Ophelia's thoughts and suspicion

Ophelia was now in front of him, her cold and emotionless gray eyes looking into his deep amethyst eyes.

They remained fixed in that position for an unknown amount of time, their eyes trying to look into each other as if wanting to discover something inside.

Oliver could not bear her emotionless eyes.

His heart felt as if it had been gripped tightly by something. Fear?

She was beautiful, but he felt her expression looked like that of a psychotic serial killer.

Her eyes were dead, or he felt as if they were dead; she looked too scary for some reason.

Her head did not even move an inch as she kept staring into him, making him think she was a true psychopath.

He glanced at Nadia, who was also frozen in her spot, and her expression was also unnatural at the moment. He knew that she was also scared and could not muster up her courage.

He gathered some will and finally spoke, his tone stuttering slightly due to the sudden pressure.

"M-Mother?" he said, looking at her eyes, trying to let out a smile, but it crooked up in the end due to the pressure.

The word 'Mother' felt foreign to him. It had been years since he used it, and even now, he did not feel anything emotional from it.

Instead, he felt like he was calling a stranger his mother due to the circumstances.

Ophelia blinked her eyes as she heard him. She was not expecting him to even be able to look at her properly.

"You have grown up."

Her cold voice rang in his ears, and he felt that even her words carried a presence of their own. His spine tingled for some reason when she spoke.

She could determine just from looking at him that he had matured more than he looked.

Oliver nodded. For some reason, he felt even more pressure on his shoulders than before.

He knew that she had increased the pressure on him.

Her gray eyes shone as she looked at her struggling son.

In an instant, he felt as if he had turned naked, as if all his secrets were laid bare in front of her.

He felt helpless as he could only stand and watch.

But in the next moment, he saw her eyes showing a sharp glint as she seemed to increase her focus.

'Is she also unable to see through the Abyss energy?'

This thought came to his mind, and he sneered at her probing. This was good; she wouldn't be able to breach him if that was the case.

He was a bit disappointed as there was not much change in her reaction. She didn't show surprise, nor did she show anger or curiosity.

'Is she even human at this point?'

Oliver wondered as he looked at her emotionless eyes. He felt that she was a being without a soul.

A soulless being…

'Ugh-!'

It seemed that she could not accept the reality that she was not able to breach the defenses of a Rank-1 exorcist.

She was not satisfied with the average amount of espera that Oliver was emitting. Unlike the elders, she knew there was something deeper to this all.

After all, she was the one who had seen him the closest when he was born. She was sure that she could never miscalculate or make a mistake in such a matter.

Something definitely happened after that.

She did not trust anything in her life, nor did she believe what she was seeing with her eyes.

Oliver could not help but exclaim at how keen this woman's insight was. She was indeed very cautious.

She was clearly able to sense that he had only a so-so amount of espera but still insisted on probing him deeper.

But what made him angry was that she kept applying more and more pressure on him.

It was as if she was toying with him, as if she was experimenting on him.

She was trying to test how much more pressure he would be able to take before he gave in and let her enter inside him. Her senses were constantly trying to penetrate deeper and deeper but could not get past the Abyss energy.

She did not think that there was anything he could use to resist her power; she was simply just too strong.

But looking at his struggling expression, a sharp glint passed through her eyes as she slowly increased the pressure even more.

The air turned suffocating and cold, and almost all the pressure was now focused mostly on Oliver in the room.

Nadia looked at him and closed her eyes. If her mother wanted something from him, then there was no one who could stop She simply felt relieved that at least he was not going to be killed. Had her mother wanted him to disappear, there was nothing stopping her.

Oliver, who was now facing the tremendous pressure, felt helpless. Even after his breakthrough and the boost, he was still not able to withstand this pressure.

He felt that if she increased the pressure some more, he might get crushed into the ground itself.

While Oliver was struggling, he did not dare to give in to her attempts. He knew that he must not let her know his true rank; otherwise, there was no way he could avoid getting involved in her schemes.

Not only that, he also feared that she might as well brainwash him and make him into her puppet.

She wanted a weapon, not a child. He did not know about her end goal, but he was sure of a single thing: she wanted to make the strongest exorcist in the world, be it herself or someone she could control.

He must avoid letting any information be known. At least he would try his best; the rest depended on the situation and circumstances.

Ophelia, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes. What Oliver and Nadia did not know was that the amount of pressure she was currently releasing was not something any novice exorcist candidate could bear and stand still.

The pressure was past the limit of what Oliver should have been able to endure, given the amount of espera he was showing to the world.

She was purposefully releasing enough pressure that only a Rank-1 exorcist could bear.

Today had been quite the day.

First was the phenomenon. She had clearly sensed the gathering of energies being focused near this place.

She had sensed the presence of both Nadia and Oliver together at this place. There was no way such a massive phenomenon would occur for no reason, after all.

Why was it more concentrated at this place, at this point where the two of them were?

And now that she was there, the energies dissipated out of existence or were concealed by someone.

Outside the chambers, she sensed Nadia's presence along with another familiar presence she knew from some years ago.

What surprised her was his current state.

Not only had his physique improved to that of a Rank-1 exorcist, but also his eyes… she felt something weird about them.

And now when she was trying to sense what was happening inside him through her senses, she was unable to find anything out of ordinary. Her senses could not pass through, something inside him was definitely interfering.

She was not sure about it but there was no other explanation to how he was able to withstand her pressure.

She was someone who had long passed through the realms of a normal exorcist, there were things that she could see and others not. Not to mention, the experience she had far surpassed most.

Thus she was able to conclude that the reason why she couldn't sense anything extraordinary from him was not that he actually had nothing going on but instead he was hiding something.

Not to mention, he might not have noticed this but his presence was dimmer than an ordinary child. It was nothing significant but it was there….

No matter what, it was going to be revealed soon.