured from the fire:
Rizal kneeling before a Rift core, holding a quill made of bone.
Bonifacio turning away from a burning library.
A version of Sam chained, screaming, as his own shadow walked free.
The Guardian roared, collapsing timelines into shards and hurling them like blades.
Valencia screamed as one cut across her chest—and memory spilled from her.
She saw her father.
Screaming. Bound in a Rift Forge. Sacrificed by the Court for an "experiment."
Her Vein screamed in tandem—unleashing a typhoon vortex that shattered the Guardian's arm.
Rael pushed forward, blades dancing like echoes of war, slicing through the Guardian's temporal anchors.
Sam focused everything into his palm.
The Origin Flame pulsed—not to destroy, but to reveal.
He pressed his hand to the Guardian's chest.
"I remember you now," he whispered. "You're not a guardian. You're a prison."
The Guardian shattered into white light.
[Silence]
They stood in the broken crypt, breathing heavily.
The runes dimmed. The energy field faded.
And from the ashes of the Guardian... a scroll appeared.
Rael reached for it. "What is that?"
Valencia stared. "It's written in every Vein language."
Sam stepped forward.
He opened the scroll—and instantly, his eyes bled gold.
A voice echoed across the chamber. Familiar. Cold. Inhuman.
"You opened the First Contract."
"Now the Chain of Resonance is broken."
"You have invited the Eternal Severing."