The dragon's roar echoed through the skies, audible not just to the manor directly beneath it, but even to those on the streets of distant cities who could hear the commotion above.
Reid, who had been lying low waiting for the Otherworld Entanglement phenomenon to pass, was stunned when he heard the dragon's roar.
Although he had once used Tem Ray's appearance to deceive the world in the Mollaria Republic by claiming mythical creatures would appear, Reid never actually believed such a situation would occur.
After all this time, Reid had begun to recognize some patterns in his system's behavior.
The system never assigned missions or tests with opponents that severely exceeded his capabilities. But worlds with dragons were generally connected to super robot-style Mobile Suits. Given Reid's current strength, how could he possibly fight against those idealistic monster mechas from the super robot genre?
Now that the dragon had appeared, Reid had no choice but to face it.
Though Reid had always valued his life and would never force himself to fight opponents he couldn't defeat—after all, he only had one life—a few dragon roars weren't enough to scare him. He decided to first see who his opponent was before making any decisions.
So Reid didn't bother with Ribbons, who was having a mental breakdown after learning about the dragon's arrival through Veda, and directly jumped out of the window.
Ribbons was only on the second floor, with the windowsill about four to five meters from the ground. This distance posed no challenge to Reid, who had inherited Heero's physical capabilities.
Ange faced no difficulties either. Seeing Reid jump out the window, she immediately followed suit because the dragon roars felt strangely familiar to her, awakening memories she had nearly forgotten.
With Ange having jumped, the Xia sisters guarding the door naturally rushed into the room and began jumping out the window as well—apparently experts never use the main entrance.
Of course, before jumping, Reid didn't forget to notify everyone in the manor to evacuate. Hoshino Ruri would deploy everyone's Mobile Suits, and the Artificial Intelligence in each unit would guide them to their respective owners.
For instance, the highly proactive 99 System: the moment Reid landed, a fierce gust of wind swept past him, and the Joyeuse Gundam landed directly in front of him. The cockpit then opened, revealing Nein poking her head out and shouting:
"Reid, get in quickly! That's a real dragon! Let's go fight it and see how they differ from the ones in games."
It was only then that Reid got a clear look at the appearance of the dragon that had appeared this time.
A massive black body nearly seventy to eighty meters long, shimmering with an eerie red light, accompanied by swarms of smaller dragons covering the sky. Good heavens, weren't these the dragons from Ange's world?
If Reid recognized these dragons, Ange—who had jumped out the window alongside him—naturally recognized them as well.
Ange felt as if her past memories were attacking her. Gritting her teeth, she said:
"So it's these beasts. Perfect timing—I can finally take my revenge."
Hearing this, Reid recalled the time when he had summoned Ange. It seemed she didn't know that these dragons were actually humans, just as she had never known that Vivian was also a dragon.
However, Reid had no intention of adding to Ange's guilt, so he kept his mouth shut. After all, the dragons brought by the Otherworld Entanglement would certainly lack rationality—they were all mad dragons. This was evident as the dozen or so giant dragons recklessly cast magic to destroy the city, making it seem like a monster invasion.
If these were the only enemies, Reid would consider this Otherworld Entanglement encounter to be quite manageable.
Because the dragons from Ange's world are famously high in attack, large in size, thick in flesh, and low in defense.
Although these behemoths possess magical shields, they are rather ineffective against close-range attacks. In the original work, even the physical swords of ordinary Paramails (Phantom Machine Armors) could pierce their skin and inflict effective damage.
Strictly speaking, these dragons are all mages.
As for the smaller dragons, while they are quite agile, their attacks rely on claws and teeth. Although capable of chewing through metal and tearing apart steel, their methods of attack are overly simplistic.
However, the smaller dragons have very poor defense; it's estimated that even 70mm-class Head Vulcan Guns could mow them down.
So these smaller dragons are purely numerous—currently filling the sky in dense swarms, numbering at least tens of thousands.
Unfortunately, the system's assessment mission wouldn't actually let Reid bring over a bunch of weaklings.
By the time Reid boarded the Joyeuse Gundam, the dragon army had already engaged the city defense forces of the Earth Federation.
At that moment, six small Mobile Suits charged out from the dragon swarm, displaying extreme mobility as they picked off the Earth Federation's Ahead units one by one with precise shots.
Simultaneously, the dragon swarm in the sky dispersed, revealing a clearly human-tech Mothership among them—the Sea-Air Carrier Dawn Goddess, secretly built by Arzenal in Ange's world for rebellion.
Well, Reid understood now—this was the human-dragon alliance from the last two episodes of the storyline. And moreover, the six Mobile Suits that had just emerged were firing Beam weapons, clearly not ordinary Paramails. Could it be that the Rose Knights' Twilight Armor had come too?
Just as Reid was still wondering who else might be among this batch of enemies, the reinforcements from Celestial Beings had arrived.
Since Reid had made early contact with Celestial Beings, he naturally wouldn't pass up their combat strength. Last night, Reid had already arranged with Sumeragi that if Otherworld Entanglement occurred and he couldn't immediately board his Mobile Suit to stop it, Celestial Beings would come to buy time.
Of course, only two Mobile Suits from Celestial Beings could make it this time—the Arios Gundam and the Cherudim Gundam.
At that moment, Lyle in the Cherudim (it's easier to avoid confusion by using his name directly, since the previous Lockon is still alive) was ranting wildly in the team voice chat:
"My god, I haven't had any chuunibyou delusions about growing up to slay dragons since I was about ten years old. And now it turns out dragons really exist in the world? Am I really going to become a dragon-slaying hero today?"
Sumeragi was also brainstorming furiously. She never imagined she'd one day have to formulate tactics against dragons as enemies. When it came to dragons, she was completely in the dark—how were they supposed to fight this?
So Sumeragi could only repeatedly recall the characteristics of dragons from legends while combining them with the enemy's observable attack methods, commanding:
"Our enemies this time are dragons—we need to be extremely careful.
Those small dragons haven't shown any long-range attack methods yet, but those larger dragons can deploy magic circles around themselves, releasing scattered attacks of unknown energy. Judging by the explosive power upon impact, each shot has the force of a small Anti-ship Missile, so special caution is required.
Moreover, legendary dragons all have breath attacks. Although these ones haven't used breath attacks yet, we should assume they possess the ability to destroy a Gundam in one hit. So avoid close combat—maintain mobility and provide long-range suppression.
Also, be careful of those small Mobile Suits. They're very fast, capable of taking out Ahead units with single shots, and appear to have considerable attack power."
These were the best countermeasures Sumeragi could devise on short notice. Since the enemy was known only as "Dragons" with all other details unclear, maintaining distance while executing mobile attacks was the safest approach.
Thus Lyle and Alleluia immediately carried out the orders. The Fallen Angel charged toward the dragon swarm in MA Mode, launching a volley of GN Missiles before instantly making a ninety-degree turn to circle the creatures.
While GN Missiles could destroy smaller dragons with single hits, these diminutive drakes proved exceptionally agile. Their true forms were female dragon-kin, and even when berserk, their combat instincts drove them to evade incoming missiles. Dozens of missiles created spectacular fireworks displays, but in reality, very few enemies were eliminated.
Soon, massive swarms of small dragons began surrounding and pursuing the Fallen Angel.
Truthfully, the Fallen Angel's MA Mode flight speed far surpassed these dragons, but Alleluia couldn't simply accelerate to create distance. If these dragons stopped chasing the Fallen Angel, they would turn to attack the city below.
The outcome of ordinary people encountering such "ferocious beasts" required no speculation. Therefore, the Fallen Angel had to firmly maintain the dragons' attention until SDP reinforcements arrived.
However, since the Fallen Angel wasn't fleeing, it inevitably drew the attention of the Twilight Mobile Suits. Soon, two pitch-black Mobile Suits locked onto the Fallen Angel.
Had Reid been present, his psychic senses would have immediately identified that among the six Mobile Suits were alternate-world counterparts of Salya, Elsa, and Chris.
The ones currently targeting the Fallen Angel were Elsa and Chris.
Although these two had chosen administrative roles in Reid's team due to their aversion to warfare, they had served as heavy gunners in Arzenal's First Paramail Squadron.
Thus their marksmanship was actually quite proficient. Combined with the constant compression of the Fallen Angel's evasion space by numerous small dragons, Alleluia suddenly found enemies surrounding him in all directions—front, back, left, right, above, and below—with nowhere to escape. Eventually, he had to revert to MS Mode, using GN Submachine Guns to rapidly clear the small dragons constricting his movement space.
A similar situation developed with the Cherudim Gundam. Lyle had initially seized an opportunity to snipe the several pitch-black giant dragons.
However, reality delivered a harsh lesson to Lyle. The beam fired by the Cherudim was directly blocked by magical circles appearing around the dark dragons, which promptly counterattacked with lightning breath.
Fortunately, Sumeragi had warned them to remain vigilant against dragon breath attacks. Seeing the giant dragon raise its head and open its mouth, Lyle immediately executed evasion maneuvers without hesitation.
Thus the lightning strike missed the Cherudim.
Thankfully, the Cherudim dodged this attack. These dragons' so-called magic was obtained through consuming pollutants containing Lonium Element energy (the super element discovered by Embryo). The giant dragons could essentially be treated as massive Lonium Element biological batteries.
Consequently, all magic unleashed by the dragons contained Lonium Element. If one mistook their lightning breath for ordinary lightning, even a Celestial Being Gundam would be shot down upon taking a single hit.
But dodging one attack didn't guarantee safety. The remaining four special Mobile Suits that hadn't pursued the Fallen Angel now all came targeting the Cherudim.
Moreover, the lead unit differed from the others—it featured blue-and-white coloration.
These four units coordinated with remarkable synergy, and the Beam Shields on their left arms possessed extremely strong defensive capabilities. The Cherudim's sniper beams couldn't penetrate their defenses at all.
If the Cherudim's sniper beams couldn't break through, there was even less hope that GN Beam Pistols could breach their defenses.
As for the GN Missiles, these Mobile Suit pilots were clearly experts—the missiles either missed entirely or were shot down by their rifles.
Lyle currently cursed why his Mobile Suit wasn't equipped with a Beam Saber. Relying solely on a beam pistol made close combat against these exceptionally agile units impossible.
Especially that blue-and-white leader unit, whose mobility speed was terrifyingly fast. If not for its physical sword being rather ineffective against the Cherudim's armor, he would have been shot down long ago.
Even though the physical sword attacks were merely scratching the surface, multiple strikes would still overwhelm the Cherudim. By now, several armor sections were already issuing warnings.
With the enemy's relentless attacks, Lyle was beginning to feel desperate.
Fortunately, Lyle ultimately held out until reinforcements arrived.
A tremendously powerful beam shot directly through the perimeter of small dragons, targeting the blue-and-white unit chasing the Cherudim and forcing it to retreat.
The Ice Phoenix Gundam charged forward right behind the beam. At that moment, in Reid's squad comms, Ange was shouting:
"Don't use my Villkiss for such tasteless things!!"
Indeed, the original storyline had only five Rose Knights' Twilight Armors, but here there were six, with the leader being the Villkiss.
Actually, when Reid discovered the enemy was led by the Villkiss, he nearly chose to abandon the assessment mission and retreat with the entire team.
If the pilot inside was Ange, setting aside whether he could bring himself to fight her or how skilled she was, the Convergence Spacetime Cannon alone would make Reid keep his distance.
After all, no one on Reid's side could withstand the Convergence Spacetime Cannon—even a glancing hit would be fatal.
Ange piloting the Villkiss was like wielding a specialized weapon, boosting combat power exponentially—essentially a real-type Mobile Suit carrying a super-weapon ranked among the top in super robot categories.
At this point, most of Reid's team lacked the ability to evade Ange's controlled Convergence Spacetime Cannon.
However, since Ange rushed toward the Villkiss the moment she saw it, Reid had no choice but to follow.
Flying closer, Reid sensed that the psychic power within this Villkiss didn't seem to belong to Ange.
Having been in intimate contact with Ange for so long, he couldn't possibly mistake her mental wave.
If it wasn't Ange, yet someone could pilot the Villkiss, there was only one candidate: the First Princess of the Gallian Empire, Alethea Maria von Löwenherz.
If that name was too long, there was the shorter title used by Arzenal Commander, Jill.
Realizing the Villkiss pilot was Jill, Reid immediately felt relieved.
The combat prowess displayed by this Villkiss pilot was probably only slightly stronger than the original Rose Knights' Twilight Armors.
Without the Convergence Spacetime Cannon, without the pure blue state's teleportation, or the pure red state's power burst mode, Reid naturally didn't consider the Villkiss unbeatable.
Therefore, when Ange charged into enemy lines intending to personally deal with the one who had defiled her exclusive weapon, Reid saw that everyone else had boarded their Mobile Suits and immediately commanded:
"Liuli, fire a Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon at the dragon swarm. The primary objective of this shot is to cut through the dragon formation. Use an elevated angle and be careful not to hit the city.
After firing, deploy the entire Muramasa Squad. We need them to provide air combat fire support now.
Gaia, you three return to the Mothership and switch to long-barreled ballistic Gatling guns. These are more efficient than Beam Rocket Launchers for clearing out the smaller dragons.
Yufang, Yulan, you two go assist Ange in dealing with those small Mobile Suits. Be aware, they have high mobility and their Beam Rifles are not to be underestimated.
Belfgang, you and I will take care of those large dragons.
Oh, and Liuli, once Celestial Beings' 00 Gundam and Seraphim Gundam are airborne, have them engage the enemy Mothership.
If Earth Federation and A-Laws forces arrive, inform them to protect the city and eliminate any enemies we've missed.
If they insist on participating in the battle, directly and clearly tell them that I'm still angry about what happened last time. If they interfere in my battlefield, I'll attack them along with the enemy."
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