Consider the following distance query for an n-node graph G undergoing edge insertions and deletions: given two sets of nodes I and J, return the distances between every pair of nodes in I × J. This query is rather general and captures several versions of the dynamic shortest paths problem. In this paper, we develop an efficient (1 + ǫ)-approximation algorithm for this query using fast matrix multiplication. Our algorithm leads to answers for some open problems for Single-Source and All-Pairs Shortest Paths (SSSP and APSP), as well as for Diameter, Radius, and Eccentricities. Below are some highlights. Note that all our algorithms guarantee worstcase update time and are randomized (Monte Carlo), but do not need the oblivious adversary assumption.Subquadratic update time for SSSP, Diameter, Centralities, ect.: When we want to maintain distances from a single node explicitly (without queries), a fundamental question is to beat trivially calling Dijkstra's static algorithm after each update, taking Θ(n 2 ) update time on dense graphs. A better time complexity was not known even with amortization. It was known to be improbable for exact algorithms and for combinatorial any-approximation algorithms to polynomially beat the Ω(n 2 ) bound (under some conjectures) [Roditty, Zwick, ESA'04; Abboud, V. Williams, FOCS'14]. 1 Our algorithm with I = {s} and J = V (G) implies a (1+ǫ)-approximation algorithm for this, guaranteeingÕ(n 1.823 /ǫ 2 ) worst-case update time for directed graphs with positive real weights in [1, W ]. 2 With ideas from [Roditty, V. Williams, STOC'13], we also obtain the first subquadratic worst-case update time for (5/3 + ǫ)-approximating the eccentricities and (1.5 + ǫ)-approximating the diameter and radius for unweighted graphs (with small additive errors). We also obtain the first subquadratic worst-case update time for (1 + ǫ)-approximating the closeness centralities for undirected unweighted graphs.Worst-case update time for APSP: When we want to maintain distances between all-pairs of nodes explicitly, theÕ(n 2 ) amortized update time by Demetrescu and Italiano [STOC'03] already matches the trivial Ω(n 2 ) lower bound. A fundamental question is whether it can be made worst-case. The state-of-the-art algorithm takesÕ(n 2+2/3 ) worst-case update time to maintain the distances exactly [Abraham, Chechik, Krinninger, SODA'17; Thorup STOC'05]. When it comes to (1 + ǫ) approximation, this bound is still higher than calling theÕ(n ω /ǫ)-time static algorithm of Zwick [FOCS'98], where ω ≈ 2.373. Our algorithm with I = J = V (G) implies nearly tight bounds for this, namelyÕ(n 2 /ǫ 1+ω ) for undirected unweighted graphs and O(n 2.045 /ǫ 2 ) for directed graphs with positive real weights. Besides this, we also obtain the first dynamic APSP algorithm with subquadratic update time and sublinear query time.