The team set up temporary defenses in a half-collapsed barangay hall — reinforced with talismanic tech and old-school glyph chalking. Outside, the Rift distorted reality further: cars floated sideways, and rain fell upward in streaks of ash-gray light.
Sam sat against the wall, eyes locked on his hand.
The burn marks from Gabriela's Vein were still there — not scarring, not pain. More like his skin had been rewritten. Like his soul had been touched.
"You okay, kid?" Rael asked, tossing him a cold ration bar.
Sam caught it without thinking. "No."
"Good. You're finally honest."
Valencia approached, eyes sharp as obsidian. "Your Vein signature fluctuated. Hybridization?"
"I… think she helped me," Sam said. "Gabriela Silang."
The name settled in the room like a stormcloud. Everyone knew it. Everyone knew what it meant.
"You channeled a Prime Ancestral?" Rael said, half-whispering. "That's not supposed to happen without a full Awakening."
Valencia crossed her arms. "Unless the Rift forced a spiritual breach."
"Or…" Sam looked at his palm, where fire and wind still shimmered faintly. "She chose to come through."
Before they could argue, the air changed.
A soundless quake.
Their barriers cracked. The lights dimmed. Then it spoke—not aloud, but inside their heads:
"Who defies the silence?"
Walls warped. Ceiling peeled open like paper. Darkness poured in—not the absence of light, but presence of void.
And from that void stepped the Watcher.
It stood ten feet tall, robed in torn banners from failed uprisings. Its face shifted between forgotten heroes and nameless martyrs, flickering like broken film. Chains dangled from its arms, each link etched with cries never heard.
Sam couldn't breathe.
This wasn't just an entity.
It was grief.
The Watcher raised a hand, and Rael's knees buckled. "Get out—now!" he yelled.
Valencia moved fast, slamming a beacon spike into the ground. "Deploying Rift Gate—thirty seconds!"
But the Watcher had already noticed Sam.
Its hollow eyes locked onto him—and the chains shot forward.
Sam raised his arms—but the chains were too fast.
Then—
CLANG!
A shield of glowing earth burst between them. Cracks webbed out from the impact, but it held. A voice rang out:
"No hero stands alone."
Another figure emerged, ethereal and fierce—Sultan Kudarat, The Unyielding Shield.
Sam could feel it again. His Vein pulsed. The spirit's presence didn't overwhelm—it anchored. Grounded.
"Resonance Link: Earth Pulse!" Sam shouted instinctively.
The Watcher roared, its chains turning to obsidian blades. It charged.
Sam stepped forward—wind, fire, and earth flaring across his limbs. He met the monster head-on.
Boom!
A shockwave tore through the building.
Rael and Valencia dragged the others through the Rift Gate just in time—Sam the last to leap through, scorched but alive, as the building collapsed behind him.
They landed on the other side—back in New Intramuros HQ.
Sam collapsed, panting, skin steaming.
Everyone stared.
Rael knelt beside him. "You… had two. You channeled two ancestrals in one Rift."
Valencia's expression darkened. "This changes everything."
Sam looked up, eyes burning gold and bronze.
"I didn't summon them," he whispered. "They heard me."