Bursts of flames occured without stop as the fire of heresy continuously crashed against the endless wave of holy energy and holy mana, getting close to the heretic was nigh impossible, fire raged all around him and on his body at all time, the strength of which far outmatched that of the nameless king, no holiness could touch him.
Drowned in the endless violent sea of flames, the heretic was almost undetectable to the trio and kept striking at them from the cover of the flames or even trying to strike them directly with his fiery fists, it seemed as though anyone struck by them would all of their holy mana punched out of their body in an instant.
Still, the trio held strong despite being in a disadvantageous situation, however, it was clear that something would need to turn the tables, even if just by a little bit if they truly thought of winning against the heretic.
The squire couldn't muster up the power to face against his foe just yet, Virtus focused on repelling the attacks of the heretic with all of his might and Gnart held his mace in front of his face for a few moments, taking advantage of the fact Virtus was protecting all of them to give a prayer, he raised his mace up, toward the sky and as he did so, the heretic stopped for a moment, no one could tell that he had as the attacks continued still.
He stared at the mace and looked up at the sky, a strong holy presence seemed to appear for a moment, yet it didn't seem to truly be there at the same time, a large amount of holy energy surged within the paladin instantly, not letting the heretic do anything about it.
Vlasfimia casted a large amount of flames at the presence in the sky, causing it to disappear, still, there was now the issue of the paladin.
Gnart stared right at the heretic though the flames, he could clearly sense him now, he grasped his mace with a single hand and threw it without even attaching the rope as usual the mace arched in the air by itself, piercing through flames and heading toward the heretic with devastating speed.
The strength carried within the mace was enough to severely wound or even kill great monsters and even pierce through the strongest of defenses and yet the heretic choose to stand his ground and smashed his elbow straigth into the head of the mace, breaking its momentum and knocking it away without much difficulty.
The mace flew through the air and instead of landing on the ground, it flew back to the hand of its owner and immediately, the paladin rushed toward the heretic, leaving the protection of the saint as he braved through heretic flames, running toward his foe with thunderous footsteps.
In this instant, the paladin was literally breaking through his limits, achieving a level of strength higher than in his prime, the blessings he had been granted empowering him to heights he never would reached otherwise.
He brought his mace down upon the head of the heretic how had not moved away and instead extended his arms once more before stopping the strike with his hands.
It was incomprehensible how he could stop such a strike with ease when the strike was empowered by godly powers but it was simply because he too had a god supporting him, the paladin could feel its presence when getting this close, a godly presence was residing within the heretic.
He had the direct support from an unknown god, however, for some reason this god didn't use holy energy at all, despite it being a mark of godhood, it instead used a vile power that was destructive toward holiness.
The paladin kept on striking, not giving up the fight, his mace swings may be blocked fully but the fact that the heretic took the time to block them was certainly a sign that they were dangerous to him and even if it was all an act, the paladin wouldn't step back from this fight.
His blood boiled as he continuously fought without stop, the two opponents jousting in orange flames as they exchanged blows in a very simple but brutal manner, dodging was hardly seen as the two simply struck their opponent's attacks to defend, it was more of a fight of strength than one of technique.
Taking advantage of the fact that the heretic was focusing on his fight with Gnart and the number of attacks at been reduced and that they had slown down, Virtus took this opportunity to cast a longer spell and pushed the flames in a wide circle around him away, clearing the area and exposing where the paladin and the heretic were fighting, the saint was about to start casting spell to support Gnart but once again a powerful presence of holiness was felt, granting strength to the saint.
The heretic noticed the occurence and stepped back into the flames further away immediately as the saint started blasting an humongous amount of holy bullets toward him, the bullets homing on him and avoiding the paladin.
With their newfound strengths that had been quite litteraly bestowed from the heavens, the fight was now more balanced, once the saint joined in on the actual fight, the heretic resumed making hell rained upon them and chose to stop trying to attack them by surprise as they could now feel him approach and instead fought them on directly as his flame attacks ran wild, exploding into his own face without damage, he had no issue standing in the radius of his own deflagrations.
Even if the duo's holy attacks could now reach the heretic, he remained resistant to an high degree and moved around constantly at high speeds leaving not much room for him to get hit at all.
The fight, despite the absolutely devastating attacks being constantly used was at a standstill, the fighters didn't seem to be tiring at all and no none was striking their opponents powerfully enough to cause any delibitating wounds.
Meanwhile, the young squire wasn't sure what to do, he couldn't find any window to attack at all and seeing the demonstrations of strength before him, he felt like his attacks wouldn't matter at all, as such, he observed the fight and slowly started to realise something, what he was realising was very abstract, only he could truly understand this but something was happening within his mind as he watched these powerful warriors battle.
Realising this, he stepped back and inspected the surroundings, he had to do something and since he woudn't be able to fight against the flame user, he chose to go help others.