"Hm?"
Uchiha Hikari paused for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle.
She'd been racking her brain, trying to come up with some excuse to explain the origins of her "Gundam" to Xia Mi. But to her surprise, this little dragon girl's imagination was something else! Tying the White King's "spirit" authority to the concept of "manifesting fantasies"… honestly, it wasn't a bad guess. Pretty reasonable, even.
And with that…
Even if Hikari pulled out something as wild as a Nimbus Cloud, Senzu Beans, a Teigu, or even the Nine-Tails, Xia Mi probably wouldn't bat an eye.
"Let's roll~"
With that thought, Hikari gave a casual wave. Under the envious gazes of Eriyi and Xia Mi, she climbed into the cockpit of Freedom Strike, her trusty mecha. With a deft motion, she piloted it into the air, its five pairs of blue-black wings unfurling magnificently along the riverbank, like some giant bird soaring toward the Moniah several kilometers away.
…
Meanwhile, chaos reigned aboard the Moniah.
Two hours earlier, Professor Mans, the man in charge of this operation, had braved a torrential downpour to dive beneath the river's surface. There, he'd opened the gates of the "Bronze City," allowing Ye Sheng and Jiude Aki to slip inside and begin their exploration.
But things had gone south fast.
Jiude Aki, swayed by the eerie statues within the Bronze City, had lost her grip on reality. In a daze, she'd cut her own lifeline and triggered the city's defense mechanisms, trapping herself and Ye Sheng inside. Desperate, Mans had sent an urgent distress call to the Academy's headquarters.
Without a miracle, Ye Sheng and Jiude Aki were as good as dead—trapped in the Bronze City, or worse.
"…How much longer can they hold out?" Mans asked, his face grim inside the cockpit.
"…Ye Sheng's 'Serpent' is still maintaining comms, but who knows for how long," Selma replied. "The principal's ordered headquarters to assist in decoding the Bronze City's map, but we've got nothing yet. All we can do is wait."
"Damn it!" Mans slammed his fist on the console, frustration etched into his features.
He was a veteran of the Greenland Sea incident a decade ago, so he knew exactly how dangerous dragons could be. They'd prepared for losses when they discovered the Bronze City, but facing the reality of losing Ye Sheng and Jiude Aki? It stung. Their oxygen was running out, and cracking the map and pulling off a rescue in time was next to impossible. Death seemed all but certain.
Unless…
"Captain!" Selma's voice cut through. "Headquarters just sent a map—says it was cracked by the Academy's S-rank freshman…"
Before she could finish, the first mate's voice crackled from the other side. "Captain, there's… something behind the ship. Not sure if it's alive or what. You're gonna want to see this for yourself."
"?"
Puzzled, Mans stepped outside and followed the first mate's pointing finger. His eyes widened in shock. "What the hell is that?!"
At that moment, everyone on the Moniah's deck saw it—a massive shadow hurtling toward them through the storm, flying low. As it drew closer, its form sharpened into focus: a sleek, red-and-white mecha, its streamlined body gleaming like forged steel. Five pairs of blue-black wings spread wide, spanning twenty or thirty meters, radiating an awe-inspiring presence.
"No way…" Mans muttered, his jaw dropping in disbelief.
As a professor in his fifties, he'd never watched Gundam, so Freedom Strike meant nothing to him. But he knew enough to recognize what he was looking at—
A mecha?!
Was this some insane creation from the Equipment Department? No, wait…
Mans' mind raced. The Equipment Department might dream up something like this, but there's no way they'd build it without the principal's knowledge—or deploy it without informing him, the mission leader. Which left only one possibility…
"A dragon's creation?!"
Had the Bronze and Fire King evolved to the point of crafting mecha by hand?!
"Captain, what do we do?" Selma asked quietly.
Mans thought for a split second before barking orders. "Get the 'key' ready and keep working on rescuing Ye Sheng and Aki. Arm the ship's weapons systems—if that thing makes a move, blast it!"
…
Inside Freedom Strike's cockpit, Uchiha Hikari monitored her surroundings through six screens, her thoughts racing.
"So that tall, lanky guy's Professor Mans, huh?"
"Looks pretty unremarkable…"
"They've probably already sent someone into the Bronze City, waiting for Jiude Aki to bring up the brass canister, right?"
"Hm… that shadow the infrared picked up underwater, about ten meters long—that's gotta be Samson, the third-generation dragon."
Though Hikari's Freedom Strike was a modified version of the Red Ribbon Army's mass-produced mecha, Dr. Gero had souped it up with plenty of gadgets. The infrared scanner was just one of them. The real heavy hitters were the weapons: cannons, missiles, and even torpedoes for underwater targets, all stashed in the mecha's arsenal.
Rumble…
As Hikari paused to observe, the Bronze City below let out a deafening roar, as if it had gone berserk under Mans' team's efforts. Samson, circling below, began to speed up, ready to strike at Ye Sheng and Aki if they tried to escape.
It was time.
Hikari locked onto her target, exhaled softly, and pressed a button. "Combat mode… engage!"
With a mechanical whir, Freedom Strike's outer shell shifted. Machine guns and cannons extended from its frame, aiming at the churning water. After a brief moment to lock on, a barrage of ammunition unleashed!
Six micro-torpedoes tore through the air in seconds, plunging into the Yangtze River and streaking toward the dragon's shadowy form.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Massive white waves erupted, spraying water dozens of meters high. Bubbles churned beneath the surface, spreading outward in all directions.
The dragon below displayed uncanny agility, its sleek body weaving an S-shaped path to dodge the torpedoes. But these weren't ordinary projectiles—they adjusted mid-course, homing in like relentless predators.
BOOM!
In a flash, two torpedoes struck the dragon, exploding on impact. The remaining four followed suit. The riverbed erupted in bubbles and crimson light, the water glowing red as the muffled blasts reverberated beneath the surface.
Barely ten seconds later, before the bubbles had even cleared, a massive shadow shot upward through the murky water.
Splash!
With a thunderous crash, the shadow breached the surface, soaring into the sky with terrifying force. Under the flickering lightning, it twisted like a frenzied dragon, climbing nearly thirty meters. Its long tail lashed out, hooking one of Freedom Strike's wings and yanking hard!
The mecha lurched but quickly stabilized in midair.
"Not bad, you've got some strength," Hikari muttered, hands steady on the controls, her eyes narrowing.
Samson's power was no joke. Though Hikari reacted fast to keep the mecha steady, the brief struggle drained Freedom Strike's energy reserves by several percent in mere seconds. The outer shell trembled, creaking as if it might give way.
Undeterred, Hikari kept one hand on the control stick while the other hit the fire button. The mecha's cannons swiveled, locking onto the dragon at point-blank range, and unleashed another volley!
BOOM!
Samson, still trying to drag Freedom Strike down, hadn't expected such a swift counterattack. Caught midair with no leverage, it barely released its tail before two micro-missiles slammed into its iron-blue scales, sending it crashing back into the water amid a fiery explosion and thick smoke.
Seconds later, more shells followed, pounding the target.
The river glowed red with bursts of flame, bubbles and white smoke rising as molten light seemed to boil beneath the surface.
On the Moniah, the crew stood dumbfounded.
"Wait… is this a misunderstanding? Why does it feel like this mecha's helping us?"