NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: CHAPTER 4 : “Obsidian Pulse”
⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
🗓️ Location: Eastern Europe | Cathedral Ruins | Witchstorm Midnight
📌 Featuring: Dante, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff
💀 Sin System Mode: Combat Wrath Integration – 23.2%
🔥 Devil Trigger – Fully Activated
The snow hissed, steaming beneath pulses of unseen force.
From the far side of the broken cathedral, something inhuman stalked forward—its armored boots slow, synchronized, each impact cracking frost like bones under glass. The obsidian exosuit churned at the joints with a shrill hum, layered with jagged null-sigils stitched across the plating like anti-prayers—cycling, pulsing, deadening.
[Anti-magic field. High compression null harmonics. Local spacetime dilation at 6.12%.
Assault Class: Voidbound Relic Host. Danger Level — Moderate.
WARNING: Reality-Suppression Engine Active — System Suppression at 78%.]
Dante didn't blink.
His expression stayed stone-flat as the air around him thickened—his demonic intuition tingled like a blade to the spine. Even his bond with the Sin System dimmed, flickering like candlelight beneath water.
Pietro swore. "That thing's warping the air. I think it just compressed half my lungs."
Red energy spasmed toward Wanda's fingertips, then curled back. She blinked hard—unable to cast. Her chaos had been muted. Caged.
But Dante?
He smiled.
Only slightly—but it meant something.
Because moments like this were what he was made for.
Because nothing about him required permission.
▫▫▫
The creature lunged forward, fast for its size—using exo-hydraulics to cover the gap in two deafening bounds. Steel crashed across the cathedral floor, a fist larger than Dante's head whistling toward him—
—And missing.
Dante ducked too close, shoulder brushing plate, and drove a rising elbow into the underjaw with a dull clang. He pivoted instantly, letting the impact flow through him into a backstep, then slashed low with Ruin Reaver, arcing the blade up at the hip seam—
Sparks.
A shriek of force-on-force. Not a full cut, but enough to sever stabilizing plates. The creature staggered—right into a heel-kick under its chin that sent its head snapping back and embedded deep into stone tiles.
Dante moved with rhythmic grace, like a godskinned dancer with thousands of hours behind every cut.
Another null surge pulsed. Stronger.
The Reaver dimmed.
Redshift refused to cycle.
The Sin System flickered into black static.
He felt centuries of rage, power, and demonblood grind… like a soul forced through concrete.
[System Interference — EM frequency conflict. Disengaged auxiliary levels.]
Remaining Ops: Manual Only
Dante inhaled.
"Okay then." He rolled his neck. "No tricks. Just me."
▫▫▫
The cult armor thundered back into motion and blitzed again—this time feinting with its shoulder, activating a short-range null burst—
Dante chose not to dodge.
He bulled into it—took the hit chest-on—and as electricity sparked through his coat, he grinned.
A twisted grin. Hunter's grin.
He raised Ruin Reaver, twisted it inward, and stabbed through the shoulder joint. The blade cracked through corrupted circuitry like thread. His boot kicked the inside knee, and the creature dropped.
Then—
He ripped the blade sideways.
The cultist gurgled.
But instead of finishing it, Dante sheathed Ruin Reaver with a turn that felt ceremonial.
His power returned one breath later—like music clicking back in through broken speakers.
And the Sin System responded—
[LEVEL SYNC RESTORED — WRATH UNLOCKED]
Trigger State Detected – Emotion: Threshold Breach…
💢 EMERGENCE GRANTED 💢
🔓 DEVIL TRIGGER ACTIVATED 🔓
⚠ Overpower Signal Authorized – Radiant Tier]
▫▫▫
What happened next was not a transformation.
It was transcendence.
Reality shuddered as thick concentric glyphs unfurled behind Dante, bright crimson wings of spectral light expanding outward in a burst of heatless incandescence. Twin horns of light curled backwards above his head, eyes flaring gold with vertical-slit irises.
His coat snapped outward like summoned atmosphere.
And the burden of survival lifted—for now, there was no pain, no fear.
Only the Devil.
The cult warrior reeled backward—its null field reversing, crushed by the sheer pressure rolling off him like gravity turned emotional.
[DEVIL TRIGGER Mode — Warp Integrity Bleed: ON]
Combat Buffs: +300% Speed | +230% Kinetic Output | Phase Warp ACTIVE
Integration Rate: 31.0%
Dante snapped forward—vanished in an afterimage blur. When he reappeared, his boot struck the enemy's jaw so hard it pixelated reality on impact. Moments later, he was already behind, driving Redshift point-blank into the kidney flank.
He pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
Glass shattered from twenty feet away.
The spiraling bullet didn't just pierce—it chewed quantum data out of the armor. A whole panel on the creature's back blinked out of visual perception.
The cult warrior roared—a human sound distorted by demonic possession—and lifted its null cannon—
But Dante was already in midair, spinning with Ruin Reaver raised edge-first—
The blade descended, coated in red energy, its arc burning sigils in the air as it came down with cosmically unjustified precision.
SLAM.
A crater bloomed where the creature stood. The ground never screamed so beautifully.
[Sin System Reward: "Perfect Wrath Discharge"]
Soul Consumption Successful — Null Core Shattered
Unique Thread Obtained: "Unmaker's Pulse" | Integration Bonus Pending...
New Trait Expansion Available: CHAOTIC TRIGGER PATTERN Ω
The explosion was internal.
Stone lifted five feet. Heatless, soundless force hurled outward like a reversed implosion. Dante stood at its center—Reaver grounded. Breathing calm.
And the cultist armor lay twitching, smoke whispering from joints that no longer connected.
He looked down as the creature scraped the stone, its hand trying to lift its own chest plate—
—And he grazed the edge of Ruin Reaver lightly across the helm in a blurred upward flick.
The helm split diagonally. The lights behind the plate went dead.
Silence.
Snowflakes fell again.
He let the Devil Trigger bleed out slowly—shoulders rolling, breath pattern declining… power settling.
[Devil Trigger Duration Expired – 96% efficient use | Overdrive Unused]
Sin Integration: 34.1%
Emotional Load: "Burned Calm" / Stability Within Range
▫▫▫
Behind him, Pietro stepped forward, stunned.
"You—" his voice hitched. "You turned reality into a hammer."
Dante shrugged.
"Yeah," he said flatly. "Sometimes that's all that works."
He turned toward Wanda—her eyes wide, tears edging, not out of fear, but understanding.
She had seen him. The part most people didn't live long enough to.
He let her look.
And said nothing.
But inside, below the cool exterior, something murmured. Something older.
Her chaos had resonated with his flame for a brief second—trying to awaken.
He had felt it, even through suppression.
And that meant… her becoming was closer than it looked.
[Anchor Thread Accelerated]
Wanda Maximoff Anchor: 34.6%
Status: Soul Recognition Event (Cross-Surge Unlocked)
Pending Pathway: "Shared Trigger Awakening"
Dante sheathed Ruin Reaver in one crisp motion.
The wind picked up.
"If more of those come…" Pietro began.
Dante cut him off. "They won't."
Pietro looked confused. "Why not?"
Dante turned away, eyes glowing faint.
"They're already dead. They just haven't figured it out yet."
____