With Fang Zheng's order, the battle officially began.

In general, under Fang Zheng's command, the 13th team already had considerable experience in dealing with a dragon. At this moment, facing the dragon's tentacle attack, everyone also hurriedly began to react. They launched a counterattack against the tentacles in front of them, tearing the tentacles into pieces.

But there are also risks hidden in this.

"Pay attention, don't fall behind!"

"I'm not holding you back!"

Hearing the future's complaints, Chunweizi tore the tentacles that pounced on him and replied unhappily. He was in a very bad mood at the moment. Although the two of them barely cooperated, Chunweizi was still unwilling to accept it. Especially now, hearing the future's complaints made him very unhappy.

Obviously I can do it!

Thinking of this, Chunweizi became angry and rushed forward.

Watch me kill this guy!

The next moment, the Qingshuang suddenly leaped up and rushed forward. The tentacles of the dragons attacked it from all directions, wrapping the Qingshuang. Facing the attack of the dragons, the Qingshuang was not afraid at all. It suddenly waved its hands to cut off the tentacles wrapped around it. Then it landed again. At this time, Chunzhi also saw the core hidden in the body of the huge dragon, emitting blue light.

"What? Sure enough, there is a core. Watch me!!"

Seeing the blue core, Chunwei was immediately delighted. Then he controlled the Qinghuang to leap up suddenly, rushed towards the belly of the huge dragon, and punched the blue core!

But to Chunwei's surprise, the Qinghuang's grappling hook did not penetrate the opponent's core as he expected. On the contrary, it seemed to hit a hard object, making a crisp impact sound, and then stopped.

"Why?"

Seeing this scene, Chunwei was shocked for a moment. However, before she could come to her senses, something even more surprising happened the next moment - the foam-like thing wrapped in the dragon shell suddenly began to expand and gradually swallowed up the Qingshuang!

"Waaaaaaah, what's going on?"

"Idiot, what the hell are you doing?!"

The Qinghuang struggled desperately to break free, but the ever-growing and expanding bubbles began to wrap around and swallow it.

"future!!"

Seeing this, the others also rushed forward and tried to rescue the Acerola, but the bubbles expanded again, swallowing up the other aircraft.

"Wait, wait, what the hell is this?"

"I can't get away at all..."

Although these bubble-like things looked quite fragile, they were as sticky as glue. Soon, the Delphinium and Chlorophytum, which had originally intended to rescue the Amaranthus, also fell into the quagmire and began to gradually become unable to move.

"A bunch of idiots!"

Seeing this, Fang Zheng also frowned.

"Strelitzia, withdraw from the enemy's attack range and prepare for assistance!"

"What about you?"

"I'm going to pull these idiots out!"

As soon as the words fell, the Golden Sparrow leaped up, and the sword in his hand flashed again, and he swung it forward with force. The tearing sword light instantly cut into the huge foam-like body of Jiaolong, but it did not split it in two like the previous Jiaolong. Although the sword light did leave a huge crack in Jiaolong's body, the multiplying foam filled it up again in the blink of an eye.

This thing is much more difficult to deal with than an ordinary dragon, but there is a way...

Thinking of this, Fang Zheng raised his eyebrows.

Let's do it.

As Fang Zheng launched the attack, the dragon's tentacles attacked the Goldfinch again. Fang Zheng swung his sword and cut off the attacking tentacles. He rushed to the three mechas that were swallowed by the foam. Then he raised his sword. A flash of sword light appeared. The next moment, the bubbles wrapped around the mechas like glue were torn apart. Then Fang Zheng turned around and kicked, kicking the three mechas out.

"Woooooa ...

"oops!"

"ah!!"

The mecha drew three elegant arcs in the air and fell heavily in front of the Strelitzia. The dragon obviously had not given up and tried to reach out again to take back its spoils. The Strelitzia, which had been ready to attack nearby, would not let it succeed and waved its spear to repel the dragon's attack again.

"Where's X?!"

After escaping from danger, Mei quickly turned her head and looked behind her. It was only then that she saw that the Goldfinch was slowly being swallowed up.

At the same time, the voice of the heart sounded.

"X, X, he's still in there!"

Hearing this voice, everyone was stunned and looked down hurriedly, only to find that Strelitzia was holding an escape pod in his hand...

"Heart?"

"Yes, X ejected me from the Goldfinch, and he's still inside..."

Xin's face was livid at this moment, because just after kicking out the three mechas, Fang Zheng directly activated the escape system, sealed Xin's cockpit and ejected it from his mouth. Since the female pilot who served as the pistil could not sense the condition of her body when connected to the Franks mecha, when Xin realized that her connection with the mecha was forcibly cut off, she had already been sent away by Fang Zheng.

“Go save him…!”

"No, it's too late! The dragon has activated!!"

Under the gaze of the crowd, after swallowing the Goldfinch, the dragon suddenly began to emit dazzling golden light all over its body. Then - a huge explosion sounded, and the shining flames turned into a mushroom cloud that rose into the sky, covering the entire sky.

Seeing this scene, everyone was stunned.

“How could it be…”

Mei stared at the mushroom cloud in front of her in amazement, her face livid. Everyone knew that for the convenience of combat operations, the Goldfinch usually used a light-equipped mode to fight, and increasing mobility also meant weakening defense. Could the Goldfinch withstand such an attack?

But when the explosion was over, something even more surprising happened.

The dragon that had swallowed the Goldfinch appeared before everyone intact, but the Goldfinch had disappeared...

What to do now?

Faced with this sudden situation, everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to do. All along, they had been following Fang Zheng's orders during the battle, but now that Fang Zheng hadn't issued any orders, they felt a little at a loss.

Just then, orders came from behind.

"Retreat immediately."

"But the Goldfinch...!"

"That's an order."

"yes……"

Faced with the orders coming from the rear, everyone had no choice but to obey the orders, leave the battlefield, and return to the Thirteenth City.

Back in the combat command room, everyone looked depressed.

"It's all your fault!"

Weilai was so angry that he scolded Chunweizi harshly.

"If you didn't want to be in the spotlight, it wouldn't have turned out like this!"

"How would I know? I just think that's the core..."

Hearing his partner's rebuke, Junweizi hurriedly defended himself.

"Okay, now is not the time to talk about this."

Mei hurriedly pulled the two apart, then she raised her head and looked at her seventh sister who was standing in front of her.

"Um, Seventh Sister, about the Goldfinch..."

"Its location has not yet been determined. It's possible that the signal has been isolated, or it may have been... destroyed."

“…”

Hearing this, everyone lowered their heads, not knowing what to say for a moment.

However, at this moment, a voice broke the silence.

"I don't think you need to worry so much."

02 While eating a lollipop, he looked at everyone.

"That guy is very determined. I don't think he will die so easily."

"02, are you saying that he did this because he knew he would be swallowed?"

Hearing 02's words, Guang looked at her with wide eyes in surprise.

"Of course. Have you forgotten? At that time, he asked us to meet him outside. Obviously, he had anticipated this. I think he should have some way to deal with it. He would not die so easily."

"That's true."

Hearing this, the others also cheered up. They knew how powerful Fang Zheng was. Every time he faced an enemy, he could calmly see through the opponent's weaknesses and respond. And Fang Zheng naturally saw that they and others were swallowed by the strange bubble before...

And in fact, this is exactly the case.

"Is it really sucked in? I guessed it would be like this."

Fang Zheng opened his eyes and nodded with satisfaction.

Just like 02 said, he knew this would happen from the beginning, so he used this method.

As to why Fang Zheng didn't escape with Xin, it wasn't because he had the generosity to be a hero and save the beauty, but because the Franks mecha was designed to have only one escape system.

Although it looks like a mecha animation for children, in fact, when faced with the final situation, only one of the two pilots of the Franks mecha can escape, and the other one has to act with the idea of ​​dying together with the enemy.

If the driver who stays behind is a male, he will be responsible for activating the self-destruct system of the Franks mecha, and then take someone else with him on the road.

If the one left behind is a female pilot, then what she has to do is to let the Franks mecha go berserk, transform it into a dragon, then turn it into a berserker and kill everyone before dying.

After all, the Franks mecha is not something that a female driver can start alone. Once it is forcibly started, the end result will be death due to being unable to withstand the force.

But for Fang Zheng...

“This is truly a classic remake.”

Looking at the surrounding environment, Fang Zheng chuckled. This reminded him of the EVA animation he had watched before, in which the twelfth angel used the shadow to swallow the EVA Unit-01 into the imaginary space. All means of attack were ineffective against the twelfth angel, and originally the twelfth angel should have won.

But a terrible thing happened.

That means the swallowed Unit-01 is out of power.

Then the Twelfth Angel was torn apart from the inside by the runaway Unit-01.

By the way, I don’t think I’ve seen this guy in the EVA world before…

Never mind. None of this matters.

Thinking of this, Fang Zheng shook his head, then he raised his right hand and took off his gloves.

So, let’s start the BGM!

Unit-01 is going berserk!

Ding, ding, ding ding, ding, ding ding, ding, ding...!

At the same time, everyone in the combat command room also looked solemn. So just now, the higher-ups issued an order for them to prioritize defeating the Gutenberg-class dragon. As for the swallowed Golden Sparrow... it was equivalent to being abandoned.

Of course the children were unwilling to do this, but they couldn't think of a better way. However, just when everyone was at a loss... suddenly, the dragon on the screen changed.

"Report, the energy in the dragon's body is rising rapidly! The dragon has stopped moving forward!"

"What?"

After hearing the report, everyone was shocked and looked at the screen. As expected, the dragon that looked like a mushroom cloud on the screen had stopped moving. Not only that, its body seemed to be shaking.

"Wait, it looks like it's in pain?"

Seeing the dragon's body suddenly expand and then shrink, Wei Li asked in confusion, while the others stared at the screen, not daring to breathe. Then, in front of them, an unbelievable scene happened.

“——!!!”

Suddenly, the howling dragon let out a sharp, tearing roar, and the next moment its body suddenly expanded to its peak. Just when everyone thought it would burst like a balloon, the bubble-like objects that had originally surrounded the dragon's body suddenly solidified, and then quickly shrank and condensed, turning from the original sticky bubbles into a hard solid. In the blink of an eye, the howling dragon, which was as huge as a mushroom cloud, shrank into a round, hard object like a stone.

Then, everyone saw cracks appearing on the surface of the hard shell, and then...

“Crack!!”

An arm broke through the solid shell and stretched out.

“That is…?”

"Goldfinch?!"

As the arm stretched out, the next moment, a huge gap suddenly appeared in the body of the dragon, and at the same time, the body of the Golden Sparrow also emerged from it. However, the Golden Sparrow at this moment was completely different from the previous human form. At this moment, it was like a dark, terrifying monster, and its two arms were more like dragon-like claws than arms.

"That's...Frenzy?!"

Seeing this, Seventh Sister was stunned. She turned her head and looked at Xin.

"How is that possible? The pistil is still here!!"

The so-called shock and craziness is the act of a female driver forcibly starting the Franks mecha and going berserk, but generally speaking, only female drivers can do this!

However, now, the heart of the Goldfinch's pistil is still here, but the Goldfinch has activated the frenzy? !

What on earth is going on? !

Ignoring everyone's inner confusion, the beastly Golden Sparrow suddenly stretched out his arms and pushed hard to both sides!

"boom!!!"

The next moment, the huge dragon was torn apart and exploded completely. At the same time, the Golden Sparrow fell from it and hit the ground heavily. It raised its head, opened its mouth, and roared like a beast.

“Ooo ...!!!”

Seeing this scene, everyone stood in front of the screen in a daze, not moving a muscle.

So, is that the true appearance of the mechas they are driving?