Anime Crossover: Post-Apocalyptic Survival, My Stand is the World

She was smiling, but her heart was also filled with lingering fear.

Even now, she doesn't know at what point her seemingly flawless escape plan went wrong.

However, thinking about these things now is pointless.

because……,

"Game over."

A smile, full of regret and mischief, appeared on her face.

She snapped her fingers softly.

Then, in Su Chen's suddenly contracting pupils, all the chess pieces she had long ago buried throughout this battlefield were detonated.

Boom, boom, boom——

The continuous explosions, enough to level the entire park, instantly engulfed Su Chen's figure completely.

The flames from the explosion cast flickering light on his gloomy face.

"Mr. Su Chen."

"Our 'game' has only just begun."

"The next time we meet."

"I won't be so careless again..."

Her alluring and provocative voice faded into the distance amidst the earth-shattering explosion, like a witch's parting words.

Ultimately, it disappeared completely.

First battle, Shinjuku.

Kurumi Tokisaki successfully escaped...

The End.

Chapter 138 The Witch's Message

The explosions gradually subsided.

The continuous roar that could have leveled the entire Shinjuku Central Park eventually turned into a long, mournful echo, like the lament of the earth, slowly dissipating into the deathly silence.

The acrid smoke and dust scorched by the high temperature mixed into a choking, grayish-yellow fog, like a curtain drawn down for this failed hunt, permeating the entire park.

It completely obscured the already dim, blood-red setting sun on the horizon. The world was plunged into a chaotic twilight.

After a long while, when a cold night wind swept through the city ruins, the thick fog, like an unwilling actor, was slowly pulled away by an invisible hand, revealing the horrific scene beneath.

On the rooftop.

"Cough...cough..."

Kasumigaoka Utaha waved her hand, trying to fan away the thick, impenetrable smoke and dust in front of her, but was choked by the strange smell of gunpowder mixed with cement powder, coughing repeatedly and bringing tears to her eyes.

Her once spotless black office lady uniform was now covered in dust and debris, and a few strands of her smooth black hair were slightly curled by the blast wave, making her look somewhat disheveled and completely lacking her usual composure and elegance.

"Is everyone alright?"

Yukino Yukinoshita's voice was also hoarse, as if she had survived a catastrophe, but her tone remained absolutely calm, like a block of ice that would never melt.

She immediately began counting the number of people in the team and quickly checked everyone's condition to make sure no one was injured.

Fortunately.

In the split second before the explosion, Su Chen used [World] to forcibly stop time by 0.5 seconds.

Although this extremely brief "divine realm" was not enough for him to do much more, such as retaliate or pursue the cunning witch.

But that was enough for him to appear like a ghost beside the three girls, leading them to hide behind the most sturdy central air conditioning unit on the rooftop, which was made of load-bearing walls.

No one was injured; this is the best possible outcome.

嗏

Yukino looked into the distance at the park center, where what was once a huge lair of flesh and blood had now become a giant, bottomless crater still emitting thick smoke.

Then she thought about the time witch named "Tokisaki Kurumi" who ultimately managed to escape unscathed right under their noses.

A look of solemnity and frustration appeared on her usually perfectly rational, sculpted face.

They... lost.

Tactically, they successfully forced out all of their opponent's trump cards, and even pushed them to the brink of defeat, seeing the light of victory.

However, at the final strategic level, they were completely outmaneuvered by that cunning woman who seemed like a fox who had lived for a thousand years.

His own "absolute order" was easily broken, Shi Yu's "word spirit script" was ruthlessly penetrated, and even Su Chen's almost invincible combination of abilities ultimately only shattered a perfect substitute.

The other party maintained firm control over the final outcome of the game from beginning to end.

"The cicada sheds its shell..."

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked in the direction where Kurumi had last disappeared, her beautiful wine-red eyes filled with resentment and complex admiration.

"Use a perfect clone, identical even in soul fluctuations, as bait to bear the brunt of our rage and our final killing blow." She murmured, reviewing the situation as if analyzing a finely structured suspense novel.

"When we all thought we had won a great victory and were at our most relaxed, she used a series of pre-arranged explosions to create chaos, cover up her true identity, and escape calmly."

"This is truly... a flawless escape script."

She paused, then snorted coldly, and complained arrogantly.

"Hmph, what a pretentious woman."

"This kind of elaborate and ceremonial exit is usually just the murderer preparing a so-called 'grand stage' for himself in third-rate detective novels."

In reality, it was just a sign of her guilty conscience. She was afraid—afraid of Su Chenjun's terrifying ability to erase time. That's why she dared not linger in battle and could only flee in such a disheveled manner.

……

Su Chen did not participate in their post-battle debriefing.

Alone, he jumped from the edge of the rooftop, which had already been bombed beyond recognition.

His figure moved silently through the air, like a weightless feather, and with a few light leaps, he landed steadily on the ravaged ground.

He slowly walked to the shadow of the building where Kurumi had last disappeared.

He squatted down.

His [Triple Rebirth] spiritual perception, like the most precise scanner, could clearly sense that an extremely faint trace of spatial fluctuation belonging to that woman still lingered here.

but…

Besides this, there seems to be something else.

Su Chen frowned.

He reached out and gently felt around on the cold, shadowy ground.

Soon, his fingertips touched a cold, peculiar card that was neither paper nor gold.

He picked up the card and, by the dim red light of the horizon, made out the design on it.

It was an ancient tarot card, imbued with an air of mystery.

There are no words or numbers on the cards.

It only has one pattern drawn on it.

A bizarrely shaped, gothic-style clock tower that is rotating counterclockwise.

At the top of the clock tower stood a girl in a long black dress whose face was obscured, giving a mysterious and provocative smile to the people outside the signboard.

"..."

Su Chen stared at the tarot card, which was full of provocation and a challenge, and remained silent for a moment.

In the end, I still smiled.

His smile was full of excitement, like a hunter who had finally spotted his prey.

"interesting."

"It seems that she is not simply 'running away'."

"Instead, they are 'inviting' us."

"Let's go play the next, even more fun 3.2' game!"

He stood up, dusted himself off, and the gloom he felt from being tricked vanished, replaced by a fighting spirit of meeting his match.

He picked up the walkie-talkie that had survived the explosion and reconnected to the communication with the Blank siblings, who were far away in the building.

"Hey, Kong."

"Ah! Su Chen, you're alive! That's great! The explosion just now... all the surveillance signals were cut off. We thought..."

"Without further ado."

Su Chen interrupted his rambling, which was full of the air of someone who had survived a disaster, and directly issued new instructions.

"Please help me check."

"Is there a landmark building in Shinjuku Ward that fits this description?"

He transmitted the image of the tarot card in real time through a miniature camera on his body.

"A clock tower."

Chapter 139 The Cleaner

Half an hour later.

In an office building in Shinjuku Ward that was relatively intact during the disaster.

This place was temporarily set up as a front-line command post by Su Chen and others.

The atmosphere was somewhat heavy, even oppressive.

The air was filled with the cheap and bitter aroma of instant coffee, mixed with a lingering, cold, dusty smell of post-apocalyptic ruins.

The few emergency lights that had been temporarily installed emitted a pale white light, making the equally bloodless expressions on the girls' faces even clearer.

Kong has already transmitted the final investigation results of the strange clock tower through the "Skynet" system.

The result was projected onto the white wall that served as a temporary screen, showing only four cold, black characters that seemed to declare that the road was blocked.

—No such building found.

In the official and private architectural databases of the entire Shinjuku Ward, and even the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Government, there is no clock tower in the Gothic style that is exactly the same as the one depicted on that tarot card.

It's like a ghost building, a vague and ethereal coordinate that only exists in that woman's imagination.

"A fabricated clue?"

As Yukino looked at the "non-existent" investigation results, a rare shadow fell over her usually clear, icy eyes.

Her beautiful brows furrowed tightly, and her fingertips tapped unconsciously on the cold table, revealing her inner turmoil.

She hated this feeling of being out of control of logic.

"No, I think it's more like a 'riddle'."

Kasumigaoka Utaha was toying with that tarot card with its peculiar texture.

Her fingertips glided lightly along the edge of the card like butterflies, her eyes sparkling with the excitement and solemnity of a creator facing a top-level challenge.

“That woman was telling us this in this way,” she said, holding the card up to the light as if admiring a work of art.

"'To find me, solve this puzzle.' This card itself is the 'key' to the next level. The clock tower image, the counter-clockwise hands, and the girl's smile... these are all elements that make up the puzzle."

"What a provocative act full of wicked humor."

The discussion reached a stalemate.

"The enemy is in the dark, while we are in the light."

Looking out the window at the "monster-occupied zone" that lay lifeless like a black ocean against the dark red sky, Mai Sakurajima pinpointed the core of the problem.

Her words were like a scalpel, precisely cutting through the layer of anxiety in everyone's hearts that they were unwilling to touch.