The chapel's air hummed with the scent of gun oil and crushed ginger—a makeshift armory hidden behind the Santo Niño's beatific smile. Elias ran his fingers along the bone-white mask's surface, tracing baybayin symbols so finely carved they felt like whispers against his skin.

"Put it on," Ate Rosario commanded, her combat boots scraping against the chapel's tile floor. "Unless you want the Hollow King picking through your thoughts like a starving dog at a butcher's stall."

Lira stepped between them, her knife glinting in the candlelight. "Explain first. What does it do?"

The scarred woman's laugh was sharp as a blade. "Shows the truth. The real story your Church," she jabbed a finger at Father Mateo, "burned from their precious records."

Elias exhaled slowly. The mask felt alive in his hands—pulsing with a rhythm that matched the gold-flecked veins creeping up his wrist. Before he could reconsider, he pressed it to his face.

The world dissolved.

—Moonlight on black sand. Twelve figures in bone masks dragging a stone box from the surf. Not a prison—an altar. The Hollow King (young, terrified) pleading as silver nails were pressed into his palms—

—"The price must be paid," chanted the first guardian, her voice thick with ritual. "One soul to bind the darkness. Will you bleed for us, brother?"

—Blood in the waves. A scream that cracked the sky. Not a betrayal—a sacrifice.

Elias tore the mask away with a gasp. His knees hit the floor, bile burning his throat. The chapel spun around him, but one truth stood clear—everything he'd been told was a lie.

Lira's hand was on his shoulder. "Elias?"

"It was never his choice," he rasped. "They forced him into the box."

Ate Rosario nodded grimly. "The first guardians sold their brother to something older than sin. Your Church just made him the villain to hide their shame."

Father Mateo staggered back. "No... the texts clearly describe his corruption—"

A thunderous crash shook the chapel doors. The Ringfinger's laughter slithered through the cracks, now joined by a deeper, hungrier sound.

"Kuya Elias!" the child-voice sang. "Middle's here! She brought teeth!"

The lanky sniper cursed, loading mercury-tipped rounds into his rifle. "We got maybe ninety seconds before—"

The doors exploded inward.

A woman filled the doorway—eight feet tall, her body a grotesque tapestry of stitched-together flesh. Where her face should have been gaped a swirling void, lined with rows of broken teeth. The Middlefinger's voice boomed from the abyss:

"GIVE US THE TWELFTH."

Chaos erupted.

Ate Rosario's fighters opened fire, mercury rounds punching smoking holes through the monstrosity's flesh. But the Middlefinger just laughed, her form rippling as new limbs sprouted from the wounds.

Lira grabbed Elias's arm. "The mask—does it show how to stop them?"

Before he could answer, the bone mask twitched in his hands. The eyeholes darkened, revealing a new vision:

—The original guardians standing in a circle, their masks fused to their faces. The Hollow King's voice whispering from the box: "Break the chain. Free the first."

Elias's blood ran cold. He knew what he had to do.

"Lira! The bullets—aim for the seams!"

She didn't hesitate. Her first shot struck where the Middlefinger's right arm joined the torso. The mercury flared silver-blue, dissolving the necrotic flesh like acid.

The monstrosity howled, her form unraveling at the stitches.

Ate Rosario grinned, slamming fresh rounds into her revolver. "Turns out the bastard left instructions!"

But as Elias raised the bone mask again, the Hollow King's whisper curled through his mind:

"Hurry, little brother. The others are already inside your walls."

Outside, across Manila, five more church bells began to ring.