Chapter 266
The intensity of the flames continued to rise as Oliver tapped into his terrifyingly vast reserves of espera.
The ground crackled and the air whistled.
The surrounding demons recoiled as the sea of pitch-black flames inched closer to them. It was as though the fire was alive, trying to devour everything in its path.
These flames were extremely dangerous to demon-kind, a fact they all knew too well. Even from a distance, they could feel their skin prickling, a deep-rooted instinct screaming at them to flee. They had just seen their captain bring out a special container to capture a sample of the flame.
If even she handled the flames with care, who were they to dare resist?
The moment they came into contact, they would be reduced to ashes.
Suddenly, the previously orderly formation of the demonic soldiers dissolved into chaos. Their rigid discipline fractured like brittle glass, panic surging through their ranks as the flames crept ever closer. They scrambled to retreat before the flames reached them.
What had once been a battlefield of strategic positioning had now devolved into a frantic stampede, demons pushing and shoving to get away from the cursed fire.
They had no other choice. Their captain was fully engaged with the human, and it was clear she saw him as her prey.
As soldiers, their role was to obey. They fell back, knowing they could not act without her orders. Her focus remained entirely on the human.
Had she issued the command, they would have captured him without hesitation. It would have been swift, but none of them were bold—or foolish—enough to challenge her authority.
Their fear of the flames was eclipsed only by their fear of her.
Among the crowd stood Vasoth, watching the battle unfold with a calm expression.
Unlike the others, he did not retreat. He stood motionless, hands clasped behind his back, his sharp features betraying no emotion.
His arms were crossed, his sharp features impassive, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of unease.
For some reason, an uneasy feeling stirred within him.
He looked at the growing flames, which were becoming deadlier by the moment. They flickered and twisted unnaturally, as though they possessed a will of their own. They moved so fast that many soldiers were caught up in them and were directly reduced to a crisp.
This caused other demons to panic and scatter even more quickly in random directions, instantly breaking the orderly formation.
Their screams were brief, cut off the moment the flames touched them. In mere seconds, all that remained were smoldering piles of ash.
The once tightly knit and orderly formation was now replaced by a chaotic mess.
However, this did not affect Sera in the slightest. If anything, she was growing irritated by the noise. Her body radiated with dark espera, and all the black flames that approached her were instantly repelled by her aura.
She was entirely focused on Oliver, completely unfazed by the mess around her; she didn’t bother with the soldiers at this moment.
In her world, there was only him. The battlefield, the flames, the soldiers—none of it mattered. He was the puzzle she needed to solve, the prey she needed to claim.
Oliver slowly moved his head down, which had been staring at the sky, and looked at Sera. Their eyes met, and a mysterious glint flashed through his eyes, sending her into a momentary daze.
Her breath hitched. For the briefest moment, it felt as if time had warped around them, isolating them from everything else.
Oliver used his special eyes at the lowest level; his espera needed to be reserved for the upcoming battle. He could not afford to be casual about it, and this was also one of the reasons he had been restraining himself.
Of course, he had a comparatively large amount of espera compared to others, but one must understand that he had been using [Holy Flames of Nightmare] for a while now, and they were constantly draining him of his espera.
The flames, his greatest weapon, were also his greatest burden. Every second they burned, they fed on his energy, a relentless hunger that could not be ignored.
As for Abyss energy? No, he absolutely could not use it in front of anyone—not unless his life was in grave danger. If he did, the consequences would be disastrous. It was his last trump card.
Sera quickly narrowed her eyes, and just as she was ready to counter him, she froze.
Her body twisted in less than a blink of an eye, and her gaze traveled far and wide before locking onto an unfamiliar individual.
A presence had emerged—one that hadn’t been there before.
It was a girl, a little human girl. She had emerged from the cracks behind her.
The girl had an expression of hatred and determination on her face as she looked at them.
But Sera did not care about her; the child was insignificant. Her gaze was focused on something that the girl was clutching in her hand.
It was a piece of paper, a simple and ordinary paper strip.
But Sera, who could see the unseen, clearly noticed a purple glow coming out of the paper.
Her pupils contracted.
She instantly recognized it as a talisman, a special paper with magical properties used frequently by those human exorcists.
But her mind was occupied with something else at this moment.
She had not sensed her.
How come she didn’t sense that little girl until this point when she deliberately revealed herself?
How did she not find her when she previously scanned the area?
Even before she faced Oliver, the moment the demon soldiers surrounded the premises to trap the human inside, she had used her senses to cover the whole mountain region, covering everything in her perception.
She had a very sharp sense of perception; it was ridiculous that she was not able to sense a powerless human girl.
Her instincts screamed that this was no mere coincidence.
It was not her abilities that were lacking but the humans she was not able to detect; this wasn’t the first time. It was the same last time at the ritual temple as well when she was not able to find Oliver despite him being hidden in the same space.
It was most likely related to that only; there were only two possible scenarios here that could have made this happen.
Her gaze deepened.