Rose appeared to have acclimated very well into the group. When she first started, she would only be able to shoot at the targets with her ice spikes, but lacked implicit timing to coordinate with the others. Now, she was able to target her ice spikes towards the Reapers when they were about to ambush someone.
She even learned how to manipulate the ice in different manners. With that, she was able to make a sleet of ice appear beneath the Reapers, causing them to slip and slide around with no ability to stand back up. Aida suspected Rin was the one who planted this particular method of handling Reapers into her head. Although her face continued to show no emotions, excitement showed in her eyes as she threw out skill after skill.
Soon, the last Reaper was defeated and they all collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Rose, whose body was not in the best condition, fainted on the spot. Fortunately, Light had been monitoring her emotions and reacted quickly, catching her before she hit the ground. She had overextended her powers and her body was already in bad shape. It was remarkable that she was able to last so long purely based on willpower.
Through her blood connection, Aida could generally sense the condition of Rose's body so wasn't nearly as concerned. She had mixed feelings about allowing Rose to fight like this. On one hand, she liked that Rose, who had been lifeless before, seemed filled with eagerness and life as she fought. On the other hand, Rose's body wasn't up for such a crazy amount of exercise and it could potentially cause more harm to her body.
She and Little White easily hopped down from the stands and walked over to the group. Xiao Ai immediately went to Aida and hopped onto her head. Lucifer and Rin had just finished collecting the gems.
They all entered the RV and began eating. Rin began bragging, "Heh~ sister, I bet you didn't collect as many gems as we did! We got 40 of them!"
Rolling her eyes, she threw her own backpack onto the table with a loud thunk. Rin immediately ran over to look inside and found that Little White and Aida had collected over 50 gems. His eyes widened in shock as Aida smacked him on the head and told him to go eat.
Light and Lucifer sat on the side with mixed feelings. They could tell just from the quantity of gems that it hadn't been an easy fight for Aida and Little White. Instead of commenting on it, they just steeled their hearts to work harder on fighting after lunch.
After eating, Aida decided to absorb more gems before going off to fight more Reapers. Her energy reserves had fallen since she lost so much blood in the previous fight. Going up to her room, she placed two gems in her hands and closed her eyes to meditate.
As she continued to meditate, she felt as though she was on the precipice of breaking through. Her body felt like a black hole as the two gems in her hands disintegrated and she quickly grabbed another two gems which also soon disappeared. After a few rounds of this process, she realized that she wasn't absorbing enough energy to fulfill the needs of her body. Aida decided to grab two large handfuls of gems and began absorbing.
Roughly 30 minutes later, there was a loud boom originating from Aida. In the room, everything was in disarray as everything near Aida was thrown towards the walls. The loud sonic boom reverberated through the entire RV, causing a big commotion. The others had left the RV to continue fighting the Reapers, so it was just Aida, Little White and Ace in the RV.
The big commotion caused a group of Reapers and Enraged to charge towards the RV. Aida was torn on what to do. She could feel that she was on the brink of levelling up. If she moved right now, she would have to give up levelling up, and who knew when her next opportunity would be. On the other hand, if the Reapers managed to get close, they would surely mess up her precious baby (the RV) and potentially hurt Ace.
Thinking hard, she decided to take a gamble. Little White was extremely capable, so should be able to buy her a bit of time. Making this decision, she decisively closed off all her senses and focused on levelling up within the shortest amount of time possible.
Little White, who seemed to have grown more aware after absorbing the gems, quickly charged outside and roared. The roar successfully deterred some but not all the Enraged. The Reapers were all still approaching without hesitation.
Without waiting for them to reach the RV, Little White went into action. He disappeared and reappeared in different places across the field, focusing on getting rid of the Reapers. He was highly efficient with his killing. However, the exhaustion from this morning's fight was clearly taking a toll on him, slowing his motions noticeably.
Additionally, there was a large number of Reapers coming from all sides which made it difficult for him to finish them all off before they reached the RV. No matter how quick he was, he would only be able to cover and protect one side of the RV. The sound that Aida made was simply too widespread.
On the side, Ace stared out the window with an unusual smile and said, "Hm. Looks like it's finally time."