Seeing no more powerful enemies left to fight on the battlefield, Reid could only vent his frustrations on the grunts.
However, to the three-bloc allied forces on the scene, the SDP's units were their saviors.
The EMP blast had left the allied forces with only a few operational Mobile Suits. Even though the CE army's Mobile Suits were unstable on their feet, they could still adapt and open fire.
The numerical balance had instantly shifted from an advantage to a severe disadvantage. With support from the periphery nowhere in sight, the ground forces of the three blocs were on the verge of despair.
Fortunately, at this critical moment, the Celestial Beings' Gundams first went all out to halt the enemy's initial advance. Then, after Gundam Artemis entered the ground battle, it began to unleash its might.
Funnels were famously effective for clearing out mobs.
Gundam Artemis alone put out the firepower of a standard Mobile Suit battalion. The CE grunts on the ground could only be said to have returned to their fate of being harvested by battlefield AOE, and they were taken out en masse with great ease.
After the other members of the squad cooperated with Reid to clean up all the CE Mobile Suits on the battlefield, Reid stared at the large crater beneath the Justice's self-destruct location and the World Change Fluctuation Value, which had dropped to 15.514% and would go no lower. He remained silent for a long time.
It seemed this battle and the nuclear explosion had thrown this world into even greater chaos. Reid couldn't predict what the Earth Federation would do next after its formation.
But he would cross that bridge when he came to it. There was little point in thinking about it now. Reid glanced at the Celestial Beings' Gundams, which were already retreating, and at the three-bloc allied forces, who were powerless to pursue due to the widespread shutdown of their Mobile Suits. In the end, he simply gave the order to regroup, return to the Gran Chaos, and then depart under stealth.
After leaving the desert, Celestial Beings quickly escaped the Human Reform League's territory. Reid and the others were naturally transported back to the CE Universe.
But to Reid's surprise, the subsequent changes in the AD Universe were even greater than he had imagined.
With the failure of the plan to ambush the Celestial Beings' Gundams in the Taklamakan Desert, the Human Reform League, the Union, and the AEU had suffered devastating losses.
As the host nation that had deployed the most troops, the Human Reform League naturally lost the most.
A post-battle assessment of the battlefield revealed that, not counting the destroyed Mobile Suits, 90% of the surviving MS required a large-scale replacement of their internal Electronic Components, and the internal electronic equipment of all MS needed a complete overhaul.
Although they were clearing out old inventory, the various missiles and artillery shells were still a loss. Adding the subsequent pensions for fallen soldiers and other expenses, the top brass of the military nearly had a heart attack from the pain of seeing the bill and the list of elite soldiers lost.
As for the Union and the AEU, they were more pained by the loss of their Mobile Suits and elite pilots.
The Union's elite Union Real Combat Type formation was almost completely wiped out. Of the fourteen ace pilots in the newly formed Overflag Team, only four returned.
The AEU's greatest personnel losses were among its foreign mercenary units, and their government wasn't too heartbroken over them.
However, the AEU's Mobile Suit forces were already stretched thin after the battle in the Mollaria Republic, and now they were almost completely annihilated.
Still, Patrick Colasour, a man whose character stats were almost entirely allocated to luck, survived. The system of his AEU Custom commander type was fried by the EMP, and after crashing into the soft sand, he was shallowly buried by the sand displaced by the shockwave.
Unable to open his cockpit, he spent six grueling hours in the pitch-black cockpit. But after being dug out, he received an emotional and relieved hug from Kati Mannequin.
After the three powers finished cleaning up the battlefield and recovering the wreckage of their respective Mobile Suits, their top leaders held a secret remote conference.
This time, there were no mutual accusations, no blaming each other, and no sarcastic remarks. The three leaders all looked grim. Finally, the Union's leader was the first to speak.
"Let's not be silent. Let's talk about how to handle the nuclear explosion incident in the desert."
Hearing this, the AEU's leader replied directly.
"It'll have to be the same old story: a news blackout. There aren't many civilians around the desert, and the cities are blocked by mountains, so no ordinary person should have been able to see the mushroom cloud. We should all be able to keep our soldiers' mouths shut. The only problem is whether any mountaineers in the mountains around the desert in the Human Reform League's territory recorded any footage."
Seeing the AEU leader pass the buck to him, the Human Reform League's leader answered directly.
"You can rest assured on that point. The mountains surrounding the three-bloc exercise area were sealed off as a military restricted zone long ago. There's no chance of ordinary hikers seeing the mushroom cloud. As for the tremors caused by the explosion, they have been covered up under the pretext of geological activity.
"However, the biggest problem now is how we should view Otherworld Entanglement and the SDP from now on. It's obvious that both are now completely beyond our control. And no one knows where the next Otherworld Entanglement will occur."
The Human Reform League's leader threw out the key question, and the meeting fell silent again.
In the end, it was the Union leader who spoke first again.
"The original purpose of our three-bloc exercise was to absorb the relatively weaker MS technology of Celestial Beings to close the abnormally large generational gap between our Mobile Suits and those from the Otherworld Entanglement and the SDP.
"But we failed this time. It's clear that we can only take a step back for now. Only by developing our technology with all our might and bringing our Mobile Suits to at least the level of the Celestial Beings' Gundams will we be qualified to contend with the Otherworld Entanglement and the SDP."
The AEU leader nodded in agreement with the Union leader's words.
"Indeed, the technology gap between us is too great now. Since we can't resolve the Otherworld Entanglement ourselves, we can't afford to provoke the SDP's forces. At least they are much more well-behaved than Celestial Beings, never meddling in the internal affairs of any country.
"However, my commander, Kati Mannequin, submitted a report. She believes it was the SDP that used a nuclear weapon this time. What do you two think?"
The Human Reform League's leader frowned slightly upon hearing this. He understood that the AEU leader was trying to stir up trouble.
If it was believed that the SDP used a nuclear weapon in the desert, it would be tantamount to another organization detonating a nuke on Human Reform League soil. The Human Reform League could not let such a matter slide, for both emotional and logical reasons, or else the other two blocs would be laughing at them in private for a long time.
The Human Reform League's leader certainly didn't want his country to be used as a pawn to test the SDP's attitude, so he replied directly.
"There is no evidence to suggest the nuclear bomb was launched by the SDP. The situation on site was extremely chaotic. As far as I know, none of the data recovered from our respective Mobile Suits contains any visual confirmation of which side launched the nuke.
"Based on reasoning from the wreckage of downed Otherworld Entanglement Mobile Suits and combat footage from previous incidents, it's actually easy to draw a conclusion.
"The Mobile Suits sent by the Otherworld Entanglement are not some alien machines. They should also be human creations, just from a humanity whose technological development path is completely different from ours, and it seems their technology is more advanced than ours.
"Therefore, the SDP's Mobile Suits bear many traces of otherworldly machines. Through their long-term battles against otherworldly machines, they have already deciphered some of their technology, which is why their technological lead is so significant."
The Human Reform League leader's words directly shifted the topic from who dropped the nuke to advancing their own technology through otherworldly technology.
In truth, the other two leaders had no proof that the SDP had dropped the nuke. It didn't really matter if the SDP had actually done it or not. If the three blocs were capable of dealing with the SDP right now, the headlines in the media would be all about the SDP using a forbidden weapon, even if they hadn't.
However, since the three blocs couldn't even handle Celestial Beings, they naturally couldn't afford to provoke the SDP. So, seeing that the Human Reform League's leader wasn't taking the bait, they followed his lead and began to consider the issue of improving their own technology through otherworldly tech.
Here, the AEU leader spoke first. This was a good opportunity to overtake the Union and the Human Reform League in technology, so he asked directly.
"Those Otherworld Entanglement Mobile Suits disappear as soon as they're destroyed. How are we supposed to study them? Or does the SDP have a way to preserve these machines?"
The AEU leader's question left the Union and Human Reform League leaders speechless. They thought, Even if I knew how to crack their tech, I definitely wouldn't tell you.
Besides, are all your AEU scientists for show? Analysis of weapon structures, special particles, and reverse-engineering beam parameters from damaged Mobile Suits—all of these provide valuable data and inspiration.
However, no matter how speechless they were, the two couldn't say anything to the AEU leader in this meeting. The Human Reform League's leader skipped the topic and said,
"I propose that our three blocs establish a joint large-scale laboratory, located on an island in the international waters of the Pacific Ocean. We will combine our respective expertise to develop new MS-related technologies, and all results will be shared among the three blocs."
After some thought, the Union leader decided to agree to the AEU leader's proposal. He saw the situation clearly. Although the three blocs each had their own technological advantages, the Union and the Human Reform League were the ones who could truly complement each other as equals. The AEU was more like a pirated copy of his own bloc.
Therefore, the Human Reform League would not agree to placing the laboratory in the Atlantic Ocean, which was closer to the Union and the AEU. And weren't there already enough joint labs between the Union and the AEU? Building another one wouldn't be very meaningful.
Moreover, if the Union didn't want to live under the constant threat of the Otherworld Entanglement, the SDP, or even Celestial Beings, this cooperation was necessary. So, the Union leader responded directly.
"I think we can cooperate, but I need to persuade the parliament back home. This will take some time."
Seeing that even the Union leader had agreed, the AEU leader knew that any attempt to change the location would be rejected by the other two. Even if the Union leader remained neutral, he didn't have the confidence to go against the Human Reform League. He could only say,
"In that case, I also think we can cooperate. But similarly, I will need to persuade the member nations of our alliance."
The main purpose of the meeting was more or less achieved at this point. The Human Reform League's internal consensus was relatively unified; decisions made by the top leader could generally be implemented as long as they weren't too outrageous.
But the history and national conditions of the Union and the AEU meant their leaders had limited decision-making power. They did indeed need to persuade others back home.
However, this three-way cooperation was highly likely to succeed, because no one wanted their own government to be completely incapable of resisting when war could descend upon their heads at any moment (the Otherworld Entanglement phenomenon).
Of course, all three parties would certainly hold back some of their trump-card technologies. Even so, once the three parties cooperated, their technology would surely experience a period of rapid advancement.
Meanwhile, a similar discussion was taking place within Celestial Beings.
By this time, the three Throne Angel machines had long since separated from the other Celestial Beings Gundams. The four Gundam Meisters were holding a debriefing with Sumeragi.
On the Celestial Beings' side, it was very clear that the nuclear explosion was not caused by the SDP, but by the self-destruction of an otherworldly Mobile Suit. Therefore, there was no discussion about subjugating the SDP.
Much like in the original story, the main topic of this meeting was the three newly emerged Throne Angel Gundams.
As for the fact that the otherworldly Mobile Suits were nuclear-powered and could create a nuclear explosion by self-destructing, Celestial Beings could do nothing about it. Sumeragi was still unsure whether VEDA could predict when an Otherworld Entanglement would occur.
If it couldn't, then why did every large-scale Otherworld Entanglement happen during a mission assigned by VEDA?
But if it could, why did VEDA never give any warning and still require Celestial Beings to meticulously record and upload details from every Otherworld Entanglement site?
In the end, just as in the original story, Sumeragi prepared to go to the address given by the Trinity siblings to meet these three Gundam Meisters. (It was also through this meeting that Ribbons had Nena Trinity access the VEDA terminal suite inside the Ptolemy to modify the permissions of Tieria's Dynames's Judgment System.)
At this moment, Ribbons himself was not idle. VEDA had issued an order to all collaborators to investigate the nuclear explosion, and Ribbons used this order as a legitimate reason to leave Alejandro Corner's side.
This was because Alejandro Corner knew that VEDA's orders were absolute for Ribbons, and he couldn't refuse them.
Coincidentally, Alejandro Corner also needed to persuade the other Celestial Beings "Overseers" to acknowledge the three Throne Angel machines (much of episode 16 of the original series, which was like a recap episode, was spent discussing this), so he let Ribbons act freely for a while.
Thus, Ribbons went to contact Ali al-Saachez, who was lying in a hospital bed. While persuading him to work for him in the future, he learned that the SDP was looking for Kowloon.
With his intelligence, Ribbons immediately realized that Kowloon was a person from another world, which was why the SDP was looking for him.
Ribbons felt this was an opportunity to obtain intelligence about another world, as long as he could find Kowloon before the SDP did.
It was obvious that for a person like Kowloon who had appeared out of thin air, the SDP would also need a bit of luck to find him. They were hidden too deeply, which paradoxically made it difficult to use more efficient intelligence-gathering methods.
Moreover, the SDP had just gone through a major battle in the desert, so they probably didn't have time to search for anyone right now.
Ribbons didn't know that Reid was no longer in this world at this time. He mobilized his own intelligence network, and even used Alejandro Corner's, to find Kowloon in Spain, where he was preparing to rebuild his terrorist organization.
Upon meeting Kowloon, Ribbons confirmed that he was a war maniac. After promising him countless great battles and a new Mobile Suit powerful enough to rival the SDP's machines, he reached a cooperative relationship with him.
At the same time, Kowloon also revealed to Ribbons the historical background and special nature of the Full Metal Panic era. The unscientific humans known as the Whispered made Ribbons feel like he had opened the door to a new world.
However, Kowloon was no researcher. He could only describe the black technology of Full Metal Panic as if he were writing a battle report. As for the principles, he admitted he didn't know a damn thing. For many things, knowing their names and functions was his limit.
On the other hand, as a terrorist who had long operated in the underworld, Kowloon did have the ability to assemble a first or second-generation Arm Slave as long as the parts were available. However, any AS he could build would inevitably lack a Lambda Driver, making it inferior to the native Mobile Suits of the AD Universe. That was why he had always stolen Mobile Suits instead of trying to assemble one from parts.
Even so, Ribbons felt he had gained a great deal.
Most importantly, Ribbons felt he had successfully annoyed Reid. He would hide Kowloon for a while, just to make Reid run around the world in circles on a fool's errand.
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