I blinked the odd white spots out of my eyes, which shouldn’t have even appeared due to how I’ve mutated and changed thanks to the Environmental Adaptation Skill. Maybe they wouldn’t show up next time.

  What I saw was a bland stone hallway and a doorway directly in front of us.

  “He’s going to be right in here.” Layla said chipperly as she walked into the room.

  “Okay, but who?” I asked, following after her.

  “Barney!” Layla called out and a giant purple head materialized in the air.

  My senses told me it was holographic, just a trick of some kind of machine projecting the head as it wasn’t made out of anything solid.

  I squinted as I registered what my sister had called the alien, and as I looked upon the slightly blurry visage of Barney he did in fact kind of look like the purple dinosaur. He had the shape and color anyway.

  “Welcome, to the Entropy Nexus!” Barney greeted dramatically.

  “That sounds weirdly important. So we’re like, in the center of all entropy? Or maybe the birthplace of it?” I asked and Barney looked at me like I was stupid.

  “No? This tower was built to stave off entropy, not create it. What gave you that idea?” Barney asked, sounding slightly offended.

  “Well, the word nexus does give off the vibe of center or middle.” Layla offered.

  “That and the fact that this tower is surrounded by literally nothing. Where the hell are we?” I asked while trying to send out my senses further, but finding absolutely nothing through the outer walls of the tower.

  “...What do you mean by that? We’re on a planet called Niurma located in the outer reaches of the greater multiverse. This tower and its inhabitants serve to keep entropy at bay, a sort of quarantine zone if you will. Though I haven’t seen anyone since I woke up from your sister's intrusion…” Barney trailed off and I focused back towards us as nothing I did let me sense anything beyond the tower.

  “There wasn’t anyone here when I showed up. The tower was empty. I didn’t explore the entire place though, so maybe they’re just sleeping like you were?” Layla asked Barney and I shook my head.

  “There isn’t anyone in this entire tower, and there is nothing beyond the tower walls. Not even any stray bits of space dust or gas. It’s like nothing else exists but the tower.” I scratched my chin as I looked around, both with my eyes and my senses.

  The tower was quite large, and definitely supposed to hold more than just this central room, but every single room besides this one was empty.

  “But… T-that’s ridiculous…” Barney mumbled and muttered, then his brow furrowed in thought.

  Suddenly, he twisted to the side and moved to a wall. The stone brick moved, as if to his will, and he soon reached an outer wall. That when he opened up into a window, showed what I felt out earlier.

  Absolutely nothing.

  “Hey it's the space I was in when I found this place! Felt like I was falling for hours.” Layla called out and groaned as we walked up to Barney from behind.

  “Really? That must’ve sucked.” I walked right up to the window, eyeing the nothingness and noting how… sweaty Barney was.

  How did a giant floating head made out of light sweat?

  Shrugging, I raised a hand and got ready to put my hand out into the nothing.

  “STOP!” Barney yelled at me and I did so.

  “What’s up man? You look like you just saw a ghost.” I quirked an eyebrow at the outburst, my fingers flexing in temptation.

  With my better judgement, I decided to listen and lowered my hand.

  “This shouldn’t be happening… It’s not possible.” Barney muttered, sliding the wall back into place and then he started pacing around the tower. Poking his head into empty rooms before continuing down the hall.

  “What are you talking about? What isn’t?” Layla asked, running up next to me as we followed Barney around the tower.

  He didn’t answer and just kept muttering to himself, picking up speed.

  Barney was going a bit fast for Layla to keep up comfortably, so I lifted us up with Telekinesis and had us fly behind the now speeding floating head.

  “Hey~! Dark Lord to Barney~! Hello?” I called out after a few more minutes of silent flying and zipping around the tower.

  Barney was finally slowing down, but he had this terrible expression on his face. Like he just heard the worst news of his life.

  “They’re gone… Everything… is gone.” Barney continued to mumble, and I debated whether or not to try and clap for his attention.

  “What do we do?” Layla asked in a hushed whisper, clearly uncomfortable.

  “I think we’ll just have to wait for him to calm down. I need to finish your axe anyway, so we can do that while we wait.” I whispered in return and she got an excited look in her eye at the mention of her axe.

  “I completely forgot about that! So, I want-” Layla began going on another tangent of what she wanted her completely busted isekai weapon to do, and me being the good older brother that I was, made it so.

  …

  An hour later, Layla had herself a brand new axe made out of Adamantium.

  We couldn’t decide on any designs, so in the end we just made it look exactly like the one she had already.

  Her new axe was quite busted. Like ridiculously so.

  It was the kind of weapon you’d find in a really shitty web novel that has no business being as powerful as it was.

  I’m talking ‘split a planet in half’ kind of bullshit. This thing would piss me off if I read about it.

  Well, good thing this is real life and not a crappy isekai novel.

  Layla had far too many requests, and seemed to come up with new ones even as I added the ones she brought up earlier.

  So to save my sanity and my time, I just made the axe able to bend Rules of Reality like I can but far weaker.

  It’ll read my sister's intention, and then try to do the task to the best of its ability.

  Basically an axe that works off of imagination.

  Layla was straddling the axe like a new born, running her finger along the blade and literally giving it baby talk.

  Thankfully Barney seemed to have calmed down a little bit since earlier, so I can try to talk to him instead of listening to my sister do her thing.

  “Barney. What’s going on buddy? Talk to me.” I meandered over to his side and he glanced at me before looking away. Just staring at nothing.

  “We failed. I failed.” He started, then stopped. Tilting his head this way and that as he seemed to mull over something.

  I remained silent and let him finish thinking.

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  “This tower was supposed to keep the entropy at bay. To keep it contained within its sector of the multiverse. There are-were, other towers. To form a sort of net around the entropy. The fact that we are inside the entropy tells me that either one of the other towers failed, or we did. Dooming everything to be consumed by something that is not alive yet hungers.” Barney was talking, but it seemed more towards himself than to me. I wouldn’t stop him though.

  “We are inside entropy, yet we are fine. How? I don’t understand.” Barney mumbled and I realized that I was losing him.

  “You said that you were looking for me, why?” I asked, trying to bring him back from the muttering mess he was just an hour ago.

  “...Entropy is natural, but it is also supposed to be regulated. Think of the multiverse how you would… like a multicellular organism. It is alive in its own way, but not quite the same. But since it is ‘alive’, it has instincts and directives to stay that way. Entropy can be seen as a sort of immune system, I suppose. But ours has gone awry, and is now acting like a cancer.” Barney sounded tired, and I listened intently.

  “So you want me to fix this… How? Exactly?” I asked, feeling a tad overwhelmed before that emotion simply receded into nothing.

  “I know this seems daunting and impossible, because it should be. You were never meant to fix this issue. You are the replacement of a vital organ that was consumed by entropy. One meant to counteract its progress and reclaim what is lost to it.” Barney spoke and I just absorbed the information in silence.

  It made sense, kinda.

  I always wondered what I could possibly need all this power for, power for altering Reality itself, and it turns out I was supposed to fight entropy.

  You know, the end of all things.

  “So the multiverse is like an organism, and it’s dying. It lost some kind of important function and I’m the desperate replacement?” I asked and Barney just nodded weakly.

  “Desperate replacement is an apt descriptor, yes. Many were chosen, then discarded or died off. Mortals are not supposed to become what the multiverse needs you to be. I did not know why I was put into that slumber, when we could simply wait for another to be chosen. I suppose… They knew we would fall to entropy.” Barney looked at me with his big sad eyes, and once again I felt incredibly out of place with my lack of any emotional reaction. Just like when I met my family yesterday.

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Layla asked, suddenly barging in on the conversation.

  “The original plan was to bond with your brother so I could help raise him up into what the multiverse needs to push back entropy, but that plan is now useless. I can only imagine the decades it took for you to reach this point now, and I fear we are too late.” Barney spoke, and what he said set off a little alarm in my mind.

  “It didn’t take me decades to reach this point though?” I stated and Barney just slowly turned to look at me.

  “Centuries then. There’s even less time than I thought.” He sighed, all depressed like.

  “Not centuries either.” I coughed into my fist as I scratched the back of my head awkwardly.

  If Barney was supposed to be the one to help me, then what the hell was ‘helping’ me now?

  “What? Then how long?” He asked and I shared a look with Layla.

  “About a year?” I vaguely gestured with my hand and Barney merely stared at me.

  “You are… in your 30’s, correct? Didn’t you start your journey in your teenage years?” Barney asked and now it was my turn to be confused.

  “No? I got sucked into a black hole 2 years ago, wound up in another universe with no humans and a System that gave out really busted Skills like candy, then I fought some evil version of myself and then decided that I didn’t want anymore power.” I very briefly described my time spent in that universe and Barney just blinked at me.

  Was I supposed to have a classic highschooler gets isekai’d trope instead of a middle aged man route?

  Talking to Barney proved that yes. I was supposed to be very young.

  What he didn’t know was that apparently it took so long for whatever chooses the next ‘replacement’ that by the time it reached me I had aged around 20 years.

  “It must be due to entropy. It has to be.” Barney had speculated but I didn’t really care.

  I was glad that it had taken so damn long, going through what I did as a teenager would have been hell.

  If I went through the proper process in the first place that is. I really doubted a black hole would show up on Earth just to pick me up.

  This whole situation was screaming “too much explanation” though, the reader inside me practically screeching how it would kill any interesting plot by over-explaining things that didn’t really need to be explained.

  “So the gist is that I’m some kind of chosen replacement for an organ on a multiversal level, and will likely suffer or even die by going down this path. That I have little choice in the matter of.” I dumbed it down and both Layla and Barney looked miffed that I did.

  “In the simplest form, I guess you can say that.” Barney sighed and I shrugged.

  “Yeah, I’m not doing that.” I stated flatly, which shocked Barney, and Layla just nodded in understanding.

  “What? Why not?” Barney asked and it was my turn to sigh.

  “You said it yourself earlier. Mortals are not able to do what needs to be done.” I resisted the urge to smirk, as a plan began to form in my mind.

  “So that’s it then? Just doom us all to be erased?!” Barney asked angrily, probably thinking about how ‘I’m throwing his friend's sacrifice away’ or something like that.

  “We’re mortals Barney, what do you expect us to do about it?” Layla said calmly, seeming to come to peace with the fact that the multiverse will die.

  That or she knew I was planning something.

  “So you’re both giving up? Just let everything die because you won’t have to deal with it yourselves if you do nothing?” Barney was getting quite heated now, so I held up a hand.

  “I didn’t say that.” I couldn’t hold back my smile as Barney looked at me in shock and confusion.

  “What then?” He asked, still a bit upset at my antics.

  “Mortals can’t do it, but what if we got someone who wasn’t? Or something?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and Barney just deadpanned at me.

  “Get on with it. Enough games.” He sighed, returning to his mostly depressed mood.

  “I happen to have a very good friend that just so happens to be… not entirely mortal. I think. I don’t actually know what it is.” I rubbed my chin as I spoke.

  “Who?” Layla asked, very interested.

  “Jimmy.” I nodded, like it was the most simplest answer to ever come out of my mouth.

  Barney looked confused and Layla just frowned.

  I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, try and become whatever this organ was to push back entropy. That’s likely what the green system wants me to do, but that thing has always been… super freaky.

  Also, I wouldn’t live past 100 or 120. Which is my fault, for imposing that limit on myself, but I definitely don’t want to outlive my entire lineage by being immortal.

  The multiverse needed a more permanent solution, and Jimmy is… well, Jimmy. I don’t really know what he is besides some kind of living metal that absorbs the traits of everything he eats.

  Even when I dug his ass out of that planet, he was just dormant and not dead. So he’s totally not mortal.

  “Who is Jimmy?” Barney finally asked and I held up my hands.

  “This is Jimmy.” I willed Jimmy to collect some of himself in my bowled hands, forming a reflective ball of liquid metal. A line of Jimmy leading from the ball to one of my sleeves.

  “...And how is your ‘friend’ supposed to help?” Barney asked, clearly unimpressed.

  “Jimmy can absorb the traits of anything he eats, should he choose to do so. Usually, I just feed him leftover magic items when he gets peckish but he can eat anything. So if I can get strong enough to push back this entropy or whatever, I can just have Jimmy eat me and he should be able to get all of my traits and Skills that let me fight entropy! In theory.” I proudly stated my plan, much to the horror of my sister and bafflement to Barney.

  “...So you’ll kill yourself to save the multiverse?” Barney asked and both Layla and I shook our heads.

  “No, he’s apparently ‘immortal’ or something.” Layla said, looking at me in disgust. Likely thinking about how Jimmy eats.

  “Yeah I just regenerate a body around my soul.” I ignore her look, and focus on petting the Jimmy ball.

  “Then just become the replacement yourself. Why use this?” Barney tilted towards Jimmy and I scoffed.

  “Because I won’t live past 100 or so. You need a permanent solution, and I ain't it.”

  “He probably just doesn’t want to bother with it.” Layla joked and I chuckled.

  “That too.”

  “...You really think this will work?” Barney asked and I shrugged.

  “It could. I think there’s a better chance for Jimmy than me.” I didn’t mention that since Jimmy was a bound item, I didn’t know what would happen once I did die for good.

  Would he return to being a scary as fuck consumer of all or would he remain chill and continue following my orders to help against the entropy?

  I didn’t know, nor did I really care.

  I’d figure it out later.

  “I’ll just have to trust you then. So how long will it take for you to reach Minor Reality Manipulation?” Barney asked and I tilted my head.

  “I’m there already. Don’t I need the highest tier?” I asked and he looked a little shocked.

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t know you were already at that level. I merely thought you were close. How did you achieve that without my help?” Barney asked and I thought about telling him. Or at least trying to.

  “I got a green system that gives me insane rewards and what not. I also think it's some kind of eldritch horror from beyond the veil. Whatever that means.” I answered, and Barney just stared at me.

  “You didn’t catch any of that did you?” I asked and he shook his head.

  “No… No I didn’t.” Barney seemed… slightly out of it.

  “Well that’s a shame, but expected.” I muttered before moving on from that.

  “Man… I really don’t want to do this.” I sighed and Layla looked at me with a knowing look.

  “Is it time? For…?” She asked with a cocky smile and I nodded in defeat.

  “Yeah… It’s time for me to do my Quests.” I sighed.

  This wasn’t going to take very long to do at least.