"We're losing too much blood!"

Nathan was dying.

"Fuck! He's not gonna make it!"

'Thank you for the comforting words.'

How did it even come to this?

'I… went to the bank?'

'No, that was from another day. Today, I went to… a restaurant?'

'Who the hell robs a restaurant?'

'The guy laying next to me did.'

The last thing Nathan saw as his vision faded away was flashes of blue and red light

.

.

.

Light came to Nathan as quickly as his death did.

Which, by the way, was pretty quick.

Nathan, who was laying in a bed, opened his eyes - something he'd never thought he'd do again.

"Where am I…", Nathan mumbled as he slowly sat up, looking around his new residence.

'I'm in a room'. Stating the obvious, Nathan removed the blanket that was covering him, and attempted to stand up.

His attempt was quickly interrupted as a sudden, sharp flash of pain hit his head.

Nathan fell back onto the bed, hands gripping his head in agony, his face marred by sweat. He crumpled, twisting and turning in a fetal position as an instinctive reaction to pain.

After what felt like hours of agony to him, the pain slowly faded away, and in its place, came new memories.

Sekirai Agares. Second cousin of Seekvaira Agares. Pure Devil. Power of Time.

Even an idiot could make the same connection that Nathan did. His throat went dry at the realization.

He got out of a sticky situation, only to be thrust into a shithole.

'Trihexa… Khaos Brigade… Rizevim…'

Nathan, or should he say, Sekirai, started chuckling.

'I'm fucked.'

Indeed, he WAS fucked.

.

.

.

"Good morning.", Nathan greeted his parents as he joined them at the table.

"Good morning, Sekirai.", Sekirai's parents replied as they started their meal.

'You don't even know that I took your son's place…'

Deciding to start the conversation, Sekirai's father, Sekezer Agares, asked him, "So, are you excited?"

Sekirai was puzzled. What could he be excited for- Oh. The Evil Piece ceremony.

"Yeah. I stayed up all night thinking about it.", Nathan partially lied.

He DID stay up all night. Although much of it was thinking about his sudden reincarnation, rather than this.

"Of course he must be excited!", his mother, Alisa Agares, his father's third cousin, gushed. "My little Sekirai used to always talk to me about how he would have the strongest peerage, and inherit Maou Asmodeus's position!"

'…Right. The old Sekirai did that', Nathan browsed through Sekirai's embarrassing memories, finding his dream in it.

"Mom…", Nathan tried his best to get the words out. He already has a mom back home… on Earth. "Please don't remind me of that… it's so embarrassing."

Sekirai's mom playfully smiled at him, "It's a parent's job to tease their child."

Sekirai's father joined the conversation while chuckling, "She's right, you know?"

The 'family' chatted about a few more things, before finishing their breakfast.

"I'll be training now, dad.", Nathan told Sekezer as he stood up from the dining table.

"Oh? Why the sudden interest? If I remember correctly, you were happy to lay on your bed and watch those… 'anime' of yours."

"A king must be stronger than his peerage.", Nathan came up with the coolest excuse he could think of. Even if he doesn't agree with it.

"Fair enough. I'll let you go on your way then. Be careful to not hurt yourself."

"Bye."

Nathan bid farewell to Sekirai's parents as he left the dining room, heading for the small forest that separated their mansion from the Agares castle, where the main branch of the Agares family lived.

Nathan was lucky. He was aware of that. He could've been transmigrated into anyone else. Like a stray devil. That wouldn't have been good.

Sekirai's place as the second cousin of Seekraiva meant that he was not eligible for the position of heir, and he was fine with it. Being the heir of a Pillar family was already exhausting, much less being the heir of the Agares family, the second highest ranked clan amongst devil nobility.

'Though was it too much to ask of Sekirai to have a better relationship with his cousin?'

To put it bluntly, Sekirai's relationship with Seekvaira was nonexistent. Neither family attempted contact with each other, keeping their minimal (almost nonexistent) contact reserved exclusively for parties hosted by Lord Agares.

'Oh well, I guess I should be grateful for what I have… Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.'

But now, Nathan was more focused on one thing. His training.

Like all of the other 72 Pillars, the Agares family also has an ability exclusive to them. The Power of Time.

The Power of Time allowed the user to control time, but only to a certain extent. The user can create a time barrier, which can slow or increase the flow of time within it.

Nathan took a deep breath before closing his eyes, creating a crude attempt at meditation.

Within his body, Nathan was able to feel two energies. One felt vile and dark, not in a particular shape or form. That was probably demonic power. The other… he couldn't exactly describe how it felt, but he had an inkling of its shape. A clock.

He tried calling on his demonic power.

Nothing happened.

'... Let's try that again.'

Nothing happened once more.

'... Just one more time.'

Nathan must've repeated the process tens of times, before he finally felt it.

He opened his eyes, and he saw the demonic power inside of all devils in its purest form. A shapeless blob of black.

He controlled the blob of energy to fly toward a tree, wanting to see its effects.

The blob flew fairly quickly- but still at a speed that he could track, and hit the tree, splintering it in the process.

He walked over to the scene that he had created, and examined the results.

'It looks like the tree was hit by a sledgehammer… Let's try that again.'

Nathan turned around to face another tree- his next victim.

To use demonic power, a devil must have the power of imagination, the power to create, and good sense. But before all that, a devil must have a certain amount of demonic power.

This time, rather than only trying to manifest his demonic power, he also tried to imagine it in a certain shape.

'Heat. Sphere. Fireball.'

Nathan tried to imagine what a fireball would look like, and some of its basic properties, and he put that into his demonic power.

The result? A fireball demolishing a tree.

His expression? A grin. After the realization that he used fire magic in a forest? Indescribable.

Nathan, in his haste to cast the initiation spell for all mages across the world, failed to realize that he was in a forest.

His first instinct was to run. After all, who would face a 'wild'fire head on? Not a sane man.

After realizing the potential damages that it could deal to Sekirai's family?

He turned around and manifested his demonic power, this time, in a jet of water.

The water doused the fire, creating steam that covered his vision for a short while. After the steam faded away, he sighed in relief when he realized that the fire did not spread far.

'Thank God'

Nathan made his second mistake of the day, one that he belatedly realized.

A sharp pain, not too different from the headache that struck him soon after his reincarnation, hit his head once again.

'Alright. New lesson learned; never think or speak of 'Him'.'

A valuable lesson indeed.

All that aside, it was time for him to try his second power; the inheritance from Sekirai.

The Power of Time.

He delved into his crude attempt at meditation once again, this time, trying to call upon the second source of energy that was home inside of him.

He 'grabbed' at it, before pulling it out.

He succeeded in the first try.

It could've been the experience from his attempts at manifesting demonic power that helped him, or it was just an instinctive ability in all Agares, but whatever it was, he was grateful.

He created a small barrier. One that barely fitted him.

'I'll need to work on this a lot…'

Nathan wondered how to increase the flow of time in the barrier, and he came up with the most basic way- one that surprisingly worked.

'Increase.'

He instantly felt the effect. Waving around his hand, with the same effort as before, became much faster.

He then tried to move around, as much as he could in the small space created through his inherited power, and found that similarly, his movements all became faster.

'That's nice.'

He then tried his hand (feet) at running around.

There was just one slight problem. The barrier couldn't move around with him.

Nathan neglected that fact as he attempted to dash at time-enhanced speed, which worked for the smallest of time during the small barrier, before his speed was reduced just as he exited the small space that he created.

"I'll need to work on that. A lot.'

Yeah, Nathan has quite a bit to work on.