The following morning, the sun crawled over the horizon, hitting the windows of the local bakery where the smell of fresh pandesal and lang-gaw was the only thing capable of waking the dead—or in this case, a group of tired Keisei-kai users.
"Mura gyud ko'g gi-reformat sa Ginoo, bay," Allen groaned, stretching his arms until his joints popped like firecrackers. "Atay, sakit kaayo akong lawas. That lightning movement is cool and all, pero lami na gyud i-absent."
"Drama nimo, Len," Justine laughed softly, looking remarkably vibrant despite the previous night's chaos. He had this natural energy radiating off him, the kind of guy who could survive a cosmic war and still look like he just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. "At least buhi pa ta. If not for Sophia's Axiom, basin gi-abo na ta didto sa overpass."
Sophia looked up, a small, tired smile on her lips. "I just did what I had to. Pero kapoy gyud. Reality is heavy. Murag naga-alsa kog tibuok Camiguin every time I speak a Truth."
"Pahulay sa, Soph," Mark said, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. "No more Axioms. Just bread."
"Bitaw, kaon sa ta," Carl Benedict added, sliding a tray of hot bread toward the center. He looked over at Walter, who was nursing a coffee and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. "Oy, Walter! Libriha mi bi! You're the one who dragged us into that 'Test' last night!"
Walter nearly choked on his drink. "Ha? Nganong ako? Kamo may sige'g gara-gara didto! Naa koy utang sa boarding house, ayaw mo'g damgo!"
"Bay, ayaw na'g daghan storya," Tayco chimed in, leaning back with his signature class-clown grin.
"I saw you winning at the sabong last week, Waltz. Ayaw mi'g ilara! Give us the bread or I'll tell Margharette you're hiding extra snacks in your room."
"Walter Sagario," Margharette said, her voice dropping an octave as she loomed over him like a debt collector. "Pag bayad sa pan, or mag add ko og 100% interest rate sa 5 pesos you still owe me from Monday. The choice is yours."
The rest of the class; Karla, Jenie Fe, and even the quiet ones like Jace and Ralph—started chanting "Libre! Libre!" until the entire bakery was vibrating with the sheer peer pressure of Section Orchid.
Walter groaned, dramatically slamming his hand on the table. "Sige na! Mga patay-gutom! Basta kamo na'y bahala sa plete sa rela unya ha!"
He grumbled under his breath as he pulled out his wallet, looking like a man defeated by his own classmates rather than a god.
Amidst the chaos, Dex sat at the end of the table, perfectly in sync with the group's energy. He was hunched over his phone, but he wasn't being mysterious—he was just struggling to beat a level in a game.
"Yawa, hapit na gyud," Dex muttered, his thumbs flying across the screen.
Niel noticed Dex's plate was still empty of the fresh bread. "Dex, kaon na dira. Basin malipong ka, sige lang kag pislit ana imong cellphone. Grab a pandesal before Allen eats them all."
Dex looked up and gave Niel a high-five, his friendly energy on full display. "Kadiyot lang, Niel! Boss level na gyud ni. Save me some cheese bread, okay?"
"Sige, sige. Paspasa na dira!" Niel laughed, sticking his tongue out before turning back to talk to Vince and Willie about the fight.
Dex finally beat the level, exhaled a sigh of relief, and grabbed a piece of bread. He looked totally normal, just another 11th grader enjoying a free meal. He checked his group chat, sent a meme to the class thread, and laughed when Reynan replied with a haha sticker.
Later that afternoon, the group walked back toward the apartment building they all shared. It was a chaotic mess of laundry hanging on railings and the sound of students arguing over whose turn it was to fetch water.
"Kita kits sa Night Class ha!" Tayco shouted, doing a mock salute before tripping over his own slippers. "I hope Walter's 'test' today involves sleeping!"
Walter, walking behind him, just rolled his eyes. "Pag damgo, Tayco. Get ready to run."
As the students filtered into their rooms, Walter paused at the top of the stairs, looking at the sunset. He wasn't thinking about cosmic thrones, he was thinking about how he was going to explain to his landlord why he was short on rent after buying 40 people breakfast.
Down in the courtyard, Dex and Niel were arguing about which anime had the best opening theme. To any observer, they were just two best friends heading to their rooms to get ready for school.
"Music is everything, Dex! You gotta feel the beat!" Niel shouted, shadow-boxing to an invisible rhythm.
"Yeah, yeah, Musica," Dex joked, nudging him. "Just don't forget your notebook again. I'm not lending you mine."
The hidden layer was there, but for now, it was buried under the weight of exams, apartment chores, and the simple warmth of a Camiguin afternoon.
The afternoon sun dipped lower, casting long, orange shadows across the apartment courtyard. While the rest of Section Orchid was busy arguing over who used up all the laundry detergent, Niel, Sophia, and Mark had gravitated toward a quiet corner near the water pump.
The energy from the bakery had faded into something more grounded and somber.
Niel leaned against the cool concrete wall, his shadow-boxing finished. He looked at his palms, still feeling the faint hum of that golden resonance. "Hey... about last night," he started, his voice dropping to a serious, human level. "The guy with the mask. He called me a 'soon-to-be God of the Throne.' You guys heard that, right?"
Sophia sat on an overturned plastic crate, her fingers tracing the edge of her hoodie. "I heard it. But Niel, the Throne... it's not just a legend people whisper about to sound edgy. It's a conceptual gravity. Even I can feel it with the Axiom."
"Is that why you pushed yourself so hard?" Niel asked, looking at her with genuine concern. "You were bleeding, Soph. You looked like you were trying to hold up the sky."
Sophia let out a dry, weary laugh. "Because I was. That guy... he wasn't just some bully. He was trying to 'edit' you out of the script. My power allows me to define what's true, but his presence was so heavy it felt like the world *wanted* to believe him instead of me."
Mark stood a few feet away, leaning against a rusted railing. He was the only one who seemed relatively unfazed, though his eyes remained sharp.
"The Throne is real, Justine," Mark said, his voice as steady as a mountain. "But don't let the word 'God' go to your head. Right now, you're just a kid who's good with a beat. If there's a God on that Throne, they aren't some holy figure in the clouds. They're someone who managed to force their will onto everything."
"You talk like you've seen it," Niel noted, squinting at him.
Mark shrugged, his expression unreadable. "I've seen enough of Tayco to know that the world isn't as random as it looks. He's the class clown, sure, but have you seen his eyes when he thinks no one is looking? He's guarding something. Or someone."
"You think God is here? In Camiguin?" Niel asked, the absurdity of the thought hitting him. "Like, just walking around Yumbing?"
"Basin," Sophia whispered. "But whoever they are, they're hiding perfectly. Even my Axiom can't pinpoint a 'Divine' presence. It's like trying to find a specific drop of water in the middle of a storm."
Niel ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. "Mura man ta'g naa sa salida ani uy. It's hard to wrap my head around 'Godhood' when I'm still worried about passing Walter's test later tonight. And let's be real—if a God existed, they'd probably have better things to do than watch us live in this cramped apartment."
"Maybe," Mark said, pushing off the railing. "Or maybe being a God is the loneliest job in the universe, and they just want to see a good show."
"Well, if they're watching, I hope they liked the Sonata," Niel joked, trying to break the tension. "But seriously, let's keep this between us. I don't want Dex or the others getting dragged into this 'Throne' business. Dex already spends enough time in his own head; he doesn't need to worry about cosmic wars."
Sophia nodded. "True. He's too busy trying to beat his high scores anyway."
"Exactly," Niel grinned, the light returning to his eyes. "Let's go. If we're late for the Night Class, Walter will definitely make us pay more than 5 pesos."
As they headed back inside, the trio walked past Dex's room. Through the thin walls, they could hear the frantic tapping of a phone screen and a frustrated "Yawa, pildi na pud!"
After an hour.
Location: Sagay, Mambajao, Camiguin
Dex went out with the rest, this time with a notebook in hand, he may not be a user of the system that gave his friends abilities, but he is still their classmate and friend.
Dex wrote in his notebook for a story about gods of his own fictional world, the chapter titled: The Age of Gods.
"What if I said that the world wasn't always ruled by [God]?" He wrote on the notebook, unbeknownst to him he was thinking too loudly, the rest of the class stopped talking and started listening, they were going to MT. Kilomot.
"His at it again" Mercy he whispered shushed by Jenie Fe.
"That every single rumor of [Ultimate Reality] across mythology wasn't always [God], but undecided before the era of [God]" Dex mumbled his hand swiftly writing in scribbles a mixture of Baybayin, Bisaya and English. Sophia grabbed Dex by the arm guiding him, Dex was unbothered completely oblivious.
But Dex knows they were listening. "Fascinating isn't it? I've already shared how to become a God, but again it varies by Myth alone… The one I shared is for my Book"
Everyone stopped for a moment, Justine stopped and said. "Just… Just continue Dex"
"Okay" Dex quickly replied with his hand swiftly writing notes. "Before there was a [God], there was the battle of beginning where Something, Nothing, Unrivaled, Rivaled, Bounded, Unbounded, Infinite, Zero, Limited, Limitless, Creation and Destruction"
At the back Lovely looked at Dex, then at John Paul and Ulidan and finally at Walter, on the outside they didn't show any outburst. On the inside they are uncomfortable.
'How is he correct, yet at the same time, it is Unknown on how consistently coincidental he is' The three of them thought simultaneously. However for Walter he was frantically thinking. 'How unaware of you to actually know the history behind our existence?'
"Ataya!" Dex he cursed, his notebook almost flying into the mud. He scrambled to save it, looking like a total klutz.
Niel Justine laughed, reaching out a hand to pull him up. "Gods and Beginning-beginning pa ka dira, Dex. Tan-awa imong dalan uy, basin ma-zero na pud ka sa test ni Walter."
Dex laughed back, dusting off his pants. "Sige lang, Niel. At least sa akong libro, ang main character dili naga-kamang sa lapok."
Lovely, John Paul, Ulidan gave a sigh, the rest of the Class laughed, Walter looked at them with a large sweat smiling, Sophia then yelled. "Hilom MO! Kung dumog hilom pag tagsaan tamog e ipang labay sa akong Imperno ron!"
Everyone stopped laughing.
The trail grew steeper, the volcanic soil of Mt. Kilomot crunching under their sneakers. The sound of heavy breathing from the class was punctuated only by the occasional rustle of leaves and the scratch of Dex's pen.
"Now where was I?" Dex flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the ink as if the words were moving. "Imagine this, in the battle of beginning there was Khaos, originally Creation was an ocean, a vast incommensurable ocean, the universe, technology was unheard of. Entities, humans, monsters, and all beings relied on one singular concept: Magix."
Dex paused for a moment as the group continued to hike. Lovely felt a sudden, sharp chill—not from the mountain air, but from the word *Magix*. A flash of gold and blue flickered behind her eyes. She remembered a sky that wasn't blue, but a shimmering, terrifying sea of raw potential where the perfection she eventually created was nothing but a tiny, flickering candle."Magix was there or magic in our dialect, already existed since the age of beginning, alongside those are theories and concepts of what we know today."
Lovely narrowed her eyes, her heart hammering against her ribs. She quickly turned to Kriscah, her voice slightly too high.
"Kris, let's check the tents again. We need to make sure the food won't get squashed, okay?" She was desperate to drown out the sound of Dex's voice, but the more she tried to focus on the nylon bags and canned goods, the more she felt the phantom weight of a crown she hadn't worn in ten thousand years.
"Back to the part about the age before [God], there was a curse, a curse so foul, they thought it was a gift. Immortality. Yes, yes you may blissfully think immortality is a gift, but the gift is but deception." Dex looked at Justine and Sophia then to the rest. "That gift, Immortality is no gift. What comes after is suffering."
"What?—" Carl Benedict tried to interrupt, wiping sweat from his forehead. He didn't know about Thrones or Primordials, he just knew that living forever sounded like a cheat code for life.
But Dex answered immediately, his voice dropping into a register that made Ulidan stumble over a rock. "The body, the soul, are perpetually suffering through their own hell. An injury that cannot be healed, a body completely atomized, still your sensations, your soul, all will still feel pain."
Lovely stopped walking for a split second. She remembered them. The 'Eternals' of the beginning. She remembered seeing soldiers torn apart by the tides of Khaos, their screams echoing for centuries because they 'couldn't' die. She remembered the sight of a man reduced to a pile of twitching meat, still trying to pray to a God that didn't exist yet.
"Your head severed, still alive, not stitched back yet you will feel the pain and sensation of injury even when the brain is gone," Dex continued. "Legs, arms, body, everything will still feel the sensation of being whole as Pain."
"It is the Curse of Immortality, brought by Khaos's selves," Dex said.
"Selves?" Reynan asked, gulping, his hand instinctively going to his own neck.
"Indeed, Khaos has selves: Space, Time, Life and Death. Abide no reason just to fulfill their sadistic and masochistic desires. They crave that all things are their playthings…"
Walter looked at the dirt, his sweat-slicked face paling. He remembered a fragment history of the era of 'Angra Mainyu' where those "Selves" ran wild. He looked over at John Paul, who was staring blankly at a tree, his hands trembling slightly not out of fear…Bloodlust. The 'Evil' was feeling a flicker of the very thing he was supposed to have; Remorseless.
"Ones who lost their entire body are reshaped because of Life, the curse of the wilderness, their minds bent and stitched into animalistic desires…" Ulidan gripped the straps of his backpack so hard his knuckles turned white.
Sophia noticed the heavy silence and nudged Dex. "Hoy, Dex. Ayaw na pag-storya ana bi, mura na hinuon tag naa sa horror movie sa tunga sa bukid."
Dex blinked, his eyes clearing as he looked up from the notebook. "Oh, sorry. Did I go too far? It's just for the chapter, you know. I wanted the 'Khaos' era to feel... visceral."
He gave a sheepish grin, looking like a normal student again. But at the back of the line, Lovely was trembling. She looked at her hands, half-expecting to see them covered in the "Magix" of the beginning. She knew that what Dex called "visceral fiction" was actually the only truth that mattered.
"But anyways let's see, ahh!"
"Dex!" Margharette tried to protest but Dex was ahead.
"Now, now, I won't describe the cosmic horrors," Dex said, his voice oddly clear despite the climb. "In fact, let's go with how the first [God] became [God]."
Margharette wiped sweat from her brow, her eyes darting to the sky. "Dex! Stop na bi! Let's just focus on the hike."
But Dex was already ahead, his eyes fixed on the pages. "Ironically, despite the gender wars on the internet, the lore I'm making here is that Ahura Mazda was a woman of beauty. Hair white as snow, clad in celestial white robes and golden symbols."
Beside him, Lovely stumbled. Her breath hitched, and for a split second, her black hair seemed shimmering with a ghostly, wintry silver. She gripped her backpack straps until her knuckles turned white.
"Pretty good story, Dex—" Lovely tried to intervene, her voice trembling with a mixture of nostalgia and sheer panic.
"Shush! Let him continue," Benedict interrupted, leaning in. Allen and Jundel nodded, completely enthralled. Even the wind seemed to die down, leaning in to listen.
"After she killed Khaos, and their selves, Life, Death, Time and Space, also die, alongside that everyone and all of creation was gone, leaving a sea of nothing, the [Age Of Zero] after the Beginning,
"After she killed Khaos, and their selves—Life, Death, Time, and Space—died too. Everyone and all of creation was gone. Nothing was left but a sea of nothing. The Age of Zero."
A heavy, unnatural silence swallowed the mountain. The birds stopped chirping. The rustle of the trees vanished. It was as if Mt. Kilomot itself had been transported back to that vacuum. The students looked at each other, unable to hear their own heartbeats.
"She was alone," Dex whispered, the ink in his notebook glowing faintly. "Yet she yearned. She ached. Remember what I told you? To be a [God] is to impose your Goal, your Principles, your Purpose into reality."
"But to do that," Dex said, oblivious to the existential dread behind him, "she needed a Construct. A Throne. In her era, they called it Garothman—the Highest Heaven."
Dex stopped at a clearing and turned to face them, his expression one of pure, innocent creative passion. "She made it from the carcass of Khaos. The corpse of Life and Death. She took the concepts of Space and Time and condensed that incommensurable nothingness into the foundation of her Throne."
"And through her," Dex concluded, snapping his notebook shut, "the world was created. Perfect... yet Flawed."
The pressure snapped. The birds began to sing again. The world rushed back in, but it felt... different. Brighter. More fragile.
An hour has passed the climb grew steeper, the air thinning as they pushed toward the summit. Dex was practically vibrating now, his words coming out in a rapid-fire staccato, his pen barely keeping up with his own voice.
"And then," Dex said, his voice hitching, "she was killed."
The group stopped. The suddenness of the statement felt like a physical blow. Lovely, who had been walking with a strange, regal grace, suddenly gripped a nearby tree branch. The wood groaned under her touch.
"She was killed by Angra Mainyu," Dex continued, speaking faster now, as if the information were a flood he couldn't control. "The inevitable result of her 'Perfect yet Fragile' world. Angra Mainyu took the Garothman Throne, ending the Era of Perfection. He didn't just sit on it—he rebranded it. He formed the Era of World's Evil, and the Throne was renamed the Ahriman Throne."
A shadow seemed to flicker over John Paul's face. For a heartbeat, his eyes didn't look like those of a student; they looked like twin voids reflecting a world where "Evil" wasn't a choice, but a Law. The atmosphere grew heavy, tasting of iron and old blood.
"It was a world of remorselessness," Dex muttered, his thumbs flying across his phone screen now. "But he didn't last forever. Ultimately... he was killed by Yù Huáng."
The heavy pressure on the mountain vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden, sharp clarity—like the air after a thunderstorm.
"The Jade Emperor?" Ralph asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The one from the Chinese myths?"
Dex stopped and blinked, the frantic energy leaving him as quickly as it had arrived. He looked down at his phone, then at the half-finished scribbles in his notebook. He gave a sheepish, lopsided grin.
"Yeah, him. But honestly? The book hasn't been updated much since then. I've been constantly playing games lately. Gacha is a curse, bay."
The tension snapped like a rubber band. Justine burst out laughing, clapping Dex on the back. "Gipili ang gacha kaysa sa ginoo! Priority gyud, Dex!"
The rest of the class joined in, the sounds of "Haha" and "Kayama nimo, Dex" echoing through the trees as they resumed their hike…
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"I yearn for a world where everything is perfect, to recreate the world I once ached for, a world so perfect, that even I will drown with it with perfection." — Ahura Mazda
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