In the quiet, mist-wrapped town of Lubuagan, where the peaks of the Cordillera pierced the sky like the spines of ancient beasts, Sani Dulag lived a life carved by silence.

  He was a boy of few words and deep thoughts. His classmates often joked that Sani spoke in glances and half-smiles. Some thought he was distant. Others thought he was strange. But to Sani, words often felt too small for what he felt inside.

  He lived with his lola named Apo, a tattooed elder with clouded eyes and a sharp tongue. She was the last mambabatok in their area, a traditional tattoo artist who still inked sacred patterns on warriors and seekers. Sani often sat beside her during ceremonies, watching as she dipped thorns into charcoal and tapped them into skin with rhythmic precision.

  "Each mark is a story," she told him once, tapping his arm gently. "Some stories choose you before you're ready."

  But whenever he asked why she had tattooed him as a child—unusual for someone so young—she would only say, "You'll understand when the lightning calls you."

  It never made sense.

  His parents were gone, taken by a flood that swallowed a road years ago. All he had left was his lola, their small home on the mountainside, and the sound of the wind that never stopped moving through the trees.

  But the silence wasn't peace. It was weight.

  Sani remembered the day the river rose. The way the car rocked as water surged against its frame. The feel of his father's arm across his chest, holding him back. His mother shouting his name just before the windshield cracked. Then—a sound. Not a scream. Not even the crash. Just the roaring silence that follows something too loud to be heard.

  Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, it played all over again. Not like a memory, but like a sound buried under his skin. The rush of water. The jolt. The moment the seatbelt wouldn't click.

  He had survived. They hadn't. And though no one said it aloud, Sani knew people looked at him with that quiet question: why him?

  He asked himself the same thing.

  Survivor's guilt clung to him like mist. He ran because standing still made the memories louder. He delivered medicine to distant villages because movement felt like penance. Every step, every climb, every silent prayer in the mountain wind was a question he couldn't answer.

  Sometimes, he stood at the same cliffs he used to visit with his father—the highest ridges where the sky felt close enough to touch. And he would whisper:

  "If I could trade places with you... would the land be more whole?"

  He never told his lola. Not about the dreams. Not about the voices. Not about the guilt that bloomed inside him like a bruise that never healed.

  But Apo knew.

  The storm had rolled in without warning, dark clouds swallowing the moonlight, and the wind was a force of nature in itself—howling and twisting through the trees as though it was alive. His lola's words echoed in his mind, "You're being chased."

  The storm raged on around him, but Sani didn't notice anymore. His body thrummed with power, his chest vibrating as the pulse of energy within him grew stronger. For a moment, it felt like time itself was suspended—like the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for something to shift.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of light. It wasn't the lightning. This light was different—warm, golden, glowing with an otherworldly energy. It streaked across the sky, low and fast, and then, like an arrow in the night, it landed in front of Sani with a deafening crack.

  The ground beneath him shook. He fell to one knee, instinctively reaching out for balance. But there was no mistaking it: the light hadn't been just a flash. It had come from the ground, from the very earth beneath him, as if the land had recognized him.

  A low hum, like a distant song, resonated in his ears, and in that moment, Sani understood. The Legacy Jewel wasn't just an artifact. It was a living thing, tied to him, to his bloodline, to his ancestor.

  His breath caught in his throat. The sound that had been buried under his skin—the rushing of water, the roar of the flood—shifted into something else. A call.

  He looked down at his hands. The skin began to glow, faintly at first, then brighter, the light pulsing with a rhythm that mirrored the energy now coursing through him. The pulse wasn't his alone. It was something more.

  And then he saw it.

  A shard of the Legacy Jewel

  The Stormborne Shard – Dulag's Roar

  glimmering like a Blue Emerald in the dirt before him. Another followed, then another, each fragment of light landing softly at his feet, vibrating with energy. They were calling to him. Each shard, a piece of his past, a piece of his future, and they were waiting for him to claim them.

  The wind stilled, and for the first time, Sani wasn't surrounded by chaos. The storm, the power, the grief—it all settled into a single point of clarity. A whisper filled the air, ancient and familiar, like a voice speaking through the ages.

  "You are my son. The son of the storm."

  The words were not in his ears—they were in his soul. He felt the presence of his ancestor, his heart pounding in time with the call. His mind flooded with images: a man with dark, storm-swept hair, standing at the edge of a cliff, his hands raised to the sky as lightning crackled through the heavens.

  The final piece of the Legacy Jewel—the heart of it—landed softly in Sani's outstretched hand. As his fingers closed around it, an overwhelming rush of energy surged through him, coursing from his chest down to his hands and feet. His blood pulsed with the force of the storm, the thunder, the lightning, and the very heartbeat of his ancestor.

  Sani gasped, his eyes wide. The shards recognized him. They had chosen him.

  And with that, he knew—his grief, his pain, his survival—none of it had been in vain. This storm, the one that had haunted him, had always been part of his birthright. His ancestor's legacy had awakened inside him, and now, Sani stood not as a broken survivor, but as a true descendant of the storm.

  The wind howled again, but this time, it was his voice that joined in.

  A warrior with burning eyes, standing on a cliff's edge beneath a storm-black sky. A bow made of pure lightning crackled in his hands it is the "Lightning Wave", its string humming with energy. Behind him, highland warriors stood firm.

  Before him, a column of soldiers advanced.

  He raised the bow without fear. Arrows of light formed in the air, glowing with the force of the land's rage. He pulled the string. Let it fly.

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  The first shot shattered a steel helmet. The second turned to smoke midair and blinded their commander. The third split into seven arrows midflight, striking the earth with thunder that shook the valley.

  The man's voice rose like a war drum:

  "We fight for the mountains. For our ancestors. For the right to breathe free."

  Then—flames. Screams. The bow snapped in half. The warrior fell. And the vision went dark.

  Sani stumbled back, breath shaking, heart racing. The image of the man with the bow—his strength, his defiance—burned behind his eyes.

  He didn't know the name Macli-ing Dulag.

  No one had ever told him about the Cordillera hero who stood against dictatorship—not with tanks or guns, but with unshakable resolve and the will of his people behind him.

  But now, he could feel it—like thunder in his veins and the pull of a bowstring in his chest.

  The Next Day.

  The mountain fog rolled low and thick, curling around the trees like ghostly fingers. Birds had long stopped singing. Even the insects had gone quiet—as if the whole forest held its breath.

  Sani Dulag tightened the straps of his worn satchel and stepped off the dirt trail, his boots sinking slightly into moss-covered earth. Behind him, the murmurs of his village faded into the hush of the highland trees. Before him lay only mist and the steady pulse of the shard around his neck.

  He didn't know why he was drawn here—only that he had to come. The shard, which had been cold and dormant had begun to glow the moment he stepped beyond the last rice terrace.

  It called to him.

  Not in words, but in emotion—in memory.

  Curiosity. Fear. Resolve.

  He reached the heart of the grove, where the trees grew unnaturally tall and twisted, their bark etched with age-old glyphs. A large stone lay in the center, cracked by time, overgrown with vines. The air thickened. A strange wind brushed his skin, though the leaves above didn't stir.

  Sani placed a hand on his chest. The shard beat harder.

  The forest was silent—too silent.

  Sani Dulag walked deeper into the mist, the shard against his chest pulsing like a second heartbeat. The leaves rustled not from wind, but from something else. Something watching.

  Then—

  Snap.

  A whisper of feathers. A chill in the air.

  From the trees dropped a figure cloaked in darkness—a Wraithborn, its body wrapped in rotting feathers and stitched bone. Its hands glowed with crackling shadow magic, and its mask—twisted like a bird skull—dripped with corruption.

  "You're early," it rasped, voice hollow. "We thought you'd awaken later."

  Sani's body tensed. He stepped back, but the shard flared—and the earth responded.

  The roots beneath his feet trembled—not in fear, but in awakening. The air thickened, charged with invisible current. Static danced across Sani's skin, raising the hairs on his arms. Then—

  CRACK.

  A bolt of lightning struck the earth just inches from where he stood, exploding into a blinding flare of white-blue light. Sani's body trembled, every nerve screaming as lightning surged through his veins. The power had come so suddenly, like a flood tearing through a dam. It wasn't graceful. It wasn't clean. It was chaos.

  The Wraithborn shrieked as it charged forward, its jagged obsidian blade gleaming with corrupt energy. Sani tried to focus, tried to breathe, but the storm inside him howled louder than the one outside. His hands sparked uncontrollably, arcs of electricity snapping across his skin.

  He raised a shaking hand to summon the Lightning Wave Bow—but it flickered, unstable, half-formed in a blur of tangled arcs.

  "Come on," he whispered, voice raw. "Please..."

  But his body wasn't listening. The power fought him—wild, angry, untrained. His heart raced. His vision blurred. Every attempt to channel the energy only made it worse. The storm wasn't his weapon—it was tearing him apart from the inside out.

  The Wraithborn lunged.

  Sani stumbled back, barely dodging the blow. The blade scraped his arm, searing hot even through his suit. He hit the ground hard, coughing, sparks crackling from his fingertips, his control slipping completely. He could feel it rising—his fear, his pain, his helplessness—feeding the storm until it became something monstrous.

  "I can't... I don't know how to stop it—!"

  Then, through the roar of the storm, came a voice. Calm. Ancient. Like thunder softened by rain.

  "You are not meant to stop the storm. You are meant to become it."

  Sani froze.

  He looked up—and there, just beyond the rain, stood a figure cloaked in mist. Barefoot, wrapped in woven lightning and tribal cloth. Eyes glowing with the same blue fire burning in Sani's veins. His ancestor.

  The warrior stepped forward, unbothered by the raging storm.

  "You carry not just power... but grief. Let it flow. Let it guide you."

  Sani's breath hitched. The image of his parents—smiling, gone—flashed through his mind. The loss he never let himself feel. The pain he buried beneath bravado. It surged now, raw and blinding.

  "I... I miss them," he whispered, his voice cracking.

  "Then scream, anak. Let the storm carry your sorrow."

  Sani clenched his fists. His eyes burned. And then—he screamed.

  The sound ripped from his chest, louder than thunder, laced with every ounce of grief and rage he had locked away. The clouds above pulsed in answer. Lightning cracked, not in defiance, but in resonance.

  The energy within him began to change. No longer wild, but aligned—mournful, focused, his.

  The Lightning Wave Bow formed fully in his hands now—stable, real. Its hum was steady. Its power no longer chaotic, but channeled. He drew the string. An arrow of electric sorrow formed, jagged and luminous.

  He fired.

  The bolt tore through the storm, fracturing into arcs that struck the Wraithborn and rooted it in place, chains of lightning lashing it to the ground. The creature shrieked, but Sani didn't flinch. He stood tall now, his ancestor's presence behind him, his grief no longer a wound—but a weapon.

  He lifted his other hand, and the earth answered.

  Tendrils of electricity surged upward, binding the Wraithborn. With a roar, Sani slammed his palm to the ground—

  Lightning Wave.

  The surge burst outward, a ring of brilliant devastation exploding from him in every direction. The Wraithborn convulsed, overwhelmed, its form crumbling in the stormlight.

  Then—one final arrow.

  Thunderstrike Impact.

  He drew the bowstring with steady hands. Not shaking. Not afraid.

  The arrow screamed through the air, struck the Wraithborn's heart, and detonated in a final pulse of electric justice.

  When the light faded, the Wraithborn was gone. Only silence remained. The storm above had begun to calm, its fury spent, as if honoring what had passed.

  Sani fell to one knee, chest heaving, soaked in sweat and rain. His ancestor stood before him one last time, placing a hand over his heart.

  "You have found your voice. The storm is no longer your burden. It is your name."

  And then—like the rain itself—he was gone.

  Sani looked down at his hands, faintly glowing with power, then up at the sky.

  The storm was no longer above him.

  It was within.

  The storm, though silent now, watched him. Waited. Warned.

  This was only a scout.

  The tempest had not yet begun.

  From the shadowed remains of the Wraithborn, a low, guttural whisper crackled through the scorched air—its voice fractured like a dying signal:

  And warning him—

  This was only a scout.

  The storm has not yet come.

  As the ashes settled and silence returned to the forest, a low, guttural whisper rose from the fading shadow of the Wraithborn—its final words twisting through the wind like a curse:

  "When the seventh shard bleeds light... the General shall awaken. And the nation will kneel to its forgotten king."

  Then it was gone—erased in static and dust.

  But the chill in the wind remained.

  And so did the warning.

  Author's Note:

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