This arc basically features two worlds - one shown in this episode, and the same land in the distant past. Most of the arc’s events take place in the past, and so the future is altered; it has a slight bearing on the main plot regarding the villains, but nothing that noticably changes anything in the way the series progresses. In fact, I can think of little that actually happens in this arc that will take more than a few episodes to resolve, because even in the manga it seems like a brief visit. The next arc from the manga, however, is quite a long one, focusing on a young Kurogane clone in another world.

The anime’s indeed a bloody mess. So many things don’t seem right at all. I’m also wondering what will happen in order to extend this arc. I mean, nothing so far has happened in order to make it resolve in more than one episode. I don’t know what’s up with the creators. When they should be taking things easy and stalling time in order to not catch up with the manga, they suddenly increase the pacing by a factor 3.

It’s best just to disregard the bad guys - I’m serious when I say it seems CLAMP has forgotten they exist. In the next world after this one, we should learn more about the soldiers who attacked Clow in episode one, but they do not seem to have links to Fei Wong and his assistant, and the world after that has too many great characters for Fei Wong to even make a cameo.