131 Brink of Death

Aida first went to support Rin who was in the worst condition. He hadn't expected the Variants to attack with such aggression all of a sudden and was caught off guard. Because of this, he wasn't able to defend himself in time and received a blow to the back of his head. Despite this, he bit down on his lip till it bled to maintain consciousness and continue fighting.

As she approached Rin who was in the outskirts of the encirclement, she threw shards of metal infused with electricity and shocked the people around him while quickly catching him and pulling him back. The moment Rin saw Aida approach, he fainted. He had pushed himself too far and had been hanging on by a thread. He completely trusted Aida and her ability to get them out of this situation.

Understanding her limits, Aida immediately retreated after catching him and brought him back to the car. Xiao Ai had placed an electric field to surround the car, similar to Rose's ice shield, but that didn't keep Aida out as she had the same power. After carefully placing Rin down within the security of the car, she quickly sprinted back into the fight.

In the car, Light performed a cursory check on Rin, inspecting his body to make sure he didn't have any lethal injuries. He heaved a sigh of relief to see that he had just passed out. Based on his brainwaves, he didn't seem to have any permanent brain damage.

Aida leaped straight into the encirclement to join Little White and Lucifer who were back to back, fighting off the constant stream of attacks from the Variants. While they were still able to fight off the group, they were beginning to slow down and accrued more and more injuries.

Lucifer called out, "Nice of you to join the fight. What's the game plan?"

"Sorry I'm late. Let's push through. We need to help Rose and the others first. Light can take care of everyone else."

The two nodded and focused on fighting, careful not to make any mistakes. Aida continually threw charged metal shards to fight the Variants off. Her hits were lethal and impossible to dodge with the great density of Variants encircling them. She cleverly used this as an advantage to kill off many of them with one hit. With her help, they slowly began to push back against the crowd and pierce their way through.

Over time, even Aida collected her fair share of injuries. All of them were covered in blood both from themself and from their enemies. Thankfully, none were fatal. They were able to cover for each other very well.

The leader of this group gritted his teeth at this sight. They clearly had the numbers advantage yet couldn't seem to crush them. He watched as Aida and the other two kill more and more Variants. At this rate, they would reach the RV soon and reconsolidate their power. If that happened, it would be the end of them.

Seeming to make a decision, he secretly sneaked into the crowd of Variants, quietly blending in. As he got closer, he began to gather his power and then launched a heavy psychic attack towards the three of them. He had initially been reluctant to do this as it took a lot out of him and left him in a weakened state for a week after.

His power immediately hit the three of them, knocking Lucifer and Little White out while sending Aida into a bout of nausea.

Previously, when Aida fought against psychic types, she had the system to act as a buffer which somewhat shielded her mind from the attacks. The system, despite having developed sentience and a personality, was ultimately a computer and had no emotions or mind to be impacted. Ordinarily, the system and Aida shared a consciousness so it was able to relieve Aida of half the burden of any psychic attack. However, now that the system was asleep and upgrading, she was forced to take on the full force of the attack. If her mind hadn't been well fortified by years of training, she would surely have fainted from the attack as well.

Little White was a Reaper and had the consciousness of a 4 year old, so he was the one facing the most risk. His weak consciousness had no way to defend against such an attack at all. The moment the attack reached him, he fell into a dead faint. When Aida saw this, she was extremely worried about the condition of Little White's mind. The attack could potentially have destroyed Little White's entire consciousness. Without his consciousness, he would be like any other Reaper and run purely on instinct.

Lucifer, who was also a psychic type user, was the only one who could realistically protect himself from this psychic attack. Typically, he would have formed defenses around his mind to prevent such an attack from reaching him. However, this nonstop fighting had almost thoroughly exhausted his powers. He had long stopped fighting with abilities and was only able to fight with his fists. When the mental attack hit, he was the first to be alerted given its similarities to his own power. At that moment, he made a judgement call to wrap his remaining power around Little White's consciousness instead of his own, leaving himself completely vulnerable to the intangible attack. Therefore, Lucifer ended up falling into a dead faint as well.

Aida crouched low to the ground as she felt the waves of nausea hit. She resisted the urge to faint and continued moving. Through her blurry eyesight, she saw that both Little White and Lucifer had fallen and the group of Variants were closing in on them. A look of determination passed through her eyes as she took out her hidden knives. There was only one way for her to get through this situation, but it could potentially risk the lives of everyone here.

She closed her eyes to suppress the uncomfortable feeling and allowed herself to fall deeper into the nothingness state. That side of her had been eager to come out since the fight began. It had been cheering excitedly at the blood and the opportunity to kill. She focused her mind on protecting her two unconscious comrades, but, at the back of her mind, was still concerned that she might lose control and accidentally kill them.

As instinct began to take over, she slashed at everything that approached the two unconscious people. She fought purely with instinct and turned into a killing machine. With each cut she received from someone, she returned the favor ten fold.

Despite her persistence, the stream of Variants seemed endless. As one fell down, another two would take his place. The psychic Variant was somehow still able to keep himself functional enough to command and direct this group. The only thing she could be slightly thankful for was that there were very few elemental Variants in the mix, so the attacks were limited by the Variant's reach.