The Ice Phoenix Gundam unleashing a 30,000-meter "Great Treasure Sword" to annihilate countless enemies was simply too explosive for the AD Universe, which lacked any fantasy elements. It was no wonder the surrounding Earth Federation soldiers were terrified and fled in panic.
In truth, if it weren't for the genuinely sluggish speed of the Guyana-class Land Battleship, Kati Mannequin would have ordered her troops to retreat as well.
Kati Mannequin admitted that she had been utterly foolish before, actually believing that Earth Federation Mobile Suits had caught up to the shadow of SDP Mobile Suits after four years of development.
But now she couldn't escape, and after the Ice Phoenix Gundam activated Trans-Am, the high concentration of GN Particles uncontrollably triggered the Mental Chat Room once again.
This time, however, there was only one topic in the Mental Chat Room: "Monster."
There was no helping it. Reid and his dozen or so companions (including non-natives aboard the Gran Chaos) were only a small group among those witnessing this scene. The Guyana-class Land Battleship alone had more people than them.
When Celestial Beings stormed the Earth Federation's anti-government faction detention prison, the anti-Earth Federation organization Pure Source also seized the opportunity to break in, rescuing most of the prisoners.
Now, the rescued individuals had boarded ships docked along the shore and witnessed from the decks the Ice Phoenix Gundam's boundless beam sweeping across the Earth Federation army.
When faced with a powerful, unknown entity, most humans' first reaction is inevitably "monster." Thus, the entire Mental Chat Room was filled with exclamations like, "This Mobile Suit is truly a monster."
At that moment, Ange was too dizzy from spinning wildly earlier to refute anything.
But Reid couldn't stand by and let his wife be called a monster. He directly intervened, his tone icy cold:
"People of Pure Source, get out of here now. This is still a battlefield. With just those few rickety ships of yours, a single stray shot could send everyone aboard swimming in the sea."
Reid's Psychic Power was undeniably formidable, so his voice in the Mental Chat Room easily overpowered everyone else's.
Moreover, his hostile tone made it clear to all in the Mental Chat Room that the speaker was in a foul mood.
Any sensible person, when unarmed, would avoid provoking an armed and irritable individual in a lawless place.
And Reid was precisely that armed, irritable individual.
The members of Celestial Beings had experienced this Mental Chat Room four years ago, so they deliberately controlled their thoughts to avoid broadcasting them to everyone.
As for the A-Laws personnel inside the Guyana-class Land Battleship, including Kati Mannequin, they dared not make a sound, fearing they might draw the attention of the SDP commander.
Thus, under Reid's intimidation, this Mental Chat Room turned as quiet as a library.
However, the so-called effort to avoid random thoughts was, in the face of Reid's Psychic Power, merely speaking softly enough that others couldn't hear—but if he wanted to listen, he still could.
At that moment, Reid heard a distant murmur: "So scary, so scary. Don't notice me, don't notice me."
Reid recognized that voice. It belonged to the former youngest Trinity sister, Nena Trinity.
Her presence here was somewhat reasonable, as she was still working for Wang Liu Mei and hadn't betrayed her yet.
However, this time Nena Trinity would likely think twice about betrayal.
According to the information Hoshino Ruri directly uncovered, Wang Liu Mei had very conspicuously established a Mars mining company under the Wang family name to cover up Mars development activities. Taking advantage of the widespread adoption of pseudo GN Drives in basic military units, she openly loaded pseudo GN particles into large GN storage tanks. Combined with warship-mounted pseudo GN Drives, she established Earth-Mars routes, built bases, and made enormous profits by trafficking rare Martian minerals.
However, Reid believed this Mars mining company's public transportation routes were merely a cover to conceal Wang Liu Mei's substantial holdings of Martian mineral resources.
Wang Liu Mei would certainly use lightwave thrusters to establish a covert supply line for developing her forces.
The fact that lightwave thrusters hadn't appeared on A-Laws mobile suits indicated Ribbons probably hadn't discovered this secret route yet.
While Reid was suppressing the mental chat room, the external battle hadn't ceased.
Most of the Earth Federation Forces that had surrounded them from the air were now fleeing, and it would take time to restore order.
But the troops coming from space had nowhere to escape.
The Earth Federation's orbital drop troops had probably cursed their commanding officer's ancestors eighteen generations over by now.
Unfortunately, cursing couldn't solve their problem. They faced anti-air fire coverage from Gran Chaos, Delta Gundam, NT-X2 Gundam, Gundam Eclipse, Z Plus Gundam, Jet Black Hunter Gundam, three Kyubey EX units, and six Phoenix Pack Phantom Jegans.
It's worth noting that the Earth Federation could only quickly deploy a limited number of orbital drop troops - barely scraping together over thirty Ahead units using assisted landing units for the descent.
These troops were originally sent down merely to buy time in case SDP chose to break through the atmosphere and evade the aerial encirclement.
But now this delaying force had become the main combat unit, while the supposed main aerial force had fled.
The outcome was predictable - the drop troops barely put up a fight. Only one mobile suit was spared because Reid ordered its capture, while all others were blasted to pieces by various beams and missiles.
However, this lucky survivor only outlived his comrades by a few minutes.
Just as he tried to escape, Reid controlled Gundam Artemis to catch up and slammed its palm against the cockpit, vibrating the pilot to death.
After completing this, Reid determined that Earth Federation forces likely wouldn't dare to surround them again, and the mental chat room in this area had been dissolved.
Manipulating Gundam Artemis while carrying this Ahead unit, Reid ordered everyone to return to the ship.
After collecting all mobile suits, Gran Chaos didn't linger, immediately activating its stealth and disappearing.
Only after Gran Chaos vanished did others on the battlefield dare to breathe heavily.
Sumeragi in Ptolemy II immediately said:
"SDP has withdrawn, we need to retreat quickly too. Feldt, did you record the footage and data of that dual furnace machine? It activated Trans-Am just now, but what was with that abnormal particle emission and unusual beam cannon?"
When Sumeragi raised this question, Ian Vashti, who had been staying in the hangar, answered excitedly while analyzing data:
"This is the true power of the Twin Solar Furnace. According to Aeolia Schenberg's theory, the Twin Solar Furnace could theoretically achieve that level of GN Particle emission output."
He continued, "Moreover, that Gundam didn't fire a beam cannon - it was a beam saber. Absolutely unbelievable - a 30,000-meter beam saber! If Trans-Am didn't have a time limit, no amount of troops would be enough for that Mobile Suit to cut through."
Upon hearing this, Sumeragi asked in surprise, "Ian, are you saying... the 00 Gundam could also perform such an attack?"
Ian Vashti immediately denied this: "Of course the 00 Gundam can't do that. Right now, it can barely operate the Twin Drive System. When activating Trans-Am, the GN Particle output becomes extremely unstable, and the particle transfer conduits could explode at any moment. Forget forming a stable 30,000-meter beam saber - it can't even achieve the explosive GN Particle dispersion like that Twin Drive Gundam just demonstrated."
After Ian Vashti's explanation, most people aboard the Ptolemy II felt somewhat disappointed. If the 00 Gundam could perform such attacks, the A-Laws wouldn't seem so fearsome.
However, Setsuna didn't share this disappointment. Sitting in the cockpit, he gently stroked the 00 Gundam's control stick and murmured to himself, "00 Gundam... so this is your true potential..."
Meanwhile, aboard the A-Laws Guyana-class Land Battleship, Kati Mannequin and her crew were in a state of relief after surviving the ordeal.
Kati Mannequin didn't understand why SDP had left without attacking their ship, but the fact that they were still breathing was good news.
Kati Mannequin had already decided that she would submit a report to the Earth Federation Forces high command upon returning. While she understood why the Earth Federation government wanted to eliminate SDP - a mysterious force with powerful combat capabilities that operated completely outside their control - judging by the combat power SDP had displayed today, the current Earth Federation government wasn't in a position to confront SDP head-on. They urgently needed to accelerate development of new Mobile Suits and weapons.
First, the Mobile Suits delivered through Otherworld Entanglement were much stronger than anticipated. Based on today's enemy, Kati estimated they would need at least ten times the forces she had brought today to possibly surround and eliminate them.
Honestly, Kati's estimate was wildly off the mark. If Reid were to estimate, given the quality of the troops she commanded today, even twenty times the forces might not be enough to surround and eliminate those overpowered "dinosaur" machines. And this calculation didn't even include Amuro, that BUG-level pilot.
However, Kati was correct about one thing - the Earth Federation's Mobile Suit development was still inadequate. They needed to intensify development efforts and urgently required various high-powered weapons.
Kati Mannequin could already determine that future Mobile Suits delivered through Otherworld Entanglement would certainly feature various powerful shields. The Ahead's embedded lance-mounted beam cannons probably wouldn't even qualify as "scratching the surface."
In Kati's view, even the Harute's beam rifle likely lacked sufficient power. If the Earth Federation wanted to deal with Otherworld Entanglement independently without relying on SDP, they couldn't keep thinking about cost savings and focusing on outdated models like the GN-X.
Kati Mannequin's judgment was absolutely correct - her report would most likely be approved.
She wasn't the only one with this idea. Ribbons, who had observed the entire battle, thought the same.
Ribbons naturally learned of Reid's reappearance immediately, as he could monitor the entire globe through Veda.
However, the painful lesson from four years ago when he took control of Veda made Ribbons resist the impulse to directly hack into SDP's Mobile Suits through Veda.
In Ribbons' view, it was always better to be cautious when dealing with Reid Isaac.
It should be noted that Ribbons had been searching worldwide for traces of SDP for these past four years.
One could say that Ribbons had sent people to investigate every piece of land controlled by the Earth Federation, yet he found nothing.
This made Ribbons suspect that SDP might be hiding deep underground, or perhaps concealed in some corner of space like Celestial Being.
However, Reid hadn't come to cause trouble for him during these four years either, which led Ribbons to believe that Reid might not know about Celestial Being's existence, or even if he did, couldn't confirm its location.
Because he confirmed that Reid couldn't directly drop in front of him, Ribbons dared to use intermediaries to mobilize the Earth Alliance's massive forces to surround and eliminate Reid.
Of course, Ribbons didn't actually believe that tens of thousands of troops could truly eradicate SDP. If SDP were that easy to eliminate, his four years of constant anxiety would have been somewhat unnecessary.
But what Ribbons never expected was that his probing attack would directly reveal a royal flush.
And clearly, this royal flush could be played repeatedly - it wasn't some weapon that came with a heavy cost per use.
However, Ribbons didn't yet have the technical theory of Twin Solar Furnace resonance at this point, so he didn't realize that the key to Ice Phoenix Gundam's move required two resonant GN Drives activating Trans-Am.
Ribbons simply thought Reid had used some black technology from SDP's backing organization to greatly amplify the Trans-Am System's power.
But Ice Phoenix Gundam's feat of destroying ten thousand with one sword nearly made Ribbons' golden-glowing eyes pop out of their sockets. His mind could only think: what should he do if this sword came slashing at him in the future?
Even after Gran Chaos disappeared while cloaked, Ribbons remained sitting on the sofa, frowning and pondering deeply.
After this battle, Ribbons had determined that human wave tactics would probably be ineffective against SDP's forces.
It should be noted that the unusually large Mothership still had a powerful Beam Cannon aboard - Reid's forces clearly weren't lacking in weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, if they could build one Dual Furnace Machine Gundam, they could build two. If seven or eight such Gundams started rotating in circles, no amount of troops would be enough for them to cut down.
But when comparing which side had more elite forces, Ribbons felt that the few people he had under him could hardly compete with SDP.
And it wasn't just about weak personnel - the several new Mobile Suits he developed based on GNZ-001 Cerberus Gundam didn't seem to be stronger than SDP's machines from four years ago. To be precise, in a real one-on-one fight, except for those six obviously Custom Mass Production Machines, they would likely be at a disadvantage against other true Custom Machines.
If they faced that Dual Furnace Machine or the Mobile Suit piloted by Reid Isaac, there would probably be a significant generational gap in machine performance.
Just as Ribbons was looking glum, Regene Regetta—who enjoyed opposing him—came over intending to mock him after learning about SDP's reappearance and the disastrous defeat suffered by the troops Ribbons had dispatched.
Regene Regetta was seen smiling as she descended the stairs into the courtyard where Ribbons liked to spend his time, then deliberately brought up the sore subject by asking:
"Ribbons, I heard you sent the Earth Federation forces to suppress SDP. How did it go?"
Ribbons, currently deep in thought, couldn't be bothered to engage with Regene Regetta's sarcasm. Instead, he asked with a stern expression:
"Regetta, tell me—is it possible to design a weapon that can grow larger or smaller at will? When enlarged, its output becomes exceptionally massive, while still maintaining decent output when shrunk. Ideally, it should also possess some penetrating power."
Regene Regetta: "?????"
(End of Chapter)