Chapter 268: Time Is About to Accelerate

"This station is interrupting regular programming with an emergency bulletin: a sudden incident has occurred at the Zwei-Wing concert, with a large number of special disasters called Noise detected..."

March 21.

A live concert attended by over 100, 00 fans and personnel became a historic catastrophe, with 12, 73 dead or missing.

One member of Zwei-Wing, Amane Kanade, suffered severe injuries and fell into a coma, remaining unconscious to this day; using this as the catalyst, Zwei-Wing disbanded.

"Huh? The band broke up already?"

"Are there still some unresolved aftereffects?"

When Jia Ji heard this news on the road, he found it odd at first, but quickly understood.

It was simple logic: after such a disaster at the concert—with tens of thousands dead—if both members of Zwei-Wing survived, public opinion would inevitably turn against them, blaming them for nearly all the fault.

Even though, in reality, these two teenage girls—barely in high school—had stepped forward and risked their lives fighting Noise, just like magical girls must hide their identities, the government-controlled War Maidens could only act in secret.

Neon has its own peculiarities, or rather, most of humanity is much the same—always needing to find a scapegoat after something goes wrong.

"Why them?"

"Why are you two the only ones unharmed?"

"The songstress who brought disaster!"

Online and in the media, there were already countless such complaints.

So even though Jia Ji had saved Kanade this time, the group could no longer function; ultimately, Fūmei Tsubasa publicly announced its dissolution.

"So, blue-haired beauty, from a wealthy family, formed a band, and now it's disbanded... will the band reunite in the next episode?"

But Jia Ji wasn't surprised; girl bands break up and get back together all the time, and even multiple personalities were perfectly understandable, so he didn't dwell on it.

More than that, he cared about one thing—

Time.

After rescuing Hibiki, he planned to check on the group members' statuses, confirm everything was fine, then focus entirely on conquering the Alchemist.

But then, the group noticed a slight anomaly—their conversations felt disjointed, not due to lag, but...

Time was accelerating.

During Hibiki's hospitalization and coma, the group held a brief meeting with everyone present to exchange updates; finally, Yagumo Shiki and Nagato Yuki, the two strategists, drew a conclusion from the gathered information...

—This is an anomaly!

Like Yagumo Shiki, who had just finished the Lunar War and took a short nap, in Jia Ji's eyes only a few days had passed, yet she had already experienced "Genraisei subduing the yōkai Nue" and "the nine-tailed fox secretly operating within the imperial court."

Previously, time had moved fast, but not this fast.

Having been warned beforehand, she naturally wouldn't miss the chance to subdue a shikigami; now she lay in ambush, ready to strike when the nine-tailed fox was hunted down by Miura Yoshimasa and Kōzō Tōshō, seize it, and instantly refine it into "Blue."

Then there was Esdeath, who rarely logged on due to constant campaigns; in these three years, she had nearly exterminated all northern barbarians, rebel revolutionary armies, and traitorous nobles allied with neighboring states—heads rolled, rivers ran red, and she joyfully played her coloring game.

After the Minister's death, power temporarily fell to Nadezhda and Vali, who had originally been slated for prison; both now strongly favored Esdeath. As for the original Night Raid and Hunters—Braid, Will, Selye, Akemi, Kuroko, and others—all now served as Esdeath's personal guard, with nearly half the Empire's Dōgu users working under her.

Esdeath now planned to lead her army back to the imperial capital, confront General Budō, and force the young emperor to unveil the "Supreme Dōgu" for a battle.

"Oh, invincible."

"Truly invincible."

Jia Ji wiped away nonexistent sweat; Esdeath was nearly sweeping the entire world, while he himself hadn't even left the Realm of Shura, still wandering in another world.

Later, in Enju's world, roughly a year had passed; cursed children flooded into the Tokyo District in waves, and many organizations, upon learning of his departure, began plotting sabotage and capturing cursed children for experimentation.

For example, the Gokushōkai and Russian spy organizations.

What are Renjiro and Hiruko Kageyoshi doing? Get out there and fight!

Jia Ji had refrained from killing them on the spot precisely to handle such matters; ultimately, with help from "Information Enju," who had studied several Southern Dipper Fist styles, these terrorists were all captured and handed over to the Holy Mother for public execution.

As for Xia Na, she was currently training Sakaiki Yūichi alongside "Ten Thousand Skillful Hands," preparing for the masked ball's attack.

Yukina was now studying her third year of middle school, her demonic power steadily rising, gradually approaching A-rank levels; while Zangma had advanced to high school, and in about another year, Yuusuke would die suddenly.

"Then... what about Yuki?"

Surely the Haruhi Suzumiya wouldn't be calmly training, right?

Though he hated to consider what he might have brought to that world, Jia Ji decided to ask.

And received this reply—

"The SOS Brigade is preparing to climb Mount Everest—barehanded."

That level must be at least Parallel Class; from slice-of-life to fighting world, next up—Extreme Style or Weird Arm Style?

Jia Ji silently mourned for Kyon and the others for three seconds, then wisely skipped the topic.

But the most surprising was Kanae—she actually spoke up, though only one sentence.

"Yuriko has come."

Then the Afterlife world would surely become lively too.

It seemed each person in the group had their own life. pg

After cross-referencing, they discovered the relative time flow speeds in each world had changed.

It was almost certain: the change originated from the North Star world, where the Heavenly Lock had been broken; the mastermind behind this anomaly was none other than Jia Ji!

Further discussion revealed it wasn't that high-energy worlds flowed faster or low-energy Blue Star slower—it depended on... the flow of fate.

Worlds with no plot events flowed like a paradise—time raced forward the moment they logged off, such as Yukina, Yagumo Shiki, and Kanae.

Worlds currently undergoing predetermined fate events remained unaffected, such as Yuki, Esdeath, Enju, Xia Na, and Kenji.

Time skipped automatically during idle periods, only normalizing during "historical turning points."

It was estimated that once all worlds entered their "march phase," the group's time flow rates would gradually synchronize, eliminating situations where one world experienced a century while another passed only two days.

【Yin-Yang Eye Kenji: Wait, why didn't anyone ask how I'm doing? I just punched my way to stop a murder!】

(End of chapter)