Who On Earth Are You?!

A crowd of villagers huddled together, which seemed like an open space with wooden houses surrounding here and there. The whole village was under heavy siege with a dozen of assassins carrying out merciless killings just to instill fear the rest was attempting to squeeze out answers from them. The woman who was leading the group was the scariest one. She gave out a vibe of 'the devil in flesh'. A little before she choked an old man to death after he failed to answer her question.

"Where is the aura group who killed the fire demon?" she asked in icy voice.

The old man said in a quavering voice, "I really don't know what you are talking about. We don't know any group or fire demon here."

Tears of fear flowed from his eyes before he was suddenly caught and choked to death by Yin. Her eyes were expressionless cold. The veil mask was now gone revealing her beautiful yet terrified demeanor. There were a pile of dead bodies on the other side of the ground. The fear the helpless villagers were feeling had no bounds as no one knows who was going to be the next victim and all for something they never heard of.

Yin was so boiling was frustration at her failure to catch the chosen one that she went into a frenzy mode taking it all out on the villagers, desperate to find answers. She and her team followed the horse trail through the forest in attempt to get a lead but instead they found them vanishing at the direction which made them leading up to the village. The Mountain Sect in its bid to keep their location an absolute secret wipes out any signs that might compromise their location. This time the horse hoof marks which the men rode to Shrughna was magically altered in a different direction. Yin and her men naturally followed it to a dead end. But somehow they improvised and explored the area ending up in the village where they started to slaughter people suspecting that the group might have taken refuge or at least they know something about them.

In half a day Yin and her men slaughtered almost half of the villagers, burning their homes and destroying their farms. The ruthlessness of her actions was something unfathomable until witnessed with one's own eyes. Her men didn't even spare children and aged people. As if nothing matters more than a piece of information, Yin indulged in this mindless killing without noticing that her nerve condition was about to deteriorate. After she took the life of the old man she suddenly noticed that she was sweating excessively which is a pre-symptom of the violent convulsions that were about to follow. But before she could act upon it and take the medicine the convulsions took over her. Violent seizures started and she fell on the ground twitching with severe pain all over her body. The men ran to her but the medicine was not in her pockets. So one of them quickly ran to her horse to see if it is there. Suddenly, everything went into chaos. A few villagers tried to flee taking advantage of the situation but they were stopped by the remaining men who were skillful enough to tackle the crowd.

Yin convulsed violently due to the bad effects of dark qi and her men ran in a frenzy to find her antidote. In the meantime, Yi Yun and Jiva had reached the gates but were surprised to find no one to stop or scrutiny them so they entered, but were on their guard. On the other hand, the two other groups have started to descend stealthily from the two directions.

Daksh and his group struck their first assault and stealthily killed three assassins while Dong Yul's group killed two. Yi Yun and Jiva kept walking but suddenly they were stopped by flying arrows in front of them and with swiftness two black suit-clad assassins descended and pointed their arrows at them. It was evident that even when they are posing undercover it did not put them out of danger. Realizing this they both fought back revealing their true selves. Yi Yun being an ace in the rope dart fight took out one of the assassins in a swift move whereas Jiva having earth power knocked out the other one with a stone, making it flying hitting his head. They quickly ran into the village trying to find the others in their rendezvous as per the plan.

Yin was still convulsing when the other two groups found the captured villagers and a fight broke out. At that moment the assassin who went to find Yin's antidote returned and he quickly administered it by injecting it into her thigh stabilizing her condition yet still incapable of moving. He then went to join his comrades in fighting the unexpected group of auras. While fighting the group was so engrossed in tackling the assassins that they didn't get any opportunity to signal Adara as was the plan. She hovered above the clouds waiting for the flash fire to be lit yet there was no sign of any.

"What is wrong? Why haven't they signaled me yet?" Adara thought growing concerned.

Soon the group was joined by Yi Yun and Jiva who started fighting alongside their friends. Jiva went ahead while Yi Yun was a little behind him when he sensed an attack from his rear side. Being skilled and ace in kungfu his reflexes were super swift, so he dodged sideways turning around to see who it was. The woman looked like hellfire with cold icy eyes and a ferociousness to behold; her hair was messy and a whiff of an odd mixture of blood, wine, and amber hit his nose. Her face was so dirty with disheveled hair falling on it that it is impossible to see her face properly but that she wasn't a Tianxian, is quite evident. Another special quality of Yi Yun was that he was a very minute observer and can figure out things pretty quickly. So when he saw those eyes they felt oddly familiar to him. He thought to himself while dodging another few strikes from her.

"These eyes. Why are they so much like Adara jiejie? Yet nothing like her."

Yi Yun returned the assault with his sword but slowly proved to be not up to the mark with the fierce woman who was bringing down heavy blows of her skilled warcraft on him. Realizing that he will be soon incapacitated and probably killed by this assassin he started using both his rope dart and sword but this too failed miserably. With no option left he started using his wind power spells on her but surprisingly she was ace enough to dodge them as well. In fact not only did she dodge them skillfully, which was beyond shocking for someone who is not an aura, but she also threw her small dagger at Yi Yun which hit his right arm and he fell. The pain from the sudden attack made him incapable of using spells and within that short time, Yin swung her sword in her rare kalarippayattu style at Yi Yun to kill him.

But instead, her sword landed with a loud clank on another shiny one with a raw gold hilt in the shape of a fire flame, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. The one yielded it looked at her; the coal-black eyes with the same rage and intensity as hers. For the first time in her life, Yin received a shock and went stupefied totally. She has dealt only with men when it came to fighting and killing. So when this woman suddenly appeared in front of her she went completely bonkers. But Yin being trained not to get swayed, soon came back to her usual self and started to attack her new opponent, with her rare form of warcraft, hoping to disenable her, since she realized that blocking her swordsmanship means this woman too is an extremely skilled one.

Yin struck back at this woman with her fighting technique only to be left perturbed even more to find that her opponent was not just an ace swordsman but a kalarippayattu master as well, just like her.

After blocking, she struck, pushing Yin back tumbling, and retreating a little. The woman then spoke to Yin in a similar icy tone and a wicked smirk,

"Did you really think you were the only one who knows this war craft assassin?"

Yin, smirking back said, "Astonishing! Let's see who dies first then."

With that, they wielded their swords again clashing each other with loud clanks as they fought in a unique fighting style unknown to anyone present there. The group by this time has freed the villagers and they all gathered surrounding the two women fighting. There was severe anxiousness in the air and Yi Yun was particularly terrified seeing Adara up against the deadliest assassin known. But at the same time, he and everyone present there realized one thing; Adara was an aura beyond their comprehension. Daksh too looked at her flooded with emotions running through his mind, mostly regret. He now realized what he actually lost.

The two women fought ferociously with each other and they were so engrossed in it that both momentarily forgot that they were surrounded by people and at that very moment it happened, which threw both of them into a severe shocking déjà vu. The incident was so strangely overwhelming for both of them that they stopped fighting with each other and stared blankly with wide-open eyes. While both of them swung their swords with a strong intent to kill, they kind of entering into a trance-like state where both out of nowhere put forward their other hands, clasping each other's palms, with a crisp sound of clap as if two children were playing.

The act made both of them reeling under severe shock. Adara was suddenly drowned in her childhood memories which came down like a sudden flash flood to her. On the other hand, Yin, having weak nerves, and the vague memories of foggy faces of people, made her unstable once again. Both of them reeled backward tumbling letting go of their hands.

Yin screamed at Adara, "Who on earth are you?"

To which Adara replied with utter bewilderment and traces of tears in her eyes, "Who the hell are you?"

With that Yin suddenly turned back fleeing the scene jumping on her mare and swiftly trying to get out of the scene when Jiva threw a rock to stop her but Adara unconsciously wielded her air power to dodge the stone away from Yin, thus saving her. The entire group was so shocked at this that they stood motionless blankly. Yin stopped and looked back at the woman who just saved her from getting hit; who a moment ago was trying desperately to kill her. The expression with which she looked at Adara was something Yin had never shown for anyone in her life. In fact she herself was stunned with the kind of feeling that she was experiencing right now for this unknown person, something she never realized she had in her. But now there was no time to waste so she somehow got hold of herself and fled.

The surroundings were reeling for Adara with the sudden flooding of memories and she started feeling so dizzy that she fainted. But before she could hit the ground Yi Yun came dashing, catching her in his arms. For the first time he was able to hold her and the feeling was so overwhelming for him that he completely forgot that Adara let the assassin go away by actually saving her. He didn't even care for his injury inflicted by Yin's dagger. Everyone came running and gathered around them along with the villagers. Yi Yun kept calling her name to wake her up but it seemed she went into a deep unconsciousness, scaring him even more. He desperately called out the villagers for help. One of the elderly approached and extended her help. She is an expert medicus and checked Adara's pulse. She told them that Adara has gone into severe shock and that she needs treatment immediately and instructed Yi Yun to carry her to her house which was near a small waterfall, who immediately picked her up and ran behind the old lady. While carrying her in his arms Yi Yun strangely felt his whole world crashing down, a sense of extreme protection grappled his heart for the first time in his life, for the woman who stole it, returning the warmth in it gradually. No woman was able to nudge the fire of feelings buried deep into Yi Yun's heart, yet the one in his arms rules it without even showing a flick of affection towards him till now.

"You have to wake up jiejie! I won't let you go; not on my watch", Yi Yun's mind ran as he carried Adara towards the medicus's cottage.