Chapter 193: The Demon King Does Not Exist!

Nagato Yuki stared at him for a while, then nodded slightly.

She turned her head back again, watching the backs of the two people downstairs recede into the distance, fell silent for a moment, then spoke again:

"Time has countless series; diverging, converging, and parallel times weave a constantly growing, intricate net. A network woven from times that approach each other, diverge, intersect, or never interfere with each other forever, contains all possibilities."

"Reality manifests within a logical space containing various possibilities; our world is merely the one chosen among all possible worlds."

"For example, the Information Integration Thought Entity could originally read future intelligence, yet still needed to maintain observation of Haruhi Suzumiya; another example: if you hadn't brought Otherworld information, the Information Integration Thought Entity also couldn't have directly obtained corresponding research results from the future, because the project never existed in the first place."

Rarely taking the initiative to bring up such a topic, and saying so much in one breath, the Literary Girl only then stopped.

She didn't look in Xia Zhi's direction, simply resting both hands flat on the railing, calmly stating her conclusion—

"The Information Integration Thought Entity hopes I tell you: information is ultimately conserved, and the future has never been fixed. It hopes you can maintain free will, and not lose the possibility of autonomous evolution."

"..."

"..."

"That I naturally understand; if everything were fixed, then Kyon would probably have been done in by Asakura-san long ago." Xia Zhi laughed lightly, "Teleological thinking doesn't mean losing the right to choose, but optimizing the right to choose; this I still understand."

Nagato Yuki nodded slightly upon hearing this.

And right at this moment, a soft *ding* sound came from the end of the corridor.

It was the sound of the elevator arriving at the seventh floor; both people looked over simultaneously, only to see the elevator doors slowly open.

A beautiful blue-haired girl with hair reaching her waist stood in the elevator, looking at the corridor ahead where two people stood side by side at the railing, talking while looking down; she couldn't help but have her eye corners twitch slightly. For Ryouko, today was truly terrible.

She had clearly found a method earlier, choosing to join the Literature Club as a way to indirectly obtain the status of an unofficial SOS Brigade member.

Result: after a whole day today, she actually failed to find a chance to go to the Club Room...

This was already enough to make one feel extremely upset.

Unexpectedly, after returning home from school, she could still trigger an important plot event this evening.

Although she immediately took action, then... she saw the scene before her eyes: Xia Zhi and Nagato Yuki standing side by side at the corridor balcony discussing something. How should one put this... it's just that Asakura Ryouko isn't an ordinary girl...

Otherwise, she would already be wearing a pained mask.

She took a deep breath, smile somewhat forced as she spoke: "Did I come at a bad time?"

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"What do I do?"

Walking out of that High District, he stopped before the roadside green belt.

The Team Leader asked excitedly, her eyes full of impatient eagerness: "Do I need to do something? It won't be too hard, right?"

"No, just hold my hand."

Xia Zhi didn't try to scare Suzumiya-san on this matter; this was precisely a great opportunity to farm favorability and increase trust, so he spoke very gently and extended his hand.

"Just hold your hand and that's it?"

Curiously looking at the young man's outstretched hand, examining those slender fair fingers, the Team Leader suddenly blushed a little, but she had a strong personality and had more pressing concerns right now, so she still very decisively reached out and grabbed his palm.

Even feeling that wasn't secure enough, she simply used both hands, gripping tightly, even clutching the young man's wrist.

Only then did she raise her head, staring unblinkingly at the other party: "Then what?"

"That's all it takes."

Xia Zhi glanced at his tightly clasped wrist and palm, didn't say anything, just nodded.

The next instant—

He, along with Haruhi Suzumiya, both directly vanished.

Not only Isotope Memory Synchronization Technology, but also Spiritron Transfer spatial navigation, the Spirit Summoning Ritual involved in Heroic Spirit Summoning, and the Independent Manifestation ability from the Holy Lance Characteristic, even the Time Travelers' "TimePlaneDestroyedDevice" technology.

Results that should have been integrated in the future, he was already enjoying now.

Precisely because of this, what Xia Zhi could do was not only let personal information travel back and forth on the Timeline, but also, when necessary, utilize the Spiritron Transfer System's function like Chaldea to teleport others to other time periods.

Although there were quite a few restrictions, using it to take the Team Leader on a Time Travel—

Was already more than enough.

After all, this was the Team Leader's own intention; now the Time Dimension had opened its doors to him, so it was most suitable to seize this opportunity to farm proficiency and familiarize himself with the feel.

Light!

Endless light; in this instant Haruhi Suzumiya only felt herself wrapped in brightness, not only her body immersed in an ocean of light, but light filling all her senses; this wasn't seen through vision, yet she indeed felt she saw it.

Besides that, only the temperature in her hand told her there was still another person by her side.

And a warm, peaceful voice transmitted by her ear.

"Like this, you might not be able to intuitively see; after all, among human basic senses, there is no organ directly for receiving spacetime information, so you might need to borrow my Vision..."

The moment the words fell, the Team Leader discovered in surprise that she could suddenly "see".

Like a game screen finishing loading, endless light rapidly receded, lines appeared outlining edges, colors distinctly filling each outline, everything became clear... then, she saw endless light, shadow, sound, and color howling past before her eyes.

—Those were layer upon layer, like raging waves and deep ravines, endlessly overlapping together.

—Thereby converging into a long river, a river coming from nowhere, going to nowhere, endlessly majestic, endlessly vast, seemingly covering all possibilities.

The girl seemed to be brought by the person beside her, piloting a ship of time, howling upstream on this long river.

History howled past the two people's sides.

And it was almost impossible to clearly distinguish details on the long river, because it was the stacking of countless Time Planes, and moreover only the History Information of the space near the Transmigration location the two chose... this was also only natural; otherwise, the massive information volume would be fundamentally impossible to process.

If tracing back three years, one would face the impact of History Information stored by the entire Universe over these three years...

Then Time Travel would be almost impossible to realize.

Or it would inevitably be a domain only an omnipotent Heavenly God could wield; besides that, even the Information Integration Thought Entity probably couldn't do it.

Of course, even just facing the impact of History Information from a local region on this Star, the information volume was equally enormous; every spray contained massive time data, a data volume that all the world's Computers combined couldn't process one ten-thousandth of.

However, Xia Zhi also had no leisure to mind these useless spacetime information; he only focused on the massive fault appearing ahead in the long river.

Judging from the conversion into something resembling visual information reception, that was a colossal wall standing at the time point three years ago, forcibly severing the entire Time River at its waist, likewise endless; at this moment, he seemed to have arrived at a region like the End of the Universe.

Beyond that fault, the River still seemed faintly visible, endlessly surging.

However, because of the fault's existence, no matter what, that time point was already the End; the history further ahead could not be truly observed, nor truly reached.

"G-good, how spectacular——!!"

Haruhi Suzumiya froze entirely, or rather, from the instant just now when it became visible, she had never imagined she would witness such a shocking sight.

Every spray on the Time River was so magnificent, let alone the majestic wall standing at the End; the girl who had always pursued an encounter with the surreal was completely unable to resist the astonishing charm of the scene before her eyes, her heart pounding wildly.

Who knew if her heart rate wasn't heading straight for four hundred.

After all, she was someone who seemed reasonable on the surface but actually wasn't; presumably that seemingly frail body of hers was the same.

Anyway, as long as Team Leader herself didn't feel there was a problem, then everything was normal.

Probably because it was too shocking, Miss Suzumiya almost held her breath; of course she didn't actually have breath right now, the surroundings weren't a normal atmospheric environment, her survival needs were currently being satisfied through Xia Zhi... just that Xia Zhi wasn't too sure either, whether he should satisfy these things or not.

He always felt that even if he didn't provide air circulation and such, Team Leader would be fine, and she might not even be aware of this point herself.

Still that same sentence——

As long as Team Leader herself didn't feel there was a problem, then everything was normal.

They watched in stunned silence for a good while before Miss Suzumiya reluctantly withdrew her gaze; she panted excitedly, turned her eyes to the person beside her, and urgently asked: "What exactly is this? What exactly is this? This is a wall, right? Isn't it a wall?"

——That was actually the Origin Wall...

——Hung on it by Khan, with Tian Blood inside...

Xia Zhi really wanted to spout such nonsense, but reason made him calm down at this moment; mainly he was a bit worried that in such an excited state, Team Leader might not be able to distinguish whether he was joking, and if she took it seriously it would be troublesome.

Even if the original couldn't be produced...

Just manufacturing a local pirated fake would be enough to cause a headache...

Moreover he himself didn't want to risk the possibility of being hung on the wall in the future, so this kind of thing still had to be avoided as much as possible.

Exhaling gently, the Magician shook his head: "There's really no way to explain; after all this thing just appeared suddenly, it severed time and history, making it so I can't return to a past more distant than three years ago; as of now, nothing has been found out..."

"Mm, could it be some world-destroying Demon King created it?"

Haruhi Suzumiya wasn't discouraged either; after all she had witnessed it with her own eyes, so she was still enthusiastically speculating: "In those movies, anime and such, that's what they say; a huge world suddenly appearing like this is often a sign and scheme of villains wanting to destroy the world..."

"This isn't it; although the specific cause can't be determined yet, we can preliminarily confirm it's a natural phenomenon..."

Xia Zhi's face unchanged, he decisively spouted nonsense.

In short, this possibility must not be allowed to arise; what world-destroying Demon King, what villains destroying the world.

These options weren't harmonious in the slightest.

"Is that so?" Team Leader frowned, seeming a bit disappointed, but she quickly keenly caught a key word: "Wait, 'you guys'? Meaning you, you... you're not alone? You have an organization, right?"

Her eyes lit up, she quickly associated it with something: "Is it Itsuki? It's Itsuki, right?"

At this moment, Team Leader seemed to have seen through the truth.

"Right, it's Nagato-san and Asakura-san; both of them took me in... when I drifted to this era, and then because of the fault's sudden appearance couldn't go back, the two of them helped me a lot." Xia Zhi coughed lightly, explaining.

And as an ally, he added Ryoko to the list, not leaving her out this time.

This was already quite loyal; when he got back he'd definitely make her properly repay him.

"So that's how it is... so Itsuki is the same as you, a time traveler?" Haruhi Suzumiya's beautiful eyes flashed continuously, she exclaimed softly, she was truly stunned.

"Strictly speaking, time traveler isn't the general term for our kind of people; we merely possess similar abilities."

The Magician spouted nonsense with a straight face——

"Itsuki and them are Material Information Mages, I'm an Ideal System Cultivator, there's still a bit of a difference..."

"Alright, we've seen it, let's go back."

He explained his and Nagato's and the others' setting, then directly switched topics, indicating they should return. After all, continuing to stay had no meaning; maintaining the time travel state consumed enormous energy every moment, not to mention staying here easily let Miss Suzumiya's imagination run wild.

What if her brain hole opened wide and she thought of even worse possibilities?

"Eh? This fast?"

"No choice, this is very taxing; I've already come over twice tonight..."

"O-okay..."

Miss Suzumiya was clearly reluctant, but after Xia Zhi explained the situation, she naturally wouldn't be willful; she just looked once more at that endlessly surging grand River before the wall-like colossal fault resembling a majestic Universe Wall, still couldn't help but question: "Really... no Demon King?"

"Of course not, Suzumiya-san, Demon Kings don't exist..." The Magician said with a deadpan face: "I'm a person who loves peace most; if such a thing really existed I'd definitely be the first to oppose it!"

As he spoke, he withdrew the time travel state, letting the Correction Force begin expelling the two of them.

Going was more taxing, but the return trip was extremely simple.

Just an instant, and the two drifted downstream with the current.

Pulled by some force, they seemed to instantly return to the downstream of time; the surrounding scenery also returned to normal in a short time, as if they had returned to the Reality World.

Under the pull of some Mors Strength, Fangfu instantly Arrived back at the downstream of time, the Surroundings' Scenery also Recovering to normal in a short time, as if having returned to the Reality World.

They didn't appear outside some residential complex, but in an unfamiliar City; all around were Super High-rise Buildings soaring into the sky, row upon row, various Anti-gravity Buildings everywhere, the overall structure's outer shell and glass curtain walls exuded a futuristic sci-fi atmosphere.

——At the distant Horizon's End, a incomparably majestic Tower still stood, seeming to rise straight into the Clouds; from the shell it appeared to be manufactured from unknown materials.

——It was taller than all Buildings, like a Sky Tower connecting directly to the heavens.

——Around the giant Tower, countless aircraft hovered and circled, as if transporting supplies.

And just as the two were subconsciously observing, a booming explosion sound came from the giant Tower's direction; an explosion seemed to have occurred, scorching flames soaring skyward.

Immediately after, the entire sci-fi future City rang with a piercing scream like a Spacequake Alarm.

"Nanoplague! Nanoplague detected!"

"Special Alert! Their target this time is the Space Elevator!"

"The Demon King's Grey Goo Storm has appeared; it's a Super AI attacking us!"

"The Demon King's Grey Goo Storm has appeared — it's the Super AI attacking us!"

(Chapter End)