A/N: Sigh, once again, I have to apologize for the late release. On sunday evening when I was planning on writing the chp, I suddenly felt sick and for the past few days been in the fetal position moaning in pain. I finally felt better tonigt and since I couldn't sleep decided to write this chp. Once again, sorry everyone! and hope everyone enjoys the chp! We all finally get to see how the MC truly fights! Woo hoo!

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“Eh? Really? How can you tell?”

When she heard Yong Hwa’s muttering, Dal couldn’t help but open her eyes in surprise. From what she was able to see, there wasn’t anything that would expose the assassins’ identities. Just as she was wondering how he was able to identify them, Yong Hwa spoke up.

“If you look closely at their right ankle, you’ll see fabric with the stitching of a wolf’s head on it. That’s the sign of Illbon’s secret force, the lone wolf.”

As Yong Hwa spoke, Dal focused her attention on the location he spoke of. To her surprise, there was indeed a barely visible stitching of a wolf’s head there. If he hadn’t pointed it out, there was no way she, let alone most people, would have saw it. Inside her mind, her impression of Yong Hwa improved as he was able to pick that out. Just as she praising him in her mind, Yong Hwa once again spoke out.

“Whew, this sure is one hell of a night. I’ll take on the people on the left, you take the right, okay?”

Usually, Yong Hwa wasn’t someone who would easily trust anybody to protect his back. Due to the loss of his memories and isolated training with Elder Shin and Chang, he had grown to be more independent and rely on his own power. The situation, however, wouldn’t allow for that as he was not confident that he would be able to against all ten assassins.

Even though he was indeed still angry about the humiliation he received from Dal previously, he wasn’t so narrow minded to refuse help from a powerful ally just because of a previous incident. With their spar, his impression of her actually grew a lot. With her skills, he felt as though he could comfortably leave his back to her.

When he saw Dal nod her head, he immediately rushed toward to the group of people on the left as he said “Now!”

Yong Hwa didn’t turn his head to see whether Dal had moved or not. All of his attention was focused on the five people in front of him as he quickly rushed toward them. With Azuron’s Requiem in his right hand, he threw himself at the enemy.

Dal, on the other hand, rushed toward the right side as soon as she felt Yong Hwa’s body move. Her eyes, which usually were filled with liveliness, quickly turned cold as she charged at the other cluster of assassins. If Yong Hwa saw her expression right now, he would definitely shudder in fright due the sudden change. With Heavenly Flare in front of her chest, she got within five meters of the foes before she flung out the rapier in attack.

The assassins were startled by the fact that other side attacked them first. As they regained their composure though, they rushed forward to meet them head on. In their hands, a variety of swords and daggers appeared and arced down toward their vital areas.

When Yong Hwa saw the weapons approach him, a sneer appeared on his face as he swung his sword in front of him. As the sword arced through the air, ice formed in its trail as it flung toward the assassins. Surprised by the sudden appearance, the assassins eyes opened wide as they quickly tried to evade the ice. One wasn’t quick enough, however, and the ice hit him squarely in the chest and flung him several feet away. After the assassin hit the ground and his body bounced from the impact a few times, the figure finally came to a still and didn’t move.

The assassins were well trained. Even though they didn’t know whether their fellow member was dead or alive, they quickly pressed forth with their advantage of numbers. One of the members rushed forth ahead of the rest and slammed his fist into the ground.

Yong Hwa, who had distanced himself from the enemy after the first attack, suddenly felt a tremor in the ground. Without any hesitation, he immediately jumped to his left side. Just as he moved, a spike made out of soil rose up from the spot he just was at. Just as he evaded the spike, the three remaining assassins appeared in front of him and attacked.

Without any opportunity to retaliate, Yong Hwa constantly jumped backwards as he focused on blocking the furious assault of the three assassins. What made it even worse was that he had to also pay attention to the assassin in the back as he didn’t know when the assassin would try to attack him again. All he could do was defend himself and silently await the chance to counterattack.

After several clashes between the two sides, Yong Hwa finally saw a tiny opening and fiercely retaliated. On his left hand, ice formulated into a sharp edge two feet long, and he punched forward into the stomach of an assassin who overexerted his strength and lost his posture when he missed Yong Hwa. As the ice pierced through his stomach, a torrent of blood flew out from his back as the ice appeared through the other side.

Immediately after, Yong Hwa pulled his left arm back and jumped backwards as another earth spike thrusted up from where he just was. As he came to a halt, blood trickled down the ice edge as it splattered down to the ground. With just a thought, the ice around Yong Hwa’s left fist shattered as he rushed forward to meet the remaining assassins.

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On the other side of the courtyard, Dal was faring a little better. Even though she begrudgingly admitted her soul strength was lower than Yong Hwa’s, she didn’t lose out compared to the assassins. Even though their soul strength were similar, she had an edge when it came to swordsmanship so she was able to already eliminate two of the foes. Still, she was only able to make up for the difference in numbers by only so much and was only able to dispose of the two weakest ones. The three assassins that remained were the true fighting force of their group and besieged her from three sides.

While she defended herself and counterattacked, she saw that one of the foes retreated back and seemed to condense some of the darkness around him. As the darkness condensed in front of him, it slowly began to manifest into the shape of a blade. Seeing the assassins’ action, a cold smile appeared on her face as she jumped backward out of the reach of the remaining assassins, she focused the energy within her body to the tip of her rapier.

Soon, a brilliant light began to appear on her rapier. Just as the assassins figured out what she planned to do and tried to rush forward to stall her, Dal pointed her rapier at the assassin at the back and the ball of light shot out. As the ball of light flashed forward, it lost its original shape and condensed into the shape of an arrow.

Just as the enemy finished condensing the darkness into a weapon, he looked up to see the brilliant light rushing toward him. Frightened, he willed the weapon he created out of darkness to fly forward and make contact with the light. To his horror though, the light easily tore through the weapon and bore through his chest. On his chest, there was a small circle through which others could see the other side, where his heart used to be. As his body collapsed, his eyes which showed horror and shock, slowly dimmed and lost all light.

With the death of the third assassin, the pressure that Dal dealt with, dropped considerably. With only two assassins left, she was now able to focus and use her energy more freely. Fire began to appear around her sword as she fiercely went on the offensive.

The remaining two assassins quickly retreated and focused on their defense as the situation suddenly changed. Although they had the advantage earlier, with their other companion who was preparing in the back dead, Dal was now able to completely focus on just the two of them now. When they saw the fire around Dal’s rapier and felt as high the temperature was, they didn’t dare to use their wind attribute to attack. They feared it would only increase the strength of the flame so they could only rely on it to increase their speed to fend off her attacks.

Slowly, wounds started to accumulate on the two assassin’s bodies. As their bodies got in worse shape, they considered retreating, but immediately decided against it. Even though they were both wind attributed which was commonly known as the fastest attribute, light wasn’t that far off in regards to speed and they would be immediately caught due to their body’s conditions.

With no other choice, all they could do was abandon all caution and attack. If they were lucky, maybe one of them would survive the ordeal. As they both came to the same conclusion, they stopped retreating and threw themselves forward as they thrusted their weapons forward at Dal’s throat and chest.

Seeing their all-out attack, Dal snorted and leaned her body to the right. As she passed by the two attacks, she stabbed forward with her rapier and stabbed through the neck of one. As the rapier came out through the other side, a fountain of blood poured out. Without being able to say a word. The assassins fell when Dal removed the rapier.

Even though it takes a while to explain what happened, the action was done in a blink of an eye. Before the last remaining assassin was able to turn back around, Dal condensed the flames around her rapier at the tip of the blade and it exploded forth toward him. As the flame flew forward, it manifested itself into the shape of fire bird. When the flame was only a feet ahead of the assassin, it released a sharp cry before it plunged forward and smashed his back.

The last assassin flew back several feet before he bounced on the ground a couple of times and became still. If someone were to look at him, they would see that his back had been charred black and his skin caved in. With the light in his eyes gone, the eyes stared up at the full moon in the sky.

Finally killing the last assassin, Dal fell to one knee and used her rapier to support her body. The fight had taxed her body heavily. That last attack drained her of the last bit of energy she had. Even though she wanted to hurry and go help Yong Hwa, she needed to rest her body momentarily to regain her strength.

After resting for a few minutes, she recovered some of her strength. Painfully raising her body, she was just about to turn around and head toward Yong Hwa when she heard him yell.

“Dal! Behind you!”

Dal hurriedly turned around when she heard Yong Hwa’s warning. When she turned, she could barely make out the outline of a shadow that was flying toward her. Seeing the shadow approach, she frantically tried to leap backward as she raised her rapier. Just as she tried to make the sudden movement though, her leg muscles weren’t able to handle it and gave in. As her body started to fall to the ground, she could only helplessly watch as the shadow drew closer. Just as she was coming to terms that she was about to die, she felt a familiar feeling as time seemed to slow down to snail-like pace.

As the shadow and his dagger inched forward to her chest, she saw snow suddenly appear all around her. With a speed that she wasn’t able to catch with her eyes, a blurry figure suddenly appeared between her and the shadow. Just as the figure appeared, the snow disappeared as if they were just an illusion and time quickly returned to its usual pace.

“Pachi”

When everything had returned to normal, she suddenly heard the sound of a blade ripping through flesh and the figure in front of her shook a little due to the force. Shocked by everything that happened so quickly, she looked at the clothes on the back that blocked out her vision. Seeing the familiar clothes the figure in front of her was wearing, her expression changed into one of horror as she couldn’t help but cry out loud.

“Yong Hwa!”