The last thing I remember was the blinding glare of truck headlights. Standard isekai prelude, right? Except, instead of meeting a benevolent goddess or a surly god, there wasā¦ nothing. Just a vast, echoing emptiness that felt less like death and more like being permanently stuck on hold.
Then, a voice. Not booming or divine, more like a poorly amplified YouTube tutorial.
"Query: Compatible vessel located. Probability of catastrophic system failure: High. Mitigation protocolsā¦ insufficient. Initiating forced integration."
And then boom. Not the truck kind. This was an explosion of pureā¦ stuff. Light, energy, raw power slammed into me, filling every empty space, re-writing my very being. It felt like being microwaved from the inside while simultaneously solving the Riemann Hypothesis. And succeeding.
I woke up.
Not in a hospital, not in a picturesque fantasy village, and definitely not in a harem staffed by catgirls. I was in my own bed. Or rather, a bed. It wasn't mine. The room was unfamiliar, filled with the sort of generic, slightly-too-clean furniture you find in student housing. Sunlight streamed through a window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Disorienting doesn't even begin to cover it.
I sat up, head throbbing. That's when I caught sight of myself in the mirrored closet door.
Okayā¦ wow.
I wasā¦ different. Still recognizably me ā Hadrian ā butā¦ better. Sharper features, eyes that held an unnerving intensity, and a physique that screamed "gym membership I couldn't afford." I flexed a bicep, half expecting it to rip my pajama sleeve. It didn't, but I definitely feltā¦ strong.
This wasn't just a generic "better body" isekai upgrade. This feltā¦ fundamentally altered. Like the very core of my being had been replaced with a high-performance engine running on a fuel I didn't even know existed.
And that's when the memories hit me.
Not my old, pathetic memories of ramen-fueled all-nighters playing MMORPGs and awkward attempts at online dating. These wereā¦ other memories. Flashes of golden light, cosmic battles, a power so vast it threatened to unravel reality. These weren't my memories. These wereā¦ his.
The Sentry.
Robert Reynolds. A hero of near-godlike power in the Marvel universe. A character I knew intimately from comics, a character whose immense abilities were forever shackled to an equally immense, self-destructive darkness.
And somehow, impossibly, I was him. Or, rather, I was me, Hadrian, burdened with his power. This "forced integration" felt less like a power-up and more like a cosmic Trojan horse.
My head swam. This was too much. Way too much. I needed information. I needed context. I neededā¦ Google.
I stumbled out of bed, searching for a phone, a laptop, anything to anchor me to reality. I found a smartphone on the nightstand, unlocked and displaying a home screen I didn't recognize. After navigating the Japanese language settings (thank god for years of watching unsubbed anime), I fired up the internet.
"Kouh Academy."
"Occult Research Club."
"Devils."
"Angels."
"Fallen Angels."
Highschool DxD. Holy crap.
The pieces clicked into place. I was in that world. That ridiculously over-the-top anime world where busty demon girls battled angels and the protagonist leveled up by groping them. My life had gone from zero to unbelievably absurd in a matter of minutes.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me. Jason, the introverted otaku, dropped into the middle of a supernatural power struggle armed with the power of the Sentry. I was a walking, talking, potentially reality-warping disaster waiting to happen.
The Sentry's memories continued to flood my mind, fragments of his battles, his fears, his crippling self-doubt. The Void, his dark counterpart, whispered insidious promises of control and power. This wasn't just an isekai adventure; it was a mental battle for dominance.
I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. Okay, Jason. You've spent years strategizing in RPGs, min-maxing characters, and reading power-scaling forums. Time to put those useless skills to the test.
First: Information. I needed to understand the current situation, the factions, the players. Knowledge was power, especially when you're carrying around enough raw power to level a city.
Second: Control. I had to get a handle on the Sentry's abilities. Manifesting golden energy and flying around was cool in theory, but I needed to learn to modulate it, to focus it, to prevent it from accidentally turning the entire school into a crater.
Third: Don't. Die. Simple, right? Given my track record in life, probably not.
I spent the next few hours immersing myself in the memories i had of the world of Highschool DxD. Character bios, power levels, plot summaries ā I remembered it all. I rememebered about Rias Gremory, the crimson-haired heiress of a powerful devil clan, and her peerage. I remembered about Issei Hyoudou, the perverted protagonist with the boosted gear. I remembered about the angels, the fallen angels, and the complex political landscape of the supernatural world.
The information overload was intense, but it was also oddly comforting. It gave me a framework, a set of rules to play by. And rules, however absurd, were something I understood.
As the day wore on, I began to experiment with the Sentry's power. Tentatively at first, I focused on the feeling, the energy that thrummed beneath my skin. I tried to manifest it, to shape it, to control it.
The results wereā¦ mixed.
I managed to levitate a pen a few inches off the table before nearly setting the curtains on fire. I accidentally shattered a drinking glass with a casual flick of my wrist. I conjured a faint golden aura that made me feel like I could bench-press a truck, but also gave me a splitting headache.
It was like learning to ride a bike while simultaneously juggling chainsaws.
And then, the Void whispered again. A seductive voice promising ease, control, absolute power. Just let go, it urged. Surrender to the darkness.
I pushed it back, focusing on the image of my old room, my old life. The countless hours spent lost in fantasy, the comfortable anonymity of being a nobody. It wasn't much, but it was mine. And I wasn't about to let some cosmic parasite take it away.
As dusk settled, a knock on the door jolted me back to reality. I froze, my heart pounding. Who knew I was here?
"Jason-san? Are you ready? Its time for school."
I took a deep breath, trying to project an air of confidence I definitely didn't feel. "Coming," I called out, forcing my voice to remain steady.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. The eyes staring back at me were still unnervingly intense, but now they held a flicker of something else: a strange, hesitant hope.
Jason, the lonely otaku, was dead. But maybe, just maybe, with a little luck (and a whole lot of cosmic power), I could survive this. Maybe I could evenā¦ thrive.
As I opened the door and stepped out into the unfamiliar hallway, the Void whispered again, a constant reminder of the darkness within. But this time, I didn't try to push it away. I acknowledged it, accepted it as a part of me.
Because I knew, deep down, that in this insane world of devils and angels, I would need every advantage I could get. Even if that advantage came with a price.
The journey had begun, and Jason Reynolds, the Sentry, was ready to play. Or at least, he was going to try like hell.