I knew that Wedan's ice mass wouldn't protect us. I tried to shield Mila and Lezlie with vines when the ground broke beneath us. I wanted to help the others, but I could only see Mila and Lezlie at the moment. So, I acted quickly.

However, one of the paladins struck the vines from outside, taking us to an unwanted location. We were hit so fast and so hard that we could hardly stop ourselves.

When the vines were untied, we found ourselves in another room of the palace. The three of us faced a paladin with a red bandage on his arm - a sign that he was their leader. According to the knight rules, whoever wore a bandage in the team was recognized as the leader.

In such a vast palace, I didn't expect our allies to reach us easily. In fact, it was quite obvious that we would not be able to leave here for a long time.

As the enemy approached, Lezlie warned, "We must be careful. He may be stronger than we expect."

"I'd expect nothing less from their leader," I replied.

Mila joined in, "I'll distract him so you can attack." We all knew we couldn't leave without a fight. So we had to fight as a team as much as possible.

After Mila spoke, she acted on her words. After playing with her flask for a short while, she used her water powers to distract the enemy and bought time for Lezlie and me to attack from the right and left.

We aimed to gain superiority by attacking from different directions, but the enemy kept track of our movements while dodging the incoming water attacks. Despite this, we launched a swift attack and struck the enemy simultaneously. I swung my sword while Lezlie swung her club. We were fast, but the paladin was not slow enough to be caught off guard.

He parried our weapons and retaliated. With a quick flick of my sword, I pulled vines from the ground and wrapped them around the paladin's arms to restrict his movements. Lezlie lunged forward and delivered a powerful blow with her club. When I saw an opening in the enemy's abdomen, I plunged my sword into it without hesitation.

I didn't expect the powerful paladin to sustain damage so early on, but we were giving it our all. After taking a few steps back, the paladin pulled my sword out of his belly and threw it toward me. He moved surprisingly well for a wounded man, but something about him seemed off. He was very calm as if nothing had happened. And he practically didn't care that he had my sword.

As I retrieved my sword, I glanced at the paladin and couldn't believe my eyes. He was healing himself by closing the wound in his abdomen and was even advancing to attack us again.

After his wound healed, Mila pondered how he could recover so quickly and speculated about the paladin's ancestry. "Is this paladin a descendant of Cronus?" she wondered aloud.

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I didn't know what lineage he came from, but he recovered quite quickly for a normal lineage and seemed to be quite skilled at it.

At her words, the paladin suddenly began to rise as if he were flying. When Lezlie saw the paladin's diverse and powerful abilities, she had only one thought. "This paladin is not a descendant; he is a mutant."

Lezlie may have been right; I had never seen a race capable of flight without wings. The enemy soared above us and quickly descended to attack our center. Unsure of the strength of the attack, we scattered in different directions to evade it.

After landing with a thud, the paladin chose Lezlie as his first target since she had attacked him first. Lezlie cast spells at the paladin from a corner while Mila supported her. The paladin managed to dodge the spells and retaliated with a punch.

Lezlie tried to avoid the blow by swinging her staff, but although she wasn't hurt by the punch, she was forced back. Mila thought it might be more effective to use sound waves to pressure the paladin instead of water powers at such a close range.

But somehow, the paladin kept moving as if unaffected by the sound waves. When he raised his fist at Mila, who was exposed, she had nowhere to run. I grabbed my sword and wrapped vines around the paladin's arm to deflect his punch.

The paladin had missed his target because of me, he was not satisfied with this situation and was about to make his next attack on me. Using the vines, he pulled me towards him, but at the last moment, Lezlie's earth attack forced him to release me and saved me from his assault.

We had to exercise extreme caution against such a formidable foe. His power was immense, and even a single attack could inflict severe damage. Our best strategy was to avoid his attacks and strike when an opening presented itself.

Lezlie raised the ground beneath her and attempted an overhead attack against the enemy. The Paladin managed to halt his advance by throwing both arms forward to block the incoming attack.

Lezlie swung her club at the enemy once more as a melee attack, but the enemy stopped the club in mid-air, grabbed it tightly, and threw Lezlie toward Mila. When I swung my sword at him, he parried it with the guards on his forearms.

I didn't know what would happen next, but I had little room to maneuver. I was dangerously close to the enemy. I tried to shield myself from his attack by spreading vines on the ground in front of me like a barrier. But when his attack made contact with my vines, it struck my sword and sent me flying across the room.

I was hurled with such force that I could barely stop myself.

As the paladin watched us, waiting for our next move, we spread out to the corners of the room. The three of us had him surrounded, and although we didn't speak aloud, we knew what we had to do.

When I nodded to the girls, we launched another attack. This time, instead of approaching him directly, we aimed to immobilize him using our powers. Mila attacked with her water powers, Lezlie with her earth powers, and I used my sword to attack the vines. All three of us, at the same time, locked onto a single target.

We didn't know how the paladin would respond to our attacks, but we were confident that he couldn't evade them. As the vines ensnared him, the water hindered his movements and the earth rained down upon him. We didn't expect him to withstand such a powerful and coordinated assault for long, but the paladin was stronger than we thought. Shortly after our attacks subsided, he rose from the rubble and freed himself.

What more could we do against such a formidable and invulnerable enemy? For the first time in my life, I wasn't sure what to do in a war.