The void was not, as one might expect, a terrifying abyss of screaming souls.
Instead, it felt like a very expensive, very empty waiting room with a suspicious lack of magazines.
I was floating—or perhaps sinking; it was hard to tell when “down” was a suggestion rather than a law—when I encountered Him.
Death didn’t wear a hood or carry a scythe; he looked more like a tired accountant who had seen too many spreadsheets and had finally decided that the universe was a cosmic joke.
“Right,” Death sighed, glancing at a ledger.
“You’re the replacement.”
“Replacement for what?” I asked, my voice echoing in the nothingness.
“And where is ‘here’ exactly?”
“The ‘Here’ is the space between the ‘Is’ and the ‘Was.’ As for the replacement…
well, there was this boy.
Harry Potter.
The Chosen One.
The Boy Who Lived.
All that nonsense.” Death waved a hand dismissively.
“He actually did live.
Lived a long, full life.
But now that he’s finally crossed over, he’s quite insistent on spending his eternity with his parents and that loud-mouthed Weasley clan.
He’s not interested in the ‘Transmigration Special’ package.”
I blinked.
“Wait.
You’re telling me I’m getting a hand-me-down existence because Harry Potter is too busy having a family reunion?”
“Precisely.
You get the perks, he gets the peace,” Death replied with a thin smile.
“The Deathly Hallows, the mastery over the veil, every spell, every bit of magical theory he accumulated over a century.
You’ll be the Master of Death.
Consider it a signing bonus.”
“And where am I going?”
“A place where the theology is a mess, the politics are lethal, and the teenagers have an alarming amount of supernatural firepower.
Good luck.
Try not to get erased from existence in the first week.”
Then, the floor vanished.
***
I woke up with a gasp, my lungs burning as if I’d just swum across an ocean of liquid lead.
The room was opulent, dripping with the kind of Gothic excess that screamed ‘I have more money than taste.’ Velvet curtains, mahogany furniture, and a lingering scent of old parchment and dried blood.
As my vision cleared, a flood of information began to hammer into my skull.
This wasn’t just a new body; it was a legacy.
Lucian Marbas.
The last scion of the House of Marbas.
A noble family of Devils that had been systematically wiped out in a “political disagreement” that looked suspiciously like a massacre.
I was the sole survivor, hidden away, forgotten by the Four Great Satans and ignored by the remaining nobility based on my half-blood status.
I sat up, feeling a strange, humming vibration in my soul.
I reached inward and felt two distinct, terrifying sources of power.
First, there was the cold, absolute authority of the Master of Death.
I could feel the threads of life and expiration weaving around me like a cloak.
I didn’t just know magic; I was the conduit for it.
Then, there was the other thing.
A heavy, shimmering presence in my subconscious.
Annihilation Maker.
One of the Longinus.
A Sacred Gear capable of erasing existence and creating something from nothing.
According to the fragmented memories of the original Lucian, the world believed this power was simply a mutation of the Marbas family’s innate magic.
The “glitch” in the bloodline.
I leaned back against the headboard and stared at the ceiling, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my throat.
“Of course,” I whispered.
“I’m in the world of High School DxD.”
I knew this world.
I knew the plot, the players, and the inevitable chaos that would ensue when a certain red-haired heiress met a perverted boy with a boosted gear.
I also knew that I was currently sitting in the middle of a shark tank, and I was the only one bleeding.
I checked the mental calendar.
I was roughly three and a half years away from the start of the main story.
“Three and a half years,” I mused, testing a flick of my fingers.
A small spark of black-and-gold energy manifested, erasing a nearby vase from existence before reforming it into a perfect glass of water.
“Plenty of time.”
The absurdity of it all was delicious.
I had the power to rewrite the map, but doing so loudly was a great way to get a visit from a very annoyed Sirzechs Lucifer or an opportunistic Azazel.
Direct interference was for amateurs.
If I jumped into the plot now, I’d just be another pawn or a target.
No, the smarter play was the shadow.
I would be the ghost in the machine.
I would find the ones the plot forgot—the tragic figures, the discarded tools, the broken souls—and I would give them a home.
I wouldn’t build an empire; I would build a shield.
A hidden peerage that owed its loyalty not to a crown, but to the man who plucked them from the void.
I would prepare.
I would train.
I would turn this “murdered house” into a fortress of secrets.
As the final shards of Lucian’s memories snapped into place—the smells of the old estate, the faces of the betrayers, the loneliness of a boy who had nothing—a sharp tap-tap-tap sounded at the window.
A crow sat there, a sealed envelope clamped in its beak.
I opened the window and took the letter.
The wax seal was unmistakable: the crest of the House of Beelzebub.
I scanned the elegant script of Ajuka Beelzebub.
It was a formal notification.
As a recognized—albeit diminished—member of the nobility, I was being invited to collect my allotment of Evil Pieces.
I looked at the letter, then at my hands, which could now command the very essence of death and the power of annihilation.
“Well,” I grinned, the expression feeling sharp and dangerous on Lucian’s face.
“I suppose it’s time to start recruiting.”
See you next chapter.