Reid issued the command, and the Gran Chaos fired its cannon almost immediately.
However, the effect of the shot was far worse than Reid had anticipated.
Of course, it wasn't because the dragons had jointly deployed a Magical Shield or similar skill to block the Gran Chaos's Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon.
Rather, these dragons were highly sensitive to high-energy entities. As the Gran Chaos charged its energy, the distant dragon swarm clearly detected it and began to disperse their formation.
By the time the Gran Chaos's Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon fired, the Ray Axis was nearly devoid of dragons. The swarm had shifted into a ring formation, completely evading the blast.
If not for the cannon's ability to sweep sideways with the ship's movement, eliminating a portion of the smaller Flying Dragons, that shot would have been a complete miss—and it failed to split the dragon swarm as intended.
It must be said that dragons, being biological entities, inherently surpass Mobile Suits in fine control. Moreover, these frenzied dragons knew no fear.
So, upon discovering a ship capable of firing such a powerful beam, the dragon swarm immediately changed targets. Like a colossal dragon unfurling its maw in the sky, they launched a pincer attack on the Gran Chaos from above and below.
Yet, the Gran Chaos was waiting for them.
The ship was covered in anti-air machine cannons and High-Energy Laser Cannons. No matter how many small dragons charged in, they were merely delivering themselves—or their heads—to their doom.
After all, expecting their claws to tear through the Gran Chaos's armor was asking too much of these small dragons. Even if they ground their claws to nubs and shattered their teeth, they stood no chance of breaching the Laminated Armor.
Furthermore, the Black Tri-Stars and the Xia sisters were already piloting their Mobile Suits, standing ready, with support from numerous Automated Soldier Murasames. By all appearances, this battle was unwinnable for the dragons.
As for the giant dragons, they could indeed inflict significant damage on the Gran Chaos, but at this point, they were like clay Bodhisattvas crossing a river—barely able to save themselves.
The Joyeuse Gundam's Supersonic GN Buster Sword transformed the five-meter radius around it into a meat grinder. However many small dragons rushed into this zone, they were instantly reduced to scattered fragments.
Fortunately, creatures delivered through Otherworld Entanglement vanished into code upon death, leaving no genetic samples behind. Otherwise, the land below this airspace would have been blessed—dragon meat and blood would have rained down, and any grass growing there in the future could be branded as Dragon Blood Grass and sold for astronomical prices.
With the small dragons utterly unable to close in, Reid simply had to charge forward recklessly in his Mobile Suit, quickly closing in on a giant dragon.
To be honest, facing a seventy-meter-class dragon, the less-than-twenty-meter Joyeuse Gundam wasn't even as large as its massive head.
But this particular dragon that Reid chose clearly had some wits about it. It immediately opened its jaws and roared, attempting to distract Reid.
Simultaneously with the roar, the dragon executed a tail sweep, ambushing the Joyeuse Gundam from behind in an attempt to swat it right in front of itself—where it could either crush or melt it with a single bite.
Unfortunately, merely distracting Reid was futile, as the Joyeuse Gundam also housed Nein.
Moreover, Reid could sense the malice emanating from these giant dragons, so the tail sweep was an open play to him.
Since the smaller dragons had already voluntarily avoided the battlefield between the Joyeuse Gundam and the giant dragon, Reid directly controlled two GN Buster Swords to stab straight into the dragon's eyes. Though it had eight eyes, for the GN Buster Swords, it was merely a matter of making two more slashes.
Meanwhile, Reid manipulated the Mobile Suit to draw a Hyper Beam Sword from the leg storage compartment. However, Reid had no intention of activating Trans-Am here; he simply infused a massive amount of GN Particles, creating a forty-meter-long beam greatsword.
Then, Reid executed a Mobile Suit version of the Lion Slash mid-air (a move from Elden Ring, essentially a jump followed by a 360° vertical downward slash).
With Nein assisting in controlling the main thrusters and peripheral nozzles, the Joyeuse Gundam maintained its posture without tumbling during the aerial maneuver.
Moreover, the upward burst of thrust just allowed it to evade the dragon's tail sweep, and the unfortunate tail collided directly with the beam greatsword, slicing off the dragon's most prized tail meat.
Unfortunately, this piece of meat couldn't be preserved, as before the dragon could even register the pain of its severed tail, the two GN Buster Swords gave it a taste of what it's like to be a blind dragon.
Thankfully, its blindness lasted less than a second before the forty-meter beam greatsword came crashing down vertically, splitting the dragon clean in half. It then dissolved into red code and vanished.
Just as Reid completed his dragon slaying, Belfgang also achieved his first dragon kill.
As a seasoned anime enthusiast, Belfgang had always fantasized about being transported to a magical medieval world to become a hero—marrying a princess, slaying dragons, and defeating demon kings.
Though the former and latter were unlikely to ever happen, the opportunity to slay a dragon was now right before his eyes. Belfgang felt this might be his one and only chance in this lifetime.
So, Belfgang first disabled team voice chat to avoid social embarrassment, then shouted in the cockpit, "Loto (protagonist of the classic game Dragon Quest III), Dracon (legendary dragon-slaying hero from Heroes of Might and Magic III), grant me your power!"
He then flew above the target dragon, combined the Mystic Lightning's two long swords into a greatsword, and activated the Mirage Colloid System to begin freefall.
The dragons in the Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon universe clearly lacked specialized targeting capabilities. With the Mirage Colloid System active and no thruster exhaust to reveal its position, the dragon remained completely unaware of someone executing a sword technique descending from above.
By the time the dragon heard the whistling sound of the high-speed falling object, it was already too late to evade.
Belfgang successfully maneuvered the Mobile Suit to deliver a vertical slash to the dragon's neck. Though the Mystic Lightning's greatsword could only cut halfway through the neck, Belfgang immediately followed up by controlling the suit to horizontally slice toward the dragon's body, completely severing the neck at a diagonal angle.
Since these dragons were originally transformed humans, they still largely adhered to the basic principles of carbon-based lifeforms. Thus, having its neck severed in this manner meant certain death. The dragon let out a mournful cry as it plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ground and creating a large crater before dissolving into red code and disappearing within minutes.
With Reid and Belfgang successfully slaying dragons, the Gran Chaos faced minimal pressure as well. The smaller dragons were swiftly eliminated under the concentrated firepower of the ship and its escort Mobile Suits.
If there was any point of concern, it ironically fell upon Ange—the one Reid had considered least likely to fail.
In Reid's eyes, Ange should have possessed considerable knowledge about the Villkiss. If not for the absence of the ancestral ring on her hand, the Villkiss would have likely defected publicly by now.
However, Reid had forgotten that this version of Ange beside him was from before she encountered Tusk in the original storyline. Though her combat talent had already awakened, her understanding of her Mobile Suit was not as profound as in the mid-to-late stages of the original story, nor was she aware of the Mobile Suit's various supernatural abilities.
Meanwhile, Jill, currently piloting the Villkiss, was in her prime condition (from before her hand was severed). Although she had never managed to unlock the Villkiss's true potential, she had already awakened it to the extent that it could enter chaotic spacetime domains in search of Embryo.
As someone with royal bloodline, Jill's physical prowess was originally no weaker than Ange's. It was only through the system templates provided by Reid over the past two years that Ange had significantly enhanced her parameters, thus surpassing Jill.
Regarding the Mobile Suits, even in its unawakened state, the Villkiss—as a Genesis God Machine—could match the Ice Phoenix Gundam in output power. This only demonstrated how unreasonable the Lonium Element was, forcibly transforming an extremely poorly designed aerial motorcycle into a divine machine.
The area where Jill's current Villkiss fell short compared to the Ice Phoenix Gundam was its limited arsenal: just a gun, a sword, a shield, and a freeze bullet usable only at close range.
However, in terms of piloting skills, Ange—who was accustomed to overwhelming opponents through numerical superiority and preferred direct, micro-management combat—found her experienced opponent Jill particularly slippery to deal with.
Since the Villkiss's MS Mode was a compact model standing only about 8 meters tall, its short-range mobility was exceptionally quick.
Moreover, whether enchanted or otherwise, the Villkiss's sword—which couldn't even break through the Cherudim Gundam's armor in one strike—could still clash evenly with the Ice Phoenix Gundam's Ship-Slicing Sword. As the battle progressed, the sword gradually became enveloped in red light, while the Ice Phoenix Gundam's Ship-Slicing Sword began showing signs of damage.
This highlighted the Villkiss's super robot tendencies—the machine responded to its pilot's emotions. Though limited by missing activation requirements, its combat capabilities would indeed increase alongside the pilot's rising fighting spirit.
Ange grew increasingly frustrated during the fight. Despite employing Funnel Blades and Absolute Zero Bullets, she simply couldn't land a hit on her opponent.
Meanwhile, her opponent in the Villkiss continued matching her blade strikes, with each impact growing stronger.
Had the Lambda Driver on the Ice Phoenix Gundam not been increasing in power alongside Ange's intensifying Focus, the Villkiss would likely have already destroyed the Ice Phoenix Gundam's weapons.
Finally, Ange decided she had endured enough. With a cry of "Trans-Am," the Ice Phoenix Gundam entered its burst mode.
Having witnessed Elvira Hill's specialized cloak for controlling special particles on the Moon, Reid had naturally equipped the Ice Phoenix Gundam with corresponding technology.
Though Reid had taken it a step further by implementing an Armor Purge Mode on the Ice Phoenix Gundam as well.
When Trans-Am was activated, the massively overflowing particles from the Ice Phoenix Gundam directly formed a crimson armor on the surface of the mobile suit. Between the gaps of its dual wings, particle wings extended, causing the mobile suit's back to suddenly sprout a pair of large wings composed of GN Particles.
This time, when activating Trans-Am, Ange was targeting a single enemy, so she didn't create a 30,000-meter-long beam saber. Instead, she condensed the GN Particles to the point where they almost formed a solid entity, crafting a seven-to-eight-meter-long Great Treasure Sword on the Hyper Beam Sword.
In the next instant, the Ice Phoenix Gundam vanished from the sight of Jill inside the Villkiss.
However, Jill at her peak wouldn't freeze up just because she lost sight of her opponent. Relying on her sixth sense, she immediately maneuvered her mobile suit to block upward.
Sure enough, the Ice Phoenix Gundam appeared directly above her.
This time, the Villkiss's sword couldn't hold up. The highly compressed GN Particle Beam Sword easily broke through the red light enveloping the blade, and the sword was cleanly severed.
But Jill used the tremendous force to intentionally let her mobile suit be sent flying.
Ange, however, had no intention of letting her prey escape. The two GN Particle Version VSBR Beam Cannons immediately opened fire in pursuit.
Under the Trans-Am state, the power of GN Particle-related weapons increased dramatically. Even though Jill, who had intentionally been sent flying by the slash, barely managed to maneuver the Villkiss to block the two beams with the beam shield on its left arm, the shield and the left arm were instantly blown away. With the Villkiss now one-armed, it had lost the majority of its combat capability.
At this point, all Ange needed to do was charge forward and deliver a casual follow-up strike to end the battle. Then, it would be a matter of whether the technology from this downed Villkiss could allow Reid to recreate it.
But Ange hadn't anticipated how ruthless the enraged Jill could be. Knowing she was already defeated, Jill, in a desperate attempt to drag down this irritating enemy, issued a mad command to the Aurora Goddess, which was providing missile support from the sky.
Just as Ange raised her sword to thrust and completely pierce the Villkiss's cockpit, she suddenly sensed immense danger approaching from above.
At the same time, Hoshino Ruri's warning echoed through the squad comms:
"Ange, be careful! The enemy mothership has fired its main cannon at you!"
Yes, Jill's final command was to use the Aurora Goddess's special main cannon, the Type-N Cold Line Destruction Cannon, to attack her own position.
This weapon was of the same type as the Absolute Zero Bullet on the Ice Phoenix Gundam, with one key difference: while the Absolute Zero Bullet was a single burst, this main cannon delivered sustained irradiation.
It could be said that, among all the materials known to Reid, none could withstand this cannon's firepower through their inherent cold resistance alone.
If directly hit by this cannon, whether it was a mobile suit or a ship, it would instantly freeze to a crispness surpassing that of a potato chip, ultimately collapsing under its own weight.
Jill had issued a mad command, and the deranged commander on the Aurora Goddess naturally had no reservations. In fact, the commander was so insane that they charged the cannon inside the ship, only deploying it just before firing.
By the time Hoshino Ruri detected it, it was already too late. The cannon barrel had just finished deploying, and the beam was immediately fired.
Ange had no time to maneuver her Mobile Suit to pull the Hyper Beam Sword from the Villkiss and unleash a beam to block the attack. She could only gamble on whether the external GN Particle armor of her Mobile Suit could save her life.
However, just as Ange watched the massive white beam approaching with a hint of despair, the Joyeuse Gundam appeared before her as if teleporting.
At this moment, the Joyeuse Gundam was clearly also in Trans-Am state, but its particles were not red—instead, they were golden and formed an aura reminiscent of a divine halo behind a deity.
Of course, the Joyeuse Gundam didn't appear before the Ice Phoenix Gundam intending to physically block the beam cannon.
Instead, accompanied by Reid's furious roar of "Aaaaaah—!" from the cockpit, the Hyper Beam Sword in the Joyeuse Gundam's hand crackled with lightning and erupted with a golden GN Particle Beam, colliding head-on with the Aurora Goddess's Type-N Cold Line Destruction Cannon.
The nearly solidified particles and the beam capable of nearly halting particle activity clashed directly—there was no explosion, nor any spacetime distortion.
All that remained were countless ice spikes shooting out from between the two beams.
For the creatures on the ground in this airspace, it was as if the sky had suddenly begun hailing large, diamond-shaped, extremely cold ice chunks with sharp ends.
Even if just one of these ice chunks fell to the ground, it would instantly freeze the surrounding water molecules, forming a small patch of ice. As they hailed down like this, the ground in the airspace rapidly transformed into an icy plain, with temperatures plummeting below zero.
All the onlookers around gaped in awe at this scene resembling a mythical war, their eyes and minds filled with nothing but shock.
Ribbons was no exception, though his astonishment stemmed from a different reason. He kept murmuring to himself:
"Instant teleportation viable for actual combat... This is truly troublesome."
(End of Chapter)