Chapter 176
Oliver soon lured the woman in black robes far from Evelyn. He could not fight properly in front of her.
Each step he took was measured, careful, as he led her deeper into the forest, away from his injured companion. He could feel the tension in the air, every rustle of leaves heightening his senses.
Under his watchful eye, the high and mighty woman descended, which suggested that standing in the air, though cool, was quite draining.
“Who are you?”
The woman stared intently at Olivier and asked in a deep voice. This time, there was no slyness or playfulness in her tone.
Her eyes burned with a desire for answers, reflecting the moonlight that barely pierced through the dense canopy.
Oliver’s strength and elemental attacks were different from any Rank-1 exorcists she had seen before, even surpassing most exorcists in Rank-1 alone. She couldn’t see through Oliver’s identity at the moment. When she had earlier tried to sense him in depth, she was surprised that she could not see through his real strength at all.
It was as if he was shrouded in a veil of mystery, concealing layers upon layers of hidden power.
She was not a fool to believe that the espera he was radiating outside was all he had; he was deliberately concealing his true powers.
The sheer force behind Oliver’s attacks left her in disbelief. How could someone so young possess such devastating power? Oliver raised his rapier and said, “Shouldn’t one introduce oneself first before inquiring about the identities of others?”
Hearing this, the woman in dark robes showed a cold smile and said, “Then let me see what makes you dare to resist!”
She was not one to compromise—at least not with someone weaker than her.
The woman tilted the whip in her hand slightly as it extended rapidly towards Oliver’s direction. It was undoubtedly a special tool for exorcists.
Oliver dodged the incoming whip by a hair’s breadth as it smashed into the rocks behind him, shattering them into countless pieces.
‘Quite destructive…’ He looked at the rocks and then back at the red whip vibrating violently. He could feel the shockwaves through the ground, resonating with the whip’s raw power.
He noted the pulverized rocks, a grim reminder of the whip’s power.
The woman whipped in his direction again, intending to immobilize him first and then interrogate him.
Oliver once again dodged. With Level-5 strength and his footwork technique, he could somehow keep up with her moves. It was all thanks to his high amount of espera as compared to ordinary Rank-1 exorcists, Nadia was already a genius but he who had tenfold espera was a monster in the same stage.
This time, the woman made a hand gesture as a black talisman flew from her end and floated ominously in the sky.
Oliver saw the talisman and had a bad feeling in his heart. However, he did not wait for her to activate the talisman and instead attacked her head-on.
Putting the rapier in front of his chest, his eyes turned cold. The air around him seemed to freeze, and his determination was palpable.
The woman in dark robes narrowed her eyes at his stance, wondering what he was doing.
Oliver used the move he was familiar with without hesitation.
The woman’s eyes instantly widened.
Danger!
The sound of air tearing apart rang in her ears as a purple talisman suddenly emerged in front of her and a dark shield materialized.
BANG!
Crack! Crack!
The woman’s heart pounded in her chest as she saw the defensive talisman she had been given crumpling under the force of the boy’s attack. Her breath hitched as she witnessed the unimaginable strength he wielded.
The shield splintered like glass, shards of dark energy dissipating into the air.
It was something that could not be torn apart so easily by a mere Rank-1 exorcist.
So what was that attack just now?
She felt a true sense of danger from that move earlier, and had it not been for her activating the talisman in time, she would not have been able to dodge it at all.
“You blocked that?”
She then heard a voice; it was the voice of that white-haired boy.
She looked up and met his eyes and was instantly stunned.
Death!
Her heart trembled violently as she looked into those eyes as deep as the abyss boring into her. The very essence of terror seemed to radiate from his gaze, chilling her to the bone.
A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, her body paralyzed by an unshakable dread.
Those eyes seemed to be staring right through her soul. She felt naked, as if all her secrets had been revealed under his gaze.
Frozen in her place, she could not move her body; it was as if she had been pinned by the world.
A strong sense of fear had gripped her mind and heart. Her eyes turned misty as tears started to stream down uncontrollably.
Her nose started to bleed, her hands shook, yet despite all that, she could not gather the courage to move an inch.
The forest around them seemed to hold its breath, the trees and shadows witnesses to the life-and-death struggle unfolding. Every instinct screamed at her to flee, but her legs felt like lead, rooted to the spot by the oppressive weight of his presence.
It was as if two giant eyes were staring down at her from the vast sky, her fate, her destiny, her life—everything in control of those eyes.
The more she kept staring into those eyes of death, the more pain she suffered. Her mind felt like it could explode any moment now.
The unprecedented sense of fear… this boundless power… this malevolent closeness to death…
She felt as if death was in front of her!
However, the black talisman that had been floating in the sky for some time suddenly started to emit a crunching sound.
A black ray of light left the talisman, aiming for Oliver.
Oliver sensed the danger behind the black beam and reluctantly withdrew his gaze.
His expression turned fierce; the black beam heading his way was life-threatening.
This heretic really wanted to kill him. No kidnapping, just straight-up assassination.
Oliver jumped backward and instantly made considerable distance, but the black beam did not crash into the ground. Instead, it bent at an unrealistic angle and traveled towards him.
His eyes narrowed. So that’s how it was going to be.
‘Come, I have not tested this yet. Let’s see how powerful these are,’ he thought with cold eyes.
His hand moved in front of him, and the next second, a pitch-black flame materialized at the tip of his fingers. The black flame didn’t stop but kept getting bigger and bigger by the moment.
It grew to become so large that it almost covered his torso behind it.
Holy Flames of Nightmare!
He joined two fingers together, and the pitch-black flames moved forward like a super-fast flamethrower towards the black beam coming at him!
BOOM!
The black beam and the holy flames of nightmare collided, and the impact made the mountain lands tremble. Its sound was so deafening, almost as if a fighter jet was passing above their heads.
The nearby rocks and grass were instantly destroyed by the collision. It was that massive.
Oliver’s clothes fluttered in the generated impact. However, he stood rooted to his spot, his eyes shining as he observed through the smoke.
His heart thudded in his chest, exhilaration and tension warring within him. His lips curled up into a smirk as he saw the destruction the flames had caused.
Not only had the flames instantly decomposed the black beam, but furthermore, it was not extinguished even after that and started to decompose the surrounding flora.
He released the finger seal he was using to control the flames, and instantly the flames vanished as if they never existed, leaving behind a scene of decay and dread.
Truly nightmarish!
He wasn’t merely fighting an enemy; he was asserting his dominance, making it clear that he was a force she can’t afford to play with. The clarity of his purpose was frighteningly evident, and it was this clarity that made him so formidable.
“Haah… Haah…”
The woman in dark robes sucked in deep breaths as she panted heavily. Her eyes had dried-up tears, and her lips were smeared with her own blood.
She panted heavily as she tried to calm herself and her mind that was on the verge of getting destroyed.
She was so close to death that her mind was in dismay. Her emotions were in a terrible state as she was having a hard time controlling her mental state.
Dark, corrupted thoughts were constantly trying to cloud her mind, wanting to consume her as a whole.
Her sensitive ears picked up the noise of footsteps as a pair of white sneakers appeared in her vision.
She weakly turned her head up, and the very next moment, started vomiting.
What she saw was a horrifying sight…