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

"Thanks for your hard work."

Her voice remained calm, as if the "Shinjuku showdown" that had just taken place was merely an ordinary, slightly intense club activity.

But the timing of her handing him the water was perfect; it came at the very moment he had just finished a high-intensity battle and needed to replenish his fluids the most.

"Oh, thanks."

Su Chen took it naturally, unscrewed it, and took a sip. The cool liquid slid down his throat, easing the slight fatigue after the battle.

And not far away.

The girl, Michiru Hyodo, brimming with rock and roll energy, had already taken out her ever-present notebook and started brainstorming lyrics for her brand-new "Heroic Epic," which she would be performing at the ".‖ Victory Banquet."

She was humming a passionate melody, full of youthful exuberance and youthful energy, to herself.

"A crimson emperor descends upon the desolate ruins of the capital..."

"He deleted the time, he proclaimed the final judgment..."

"The witch is wailing, the world is trembling, and behind her lies our last ark of hope..."

"Hmm...not bad. Not bad. This song is sure to be a hit."

……

Su Chen looked at the vibrant, lively faces in front of him, each one full of personality and energy.

Look at the swordsman who is willing to wash dishes in pursuit of a higher level of swordsmanship.

Look at that saint who always hands you a bottle of water when you need it most.

Look at the bard who is composing a heroic hymn for himself.

A sense of pride and satisfaction, that of a king, welled up within him.

This thrilling and brutal battle did not cause the slightest fear or rift in this newly formed team.

On the contrary, it was because of Su Chen's unfathomable absolute strength, which he repeatedly demonstrated, and his reliable figure that always stood in front of them at the most critical moments.

This brought all the new members to an unprecedented peak in their sense of belonging and cohesion to the family.

Chapter 171 The Witch's Legacy

The cleaning work in Shinjuku is progressing smoothly.

After losing the Queen's command, the monster army that had been entrenched around the Metropolitan Government's clock tower and relied on Kurumi's shadow was like a swarm of drones that had lost their signal source, and was quickly wiped out one by one by the Queen's special forces that had regrouped.

Su Chen, on the other hand, brought with him Tokisaki Kurumi, who had been completely captured.

(That's right, Su Chen simply had Saeko Busujima, who had the strongest physique, carry the unconscious Time Witch on her shoulder like a sack of rice.)

They arrived at the Time Witch's temporary base in Shinjuku.

Hidden deep within the Kabukicho Ichiban-gai district, in the basement of an old watch shop called "Kokko Teido".

"Is this... where she usually sleeps?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at the cramped basement in front of her, which was less of a base and more of a doghouse, and her face showed obvious disgust.

The basement wasn't large, and the air was filled with a strange smell of engine oil, dust, and fast food mixed together.

330

Apart from a simple cot, there were only piles of canned food and compressed water.

But in stark contrast to this disheveled and lived-in atmosphere, is the other side of the room.

There stood a huge wooden desk, also piled high with various precision clock parts, tools, and yellowed ancient books.

On the wall behind the desk, there were even intricate patterns resembling magic circles, painted with an unknown red pigment, exuding an air of mystery.

The entire space resembled the secret hideout of a reclusive young girl obsessed with watch repair. It was filled with a paradoxical blend of practical hardship and extraordinary mystery.

"She really is... quite thrifty and good at managing a household."

Looking at the mountain of canned goods, Su Chen couldn't help but make a comment.

"It seems she really does live quite frugally in order to accumulate 'time' to activate the [Twelfth Bullet]."

As he spoke, he naturally gave new orders to Saeko and Michiru Hyodo, who was curiously observing from the side.

"Alright, stop standing there."

"move."

"Take everything edible here back to the base."

“This is the spoils that the ‘King’ deserves.”

"Oh." x2

Saeko and Michiru immediately began their increasingly skilled work as movers.

Su Chen then turned his gaze to the most suspicious-looking... ancient wooden desk.

He walked over and casually picked up the thick notebook with a leather cover on the table that looked like a diary.

He turned to the first page.

His dark eyes, which were already filled with the pleasure of looting, suddenly showed a look of surprise and astonishment.

This is not a girl's diary, nor is it her juvenile plan to save the world.

Instead, they were densely packed research notes, brimming with an aura of madness and genius.

Su Chen flipped through the pages one by one, his expression growing increasingly serious and wry.

On the pristine white paper were drawn all sorts of strange magic circles that he couldn't understand at all, yet somehow felt vaguely familiar, and rows of complex time formulas filled with an air of metaphysics and mystery.

And a large number of Cthulhu-style energy composition speculation diagrams she drew by dissecting monsters.

Those lines are precise and delicate, yet they carry a kind of crazy twisting, as if the artist's spirit was being polluted by some indescribable knowledge when he was drawing them.

This woman...

She had been using her own unique occult worldview, which combined "elf studies" and "time magic," to try to analyze the nature of the Silent Calamity and the monsters.

"I see."

Su Chen looked at one of the pages, at a bold conjecture that she had circled in large red pen.

[Hypothesis 3: Monsters are not simply energy entities.]

They are more like fragments of time that have fallen off the world's own timeline due to some unknown bug.

It is a shadow of the past, long dead.

"..."

"Good guy."

Su Chen closed the notebook, which was both incredibly imaginative and remarkably close to the truth in some ways, and couldn't help but mutter another complaint to himself.

"This is turning science fiction apocalypse into a kind of mysticism within the Type-Moon universe."

"Little sister, you've been on the wrong track from the very beginning."

Although he was complaining, his heart was filled with turbulent emotions because of Kurumi's notebook.

Because of Kurumi's seemingly absurd speculation based on mysticism.

Yet, it subtly resonated with his own conjecture.

He thought of those equally unreasonable alter egos deep within his soul, seemingly from different timelines.

I thought of this world, a crossover anime setting filled with a sense of incongruity, as if it had been forcibly "stitched" together.

"I see……"

An extremely audacious idea, one that even made him feel a chill, slowly surfaced in his mind like lightning tearing through the night sky.

He seemed to glimpse, through Kurumi's eyes filled with madness and obsession, the most fundamental truth hidden in this world.

"These so-called monsters..."

"It is not merely a simple energy body."

"They also seem to be connected to the timeline of this world itself..."

"Something extremely strange happened..."

"Entanglement..."

This world may be...

It was broken from the start.

Chapter 172 The Hunter's Return

The cleaning work in Shinjuku is basically finished.

The spoils of war have been moved, and the skilled laborers to be incorporated have been bundled up.

All that was left was to return home in triumph, carrying with them their biggest catch.

"Alright, girls."

Su Chen carefully stuffed Kurumi's research notes, which were full of chuunibyou and genius and could be called the "bible of occultism," into his pocket.

Then, he walked up to the Time Witch who was still unconscious and knelt down.

He hesitated for half a second.

In the end, they did not choose that extremely inhumane way of carrying sacks.

Instead, he very gentlemanly picked her up in a perfectly standard princess carry.

The girl's body was very light and soft, as if it had no weight, or like a shadow about to disappear in the sunlight.

The feeling upon touching it was not the warmth one should have, but rather a cool sensation similar to that of top-grade Hetian jade, as if its body temperature had been stripped away over time.

She carried a faint yet dangerous scent, a sweet fragrance mixed with blood and some unknown flower, lingering around Su Chen's nose.

"gone."

He held his new collection, which was like a hot potato, and looked at the few behind him who had also officially joined his harem (?).

...No, the team's powerful young woman—Saeko, Michiru—issued a brief order.

"go home."

……

The atmosphere on the way back to the building was relaxed, even somewhat noisy.

"wrong."

Kasumigaoka Utaha, like a curious cat that finally got the chance to ask its owner a question, stayed close to Su Chen the whole time.

Those beautiful wine-red eyes shone with a fervent thirst for knowledge, even more intense than that of Alice Nakiri.

"Based on the fundamental logic of the time paradox, your ability to 'delete time' is impossible on a macro level."

"It will inevitably leave irreparable scars on the microscopic causal chain, which is the so-called 'world correction force.' Therefore, I conclude that every time you use your [Crimson King], you will inevitably pay some huge price that we are not yet aware of, right?"

"..."

"And your epitaph that can 'predict the future'."

Is the 'future' it sees predetermined by fate, a single, fixed point of convergence? Or can it simultaneously observe countless different possibilities, the so-called parallel universes?

"If it's the former, that's easy to explain. But if it's the latter, how do you accurately determine from the endless future which one is the only present we are about to face? There must be a 'filtering mechanism' that we don't yet know about."

"..."

"..."

A series of soul-searching questions, full of philosophical speculation and quantum mechanics, left Su Chen feeling like his head was about to explode.

Looking at the extremely inquisitive child in front of him, who had completely fallen into "scholar mode," he finally couldn't help but reply impatiently.

"Ask again?"

"If you ask again, I'm going to use 'Bite the Dust' on you."