Multiversal Sin: Rise of the Primal Demon King

⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years

🕯️ Location: Outskirts of Eastern Europe | Ruined Cathedral | 2006

📌 Featuring: Dante, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff

🎯 Sin System Alert: Intermediate Anchor Threat Escalation

🛡 Legendary Devil Hunter Status: Active — Controlled Zone Engagement

The snow cracked beneath running feet as Pietro Maximoff blurred across shattered stone tiles, silver trailing behind like torn moonlight. Fear drove him, faster than even his mutant cells preferred—not from the chaos, but from the stillness he'd seen.

From a stranger wrapping himself around Wanda during an event so catastrophic, it had nearly unmade her.

He found her kneeling on broken marble, wrapped in an oversized black coat. Her red curls clung to Dante's shoulder like silence wrapped in frost. Her palms rested against his chest—not pushing, just anchoring. The chaos energy had stilled… but Pietro didn't trust stillness. Not with this man beside her.

"What the hell is this?" Pietro hissed, coming to a skidding stop, breath visible in the cold. His eyes met Dante's, expecting evasiveness or guilt.

He got crimson steel instead.

Dante stood slowly, nonchalant. He dusted off his coat with meticulous indifference, like brushing soot off a myth. His movements were clean, deliberate. Immensely relaxed… but built like a loaded threat.

"You don't need to know who I am," he said calmly. "Unless you plan to do the wrong thing about it."

Pietro narrowed his gaze. "Friends don't fall from skylines wrapped in storms with swords duct-taped to their backs."

Dante tilted his head slightly.

"Nope."

Without looking, he reached under his coat and drew a long cylinder of weathered steel-black, engraved from butt to muzzle in curses, runes, and language the Vatican accidentally erased from their archives.

Redshift.

A six-shot revolver forged in hellsteel, chambered in memory-breaking rounds Dante never needed to aim twice with.

"But demons usually follow me," he added.

Snap. He flicked the cylinder out of Redshift and loaded one shimmering round—red-glass core throbbed with unstable time distortion.

"Try not to get killed, kid."

▫▫▫

A gunshot cracked the night.

Not his but something from over the ridge—150 meters out, tree-perched and scoped. A glowing bullet screamed past his left shoulder and burned into the pillar behind Pietro, melting snow into smoking ash.

Pietro grabbed Wanda instinctively and dove behind one of the surviving altar stones.

"Snipers!" Pietro shouted. "Gunned weirdos from earlier!"

But Dante didn't duck.

He just tilted his head toward the sound, stepped forward once, raised Redshift into the dark—

Bang.

The gun roared like judgment across frozen earth. From the treeline came a gurgled scream, and then silence. One less twisted priest. The bullet Dante fired hadn't just pierced armor — it had phased through the target's consciousness, dragging memory behind it like a flare net.

[Sin Output: Controlled Wrath + Tactical Precision]

🎯 Reward Acquired: Target Loop Memory | Replay Radius Imprinted

Two more emerged from the trees, sprinting downward — frost-armored cultists mutated by failed rites. Their backs throbbed with sharp bone ridges and arcane symbols burned into gray skin. Their mouths no longer matched their faces. One screeched in a dialect laced with sacrifice.

Dante holstered Redshift slowly.

Behind him, Wanda stirred. The tremor in her legs began to still—but she didn't stand. Not yet.

Her eyes never left him.

▫▫▫

Movement.

Dante reached back—not to draw, but to release.

The blade knew the war before his mind finished registering it.

Ruin Reaver, his soul-forged sword, shimmered as it slipped into his hand—twisted obsidian-black metal, breathing red glow in between the runes like it pulsed with ancient regret. It wasn't oversized. But it felt biblical.

Etchings down its side glistened faintly—one for each sin taken, one for each soul ripped clean from resonance.

The cultists didn't pause.

They screamed. Charged. Fast, claws drawn.

Dante sighed.

Then moved like silk over bone.

Slice.

The first strike was almost too fast to see. A lazy arc. The nearest cultist's head slid off his shoulders and landed behind his running feet.

His partner lunged—fangs bared, blood-painted. Dante pivoted—not his full body, just the wrist. A short, upward curve.

Chrrkk.

Ruin Reaver slid under the ribcage, effortlessly bypassing resistance—and hooked the soul from inside like a fish caught in a planar net. A second later, the body dropped.

The soul-shaped light twitched above the corpse.

Dante let it float for one breath, then closed his hand.

Crack.

Gone.

[Soul Thread Acquired: "Bitter Zeal" — Fragment 2/7]

Thread Archive Synced to Core | Wrath Echo Strengthening…

Sin Mark Density Level: Increasing...

▫▫▫

Behind him, Pietro stepped out from behind cover. His voice was smaller than before—less arrogant. But not less protective.

"What are you?" he asked.

It wasn't awe… it was concern. Fear—not for himself but for Wanda.

Dante didn't immediately answer. He turned slightly, clicking Redshift's cylinder back into place. Casual. Efficient.

Finally, after a breath, he looked Pietro in the eye.

"Whatever follows us now isn't mercenaries. They're priests of broken gods," he said. "You can leave if you're not ready."

Pietro growled, stepping closer to his sister. "I didn't leave her before. I won't now."

Dante studied him. Just long enough.

"Then keep her steady. Don't breathe in what you can't survive. The real curse doesn't come through bullets."

Wanda quietly touched Pietro's arm — not to stop him, but to remind him she was still whole. Still here.

Dante stepped between them and the next storm.

▫▫▫

The wind changed.

Far to the north, deeper in the ruins, a pulse hit the air like a scream held by a god. Something null-energetic, armored in damping glyphs, broke through the silence. The snow around it began to decay chemically. Air molecules stopped vibrating in a 50-meter bubble.

A reality dampener. Designed not to kill, but to snuff out magic's name.

Pietro went cold. "I hate this already."

Dante just shifted his weight, letting Ruin Reaver hang to the side. His shoulders relaxed. Voice low.

Grinning.

"Good. Then you're paying attention."

Red energy flared faintly behind his shoulder, his coat rising like a flag.

[DEVIL TRIGGER: ⚠ Level Building (42%)]

Battle Sync Verified | Emotional State: Focused Control

Status: Threat Acceptable — Second Layer Not Yet Needed

The Sin System hummed once—alive and listening.

The devil hadn't drawn on his true power yet.

He didn't need to.

Not for this.

Not when his sword was listening.

And somewhere quietly behind him, Wanda pressed two fingers to her chest—and swore she'd follow him out no matter what else came.

Not because he saved her.

But because her Chaos recognized his fire…

And fell in love with the burn.

______