Yet as time passed, the light of that victory began to fade.

  A year turned into many, and many turned into centuries. The tale of the Legacy Jewel became folklore—then legend—then myth. The stories of Bonifacio's fury, Rizal's insight, and the heroes' final stand were buried beneath politics, rewritten textbooks, and forgotten rituals. Monuments crumbled. Statues stood, but their meaning dulled. The Legacy was not stolen—it was erased.

  And in that silence, something ancient stirred.

  Beneath the ashes of Malvado's shattered form, a sliver of his darkness remained—a single, cursed echo of his soul, buried deep in the earth, dormant... waiting. His body had been destroyed, but evil rarely dies—it festers.

  As the world changed, so too did the spirit of the land.

  Greed seeped into the veins of power, turning leaders into hoarders and nations into markets. Pride swelled in the hearts of the elite, who crowned themselves above history. The cries for justice were drowned beneath luxury, as gluttony devoured what little remained for the many.

  Envy festered in the shadows, igniting wars in boardrooms and blood feuds in alleyways.

  Lust was no longer passion—it became control, used to manipulate minds and manufacture loyalty.

  Sloth infected the people, numbing their sense of purpose with distractions and synthetic joy.

  And wrath burned quietly beneath the surface, ready to explode from every cracked wall and broken promise.

  Corruption rooted itself in high offices and slums alike. The rich hoarded wealth, the poor were silenced, and the young were taught to forget. The sins were not just habits—they were the new gospel, silently preached through systems, screens, and steel.

  If General Malvado gathers all seven shards of the Legacy Jewel, they will become vessels—each one capable of containing the dark energy of the seven deadly sins. Only then can he channel this power, using the sins as the key to his resurrection.

  That was all Malvado needed.

  Every lie spoken to protect power, every coin exchanged to betray a principle, every page torn from history was an offering. Slowly, his essence fed on the darkness growing in men's hearts, like a parasite clinging to ambition and fear. His whispers returned—first to the most corrupt, then to the most desperate.

  "You don't need to remember the past to rule the future," the shadows whispered.

  Soon, the last remnants of the Legacy were declared superstition. The jewels were lost, their energy scattered through generations, hidden in the blood of unsuspecting descendants. Those who dreamt of warriors and glowing shards were dismissed as fools, or silenced entirely. The names of the great heroes became trivia questions, not battle cries.

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  And beneath the capital, in a sealed cavern no longer marked on any map, a dark pulse returned.

  Once every moon, it beat louder. Once every breath, it spread wider.

  Malvado's return would not come with an army—but with a world too blind to see it coming.

  And when the darkness rose again...

  Who would remember the light?

  The Rise of Shadows and the Keepers of Light

  While most of the world forgot, not everyone turned away from the truth.

  Some chose to worship it in the wrong way.

  Deep in the forgotten corners of the archipelago—within ancient catacombs, abandoned Spanish-era dungeons, and corrupted churches—a cult took root, calling themselves "Ang Anino" (The Shadowborn). They revered General Malvado not as a villain, but as a god—the "True Liberator," the one who sought to cleanse the weak and forge a new Philippines through chaos.

  Ang Anino believed the Legacy Jewel had stolen power meant for Malvado, and that its destruction had unbalanced the world. To them, the corruption of man wasn't a sin—it was a sacrifice. Every act of betrayal, greed, and violence was part of a great ritual to bring Malvado back in his full form.

  For centuries, they infiltrated governments, schools, media—quietly reshaping history, erasing the truth of the old heroes, and replacing it with narratives that served their master. Some even believed the cult had their own twisted version of the shards—Shadow Shards—corrupted fragments of the Legacy Jewel, poisoned by Malvado's last breath, granting powers at the cost of one's soul.

  But where there is darkness, light always hides somewhere.

  Far from cities and corrupted institutions, a hidden resistance endured. They were called "Bantay Lahi"—The Lineage Watchers.

  Descendants of loyal warriors, shamans, and scholars who once served the ancient heroes, the Bantay Lahi dedicated their lives to preserving the truth. They passed down secret knowledge through generations—oral stories, coded books, ancestral tattoos, and hidden artifacts. Some lived as farmers, teachers, fishermen. Others became monks, artists, or indigenous leaders. All were united by one mission:

  "When the shards stir again, we will awaken their heirs."

  The Bantay Lahi maintained secret temples and waystations in places of spiritual convergence—volcanic craters, sacred waterfalls, ancestral caves, and old battlefields. In these places, the memory of the Legacy Jewel still lingered. They trained in silence, waiting for the signs: strange dreams, unnatural storms, whispers in the wind, and, most of all, the call of the shards.

  Some among them believed the shards had already begun to awaken, hiding within chosen bloodlines.

  Others feared that Ang Anino had already found one or more of the descendants, twisting them to Malvado's cause.

  Now, with the shadow stirring once more and history rewritten, both the Bantay Lahi and Ang Anino are moving.

  One to protect the future.

  The other to destroy it.

  "Evil doesn’t always return with fire and fury. Sometimes, it seeps back through silence—through systems, through stories left untold."

  Of what we choose to ignore.

  Of what we allow to rot.

  You’re not alone.

  The shards are awakening.