The three "Gundam Schwarzettes" lifted off simultaneously, spreading out as they ascended.
As they flew into the distance, their scarlet particle exhaust trails left faint ribbons of light in the sky before eventually dissipating completely.
The reason these Gundam engines released scarlet particles was that the "Gundam Schwarzette" did not use the "Hextech Solar Reactor" found in the Boxer Gundam as its energy core.
Instead, they used "Pseudo-Solar Reactors," or simply, "False Drives."
In the original lore of Gundam 00, these were mass-produced "knock-offs" created by the antagonist forces. Due to a lack of technology and pressing time constraints, they simplified the design of the original Solar Reactors (GN Drives).
Compared to the genuine article, these Pseudo-Drives had a host of defects: they lacked infinite run time, required external electricity to jump-start, and couldn't trigger the evolution of the pilot into an Innovator.
The most obvious characteristic of a Pseudo-Solar Reactor was that the particles it released during operation weren't the green "GN Particles" of the original, but rather scarlet, toxic particles.
However, while Luca's three new "Gundam Schwarzettes" shared similar characteristics with the Pseudo-Drives, there was a fundamental difference in their mechanics.
As mentioned before, the core of the "Boxer Gundam"—the "Hextech Solar Reactor" modified by Luca—was based on the original Solar Reactor technology. It used a "Hextech Crystal" to replace the ignition core, allowing it to draw infinite energy from the Hextech Dimension.
The advantages of this reactor were obvious.
It retained most of the benefits of the original Solar Reactor while gaining magical resistance and damage properties. At the same time, long-term exposure to "Hextech Particles" allowed the pilot to gradually evolve a "Hextech Constitution."
Furthermore, due to the nature of the Hextech Crystals themselves, manufacturing a Hextech Solar Reactor wasn't as tedious or time-consuming as building an original GN Drive.
However, all of this relied entirely on the Hextech Crystal serving as the core.
After consuming the only three Hextech Crystals he had, making a new Hextech Solar Reactor became incredibly difficult for Luca.
It wasn't that Luca hadn't considered finding new crystals within the Hextech Dimension or synthesizing duplicates through technological means.
The problem with the former was that the Hextech Dimension was a newborn world. It was composed purely of energy. Forget unique minerals like Hextech Crystals; aside from basic energy, the very concept of "matter" hadn't even been born there yet.
As for the latter—synthesizing Hextech Crystals artificially...
Luca had tried many times, and it wasn't without progress.
But the "energy composites" he eventually produced were merely specious imitations. They weren't sufficient to replace the Hextech Crystal as the drive core.
Simply put, converting pure energy into matter required a colossal amount of energy—far beyond what Luca could currently control.
Of course, this didn't mean Luca's modified "Hextech Solar Reactor" design had lost its practical value.
In fact, as early as when he completed the blueprints, he determined that this modified reactor technology could actually be adapted to handle energy from most dimensions.
And among all the dimensional worlds, the one Luca had the most contact with and understood the deepest—aside from his own Hextech Dimension—was naturally the Hell Dimension belonging to the demons.
Yes, the Hell Dimension!
While Hextech Crystals—minerals that possessed high-energy properties and could channel dimensional energy—seemed unique and impossible to replicate in the Hextech Dimension, similar materials were not rare in Hell.
Many rare ores mined in Hell, or even special biological materials from high-level demons, possessed similar properties to varying degrees.
If they didn't, demons wouldn't be able to maintain a connection to Hell after invading other worlds, nor would they be able to unleash Hell magic or other abilities.
However, having the materials and the technology didn't guarantee you could create the corresponding item. And even if you built it, it didn't mean you could use it safely.
After all, the Hell Dimension was different from an "ownerless dimension" like Hextech.
Siphoning energy from the Hell Dimension for personal use usually came with consequences that ordinary people couldn't bear.
Just look at the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj.
Beings like Dormammu of the Dark Dimension or Mephisto of the Hell Dimension were never stingy about letting sorcerers use their energy.
But in the end, aside from the Ancient One—the Sorcerer Supreme who had enough power to beat up her creditors—how many users who dared to accept these evil energies met a good end?
In the past, if Luca had dared to use "Hell materials" to replace the Hextech Crystal in a reactor, he would have been in trouble.
Even if Mephisto didn't travel down the energy transmission channel to beat him up personally, Luca would at least end up marked by Hell, facing a miserable fate where he could die at any moment.
But the situation had changed.
First off, Mephisto, the Lord of the Hell Dimension, was currently being suppressed by the Ancient One, leaving him no time to attend to other matters.
Furthermore, Luca himself was now acting as the "Lord of the Hextech Dimension," remotely controlling his forces to wage a full-scale dimensional war against Hell.
Since they were already in a state of hostility and the enemy's "GM" couldn't log in properly, Luca had no qualms about exploiting the Hell Dimension's resources.
In fact, siphoning energy from the Hell Dimension to fight on the dimensional battlefield placed the Hextech Dimension in an invincible position in this war.
Even if he didn't use the siphoned Hell energy to attack demons, just "wasting" or "consuming" it was equivalent to draining Hell while strengthening the Hextech Dimension.
And that was Luca's initial motivation for manufacturing these Demon Material Solar Reactors.
If there was one downside to the "Hell Drive," it was similar to the "Pseudo-Solar Reactor" in the original anime: the red particles it released were toxic.
Long-term exposure would cause the pilot of the "Gundam Schwarzette" to mutate and transform into a demonic biological entity.
But, well... compared to the overwhelming advantages of the Hell Drive itself, this tiny defect was hardly worth mentioning.