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Beep. Beep. Beep.
The base's main door slowly opened once more, revealing the technical team lined up inside in welcome. The eyes of many among them had gone red.
With the mech's assembly complete, the technical team's headcount had dropped considerably. Quite a few of these people might soon be reassigned, and this was perhaps the last time they would stand face to face with Crimson Typhoon.
Bang. Bang.
Two enormous impacts.
Crimson Typhoon faced the base's main door, its two feet planted on the transport platform, its posture upright.
Even built from high-strength steel and fixed by hydraulic support devices, the transport platform trembled slightly as it bore that force.
The platform operator, who'd been waiting off to the side, quickly entered the control room inside once the platform stopped trembling, piloting the platform back into the base.
But unlike the trip out, the return required a turnaround.
In the middle of the transport corridor was a circular curve. The platform would drive in here and turn back out, reversing its front-to-back orientation, after which it would need to enter the base in reverse.
The mech riding atop it likewise turned around, going from originally facing the base to having its back to the base.
Crimson Typhoon, its back to the base but its face to the sea, slowly withdrew into the base under the transport platform's carriage, the base's main door closing along with it, like an actor taking a bow to the audience from the stage.
The television livestream camera followed all of this closely, and even after the base's main door had completely closed, it kept filming the base for several more minutes before ending the broadcast, looking thoroughly reluctant to part.
By now the base was an utter ocean of celebration.
Watching Crimson Typhoon slowly withdraw into the hangar and then power down, everyone broke into smiles.
Clap, clap, clap.
No one knew who started the applause and cheering, but in an instant the entire base, whether in the master control room or down on the floor, was watching Crimson Typhoon and applauding and cheering. Some people even ran freely across the spacious ground.
It was a good while before Ryan called everyone to a stop.
"Alright, everyone. This test was a complete success. Crimson Typhoon's technology and craftsmanship fully met our expectations. This is the achievement of every one of us. But now is not the time to rest. We all still need to keep striving."
Ryan, broadcasting to everyone, gave an impromptu speech, then began assigning tasks.
The technical team naturally had to go inspect Crimson Typhoon's body condition, while also handling the cleaning and maintenance of the machine. After that whole trip, the mech was still dripping water even now.
The various research teams quickly received their data too. The next test was a week away, and within that week they needed to produce corresponding data analysis reports based on this data. That was no easy task.
Ryan's own task was relatively light by comparison. He only needed to read through all the data reports above and pick out the problems within them.
For other people, this matter might make their eyes and heads explode, but for him it was rather manageable. It just strained the eyes a bit.
---
Meanwhile, out on the open sea.
The many pleasure boats waited a full hour after the mech entered the hangar before dispersing, still not having had their fill.
It was only noon now. People with plans to play out on the water took the chance to sail their boats out to sea for fun, while those without plans returned to land to keep savoring Crimson Typhoon's figure, contributing a little pocket money to local tourism along the way.
According to incomplete statistics, over the course of this week, the number of tourists pouring into the Redcliff Islands had approached ten times the usual, and at least half of them were foreign tourists. The tourism industry was running at outright full capacity.
Quite a few tourists couldn't find anywhere to stay when they arrived, foreign tourists in particular. Because of this situation, many locals had even opened private guesthouses on their own.
Online, news of Crimson Typhoon had filled every corner. Its heat was even more outrageous than an aircraft carrier launch.
Even girls and elderly people with no interest whatsoever in military matters or industrial machinery were following this big mech closely.
No matter who you were, seeing the footage of the mech and the fleet advancing in formation across the sea would leave you with a powerful sense of shock.
Some people even felt the three frigates from earlier were too few, photoshopping several more vessels of various types onto Crimson Typhoon's left and right. It was outright aircraft-carrier-level treatment.
The people who'd been on-site posted their own photos online. Many of the photos had yachts, beautiful women, and champagne, plus the mech looming faintly in the distance, genuinely making you wonder whether they'd crossed over into a science fiction world.
Celebrities from various countries were the same way, posting long-distance photos of themselves with the mech on their accounts, participating in this mech wave whether intentionally or not.
Some, when interviewed, even declared that they'd come to watch in person at every future mech test.
The enormous heat was like a raging fire, burning through every corner of the world. There was no counting how many people, sealed onto information islands by their media, came to a breakthrough understanding of the country only after seeing these celebrities' posted photos and tracing the thread back.
For many foreigners, their stereotyped impressions of the country were broken for the first time because of this enormous mech.
Everyone could feel, from the mech's enormous frame, in the most direct and most shocking way, the industry and technology contained within it.
A large mech like this required no data comparisons and demanded no scientific foundation from its audience. As long as you saw the real thing, you could understand its technological substance from the shock you felt.
Without powerful industrial strength and technological strength, a mech like this could never have been built.
A country capable of building a mech like this was absolutely no ordinary country.
Overseas, more than a few hawkish commentators, the sort forever itching to send the military somewhere, came away from the test fired up rather than discouraged.
Of course, the world had never been short of opponents.
The rolling silt that Crimson Typhoon kicked up underwater was criticized by many environmentalists, who accused Crimson Typhoon of its impact on the seabed ecology.
"This isn't a machine for conducting seabed exploration at all. It has no exploration function whatsoever. It only destroys the environment. This is an enormous scam."
No small number of people expressed agreement with this kind of claim.
They posted their own views one after another.
"No way, no way. Surely no one's only realizing now that this is a scam?"
"Spelled 'deep-sea exploration mech,' pronounced 'deep-sea joyride mech.'"
Ryan had anticipated all of these views to some degree.
What most exceeded his expectations, though, was that the stretch of time that vanished from the livestream during Crimson Typhoon's underwater test drew even greater attention from people.
"Honestly, why did the national broadcaster break from its usual style before the mech went into the water, running a full high-definition livestream with no interruptions, every single shot held perfectly steady? But once it went underwater, they stopped broadcasting. Is it because they don't have underwater cameras? Then think back to what The Mech Expert said during that interview. Savor it. Savor it slowly."
"I'm on-site, I've got a conflict of interest, and everyone in the circle knows everyone else, so going anonymous is pointless. Don't stop me, today I'm getting the truth out. Crimson Typhoon's task this time wasn't any kind of test at all. A giant monster appeared on the seabed and was already threatening our people, so it was underwater fighting the monster. That's why the broadcaster found it inconvenient to put the footage on the livestream."
"If you don't believe me, think about the frigates on the surface, then look at the churning waves and rolling silt at the time. It was clearly Crimson Typhoon protecting our people and our country, protecting our Earth."
"So moving."
This stretch of absurd commentary was only treated as absurd at home, but the moment it spread abroad, it was immediately plated with a layer of gold from being the mech's country of origin.
Combined with the enormous resources the country had invested in this project, no small number of people believed this claim, the ones who'd already believed The Mech Expert's seabed-monster theory from the interview most of all. After this, they only grew firmer in their conviction.
They believed there genuinely had been a giant monster down on the seabed that day, that the mech had been doing battle with the monster, defending the Earth, fighting back the monster.
The Earth, in peril.
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