As soon as he woke, he noticed he was stuck in a transparent cell, his body hovering slightly above the airy coffin.

"Ah! You're finally awake!" A robotic voice beeped from above.

He blinked rapidly.

"Where...is this place?" He muttered, voice coming out unexpectedly dry and raspy.

"This is the realm between worlds." The red hover ball explained. It circled around his cell curiously and stopped a few centimeter from the glass. "Touch the lid with your hand."

He did it and the glass over his cell retracted.

"Who am I? How come I can't remember anything about myself?" He frowned and stepped out, glancing around skeptically but seeing nothing but pure white stretching on for miles and miles.

"That's because this is your tribulation. Your mortal body is in a coma while your soul was sent here."

"And why am I here?" He hummed softly, touching his face, hair, shoulders, making sure he at least had a humane appearance and that no part is rotting.

"Because this is your tribulation," the little ball replied in a tone that implied it was not going to impart anything more.

"Where's everybody else?"

"You and I are the only ones here. This is your subconsciousness. There's nothing but us two."

He felt a little helpless. So his subconsciousness is an absolute white desert?

The ball seemed to have sense his desolation so it quickly attached, "fret not. As long as you accept my conditions and accomplish a few tasks, you'll be freed from this place and awake in your own world."

"What conditions? What tasks?"

"Restore entropy to the universe. As long as you eliminate chaos from each of the subsequent realms I'm going to sent you to, you'll be freed.

"Accomplish what we've set you out to do. Worlds have been thrown off their original paths and this has messed with the universe as a whole."

He dazedly moved about. "And how am I supposed to accomplish that?"

"There's nothing more important in the world than balance. Legends since antiquity have placed villains as countermeasures against heroes. But recently, an external bug has sent this millennial old system into haywire, strengthening heroes and allowing them to overpower their villain counterparts. Your task is to assist the villains and help them defeat the protagonists."

"My name is 01. And you...shall be Qi Eryi. 721."

721 or, Eryi questioned, "am I still human?"

"Your appearance is still the same as your mortal self but you are no longer human. Do you still remember what you look like?"

Eryi shook his head.

"Of course you don't. Your memories have been wiped for a reason. We cannot allow you to remember who you once were. That said, come take a look."

A reflective surface appeared on 01's originally red interface.

Dark hair and hollow black eyes stared back at him. He touched his cheek and saw his reflection on 01 do the same.

Pale white skin, unmarred, looking uncannily like the whiteness of everything around them set the canvas for his features.

"This appearance will follow you into each world's incarnation, or at least its overall template. Your eye and hair colors will change accordingly."

Nodding, Eryi replied, "I'm fine with these conditions."

The system paused, its scorching gaze surveying Eryi for a second, like it was contemplating something before uttering:

"Very well, follow me."