“Doctor! Call a goddamn doctor, now! Hurry the f*ck up!” Lee Hyeon-Su loudly roared.

“Yes, sir!”

“Hurry up! Get a move on, now! Before I f*cking kill you myself!”

Lee Hyeon-Su was this close to losing his mind. Of course he knew he must stay calm and composed, but Kang Jin-Ho's state was bad enough to make him forget all about that principle.

“W-what should I do?! Dammit!”

It had been less than a minute since Kang Jin-Ho was teleported to this ship. But his blood was already soaking the floor to turn it into a puddle. How could Lee Hyeon-Su stay calm when his brain automatically calculated how long a person in this wretched state could last?

“Press down on that spot! No, over there, you f*ck! Yes, there! Stem the bleeding, for god's sake, you idiots!”

Lee Hyeon-Su's loud yell sobered up the pale-faced people. They rushed toward Kang Jin-Ho and urgently pressed down on various parts of his gravely injured figure.

“This... Goddamn it! F*ck!” Lee Hyeon-Su loudly swore, still unable to figure out what to do.

The preparations he made seemed watertight. He had a doctor on standby on deck and even prepared a simple operating room before the ship had set sail, just in case. However, the medical equipment onboard could only stabilize and maintain a patient's condition, but not much else.

Unfortunately, Lee Hyeon-Su couldn't remember any of his own preparations right now. Everything seemed to crumble into obscurity the moment he clapped his eyes on Kang Jin-Ho's deathly pale complexion.

“Doctor?! Where is the bloody doctor! Someone, go get those bastards already! Doctor!” Lee Hyeon-Su continued to yell like a crazed man.

That was when a calm voice tickled his hearing. “Get a hold of yourself.”

“How can I do that, master!” Lee Hyeon-Su turned around, his eyes burning angrily, only for him to flinch and stop.

Wiggins was there, lightly tutting away while staring at his disciple. What stopped Lee Hyeon-Su wasn't his master's presence, though.

“M-master...! What happened to your arm?”

“Hmm...” Wiggins shook his head and spoke without much concern. “Giving up an arm is a cheap price to pay for extracting our Assembly Master from that monster.”

The left side of Wiggins' broad robe was suspiciously hanging loose. As if... His left arm was no longer there! The trickling blood on the robe told all the stories necessary to figure out what happened to the missing arm.

Lee Hyeon-Su freaked out even more. “Y-y-your arm?!”

Wiggins shook his head. “It's fine.”

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

“But we need your arm to reattach it, master! L-let's go back and retrieve…”

“I said, it's fine,” Wiggins groaned while furrowing his brow. “Besides, there should be nothing to retrieve other than some mangled bits of flesh, anyway. My arm didn't get torn off but got crushed into mush.”

“Argh...!” Lee Hyeon-Su shuddered in dread.

All Wiggins did was pop in there for a few seconds. That was how long he needed to rescue Kang Jin-Ho. Yet, he still lost an arm? Lee Hyeon-Su was freshly reminded of how hellish that place must've been.

“S-still... But...” Lee Hyeon-Su frowned, unable to figure out what to do while sandwiched between the dying Assembly Master and his master with a missing arm. “What must I... Goddamn it...!”

He felt powerless. Aggrieved. And utterly furious at himself. All these emotions combined like a gut punch that brought tears to his eyes.

In the meantime, doctors onboard hurriedly rushed toward Kang Jin-Ho. However, their complexions instantly paled after checking out Kang Jin-Ho's condition.

“W-we are supposed to...”

Save this man?

That was what the look on their faces was asking.

Lee Hyeon-Su was too smart not to figure that out, so he addressed the lead surgeon while gritting his teeth. “Doctor, listen.”

“Y-yes?”

“If this man dies... Everyone here will die, too.”

“...!”

Naked killing intent figuratively dripped from every word leaving Lee Hyeon-Su's mouth.

“And you better believe me when I say you won't experience a nice little sea burial in the Yellow Sea. Because, if that person dies... You and your chums are gonna take a detour to the pits of Hell. I will make sure to get your tickets, so you better...”

That was when Wiggins used his remaining arm to smack the back of Lee Hyeon-Su's head.

To his credit, Lee Hyeon-Su clenched his teeth and kept his silence. Although his boiling anger had rushed to the top of his head, how could he talk back to his master who sacrificed an arm to rescue the Assembly Master?

“You think threatening these doctors will spur them on to do a better job?” Wiggins shook his head before smiling gently at the doctors. “My apologies. My disciple got too worked up and said some stupid things. Don't worry, everyone. I shall personally guarantee your safety.”

The doctors faltered. “Oh. Uh...”

“And... I know that the patient looks like a corpse right now, but he's a lot tougher than your average young man. I assure you, he will definitely pull through as long as you perform first-aid and patch up his wounds. Please do your best, everyone.”

“I-I see. But it's impossible to do that here. We need to suture the patient and perform a blood transfusion. W-we must transfer the patient to the operating room!”

“Of course.”

Even before Wiggins could finish nodding, people hurriedly rushed toward Kang Jin-Ho and tried to lift him up. However, they were stopped in their tracks by Wiggins' weighty-sounding voice.

“Do not touch him.”

His voice contained this inexplicable power, forcing everyone to back away without touching Kang Jin-Ho.

“Tsk…” Wiggins grunted, then extended his lone arm toward Kang Jin-Ho. The latter's still figure silently floated up in the air. With how precarious his condition was, people haphazardly touching Kang Jin-Ho could put even more burden on him. Wiggins' way of transporting him should be the best option available.

Once Wiggins finished carefully transporting Kang Jin-Ho to the operating room, doctors urgently rushed in.

“Blood! We need to give him more blood! Get the packs ready!”

“That's not gonna help him in his current condition! We need to perform angiorrhaphy first!”[1]

“No! He'll die from blood loss at this rate!”

Unlike how rushed the doctors sounded, their eyes were focused, and their hands were moving professionally. After confirming that the doctors had begun their work, Wiggins left the operating room and cautiously closed the door behind him. From this moment on, there wasn't much he could do. He must let the doctors do their job.

“...Master,” said Lee Hyeon-Su.

Wiggins glanced back at his grim-faced disciple walking up to him. He chuckled slightly. “It's not that easy to remain calm, now is it?”

“...”

“People who believe they are pretty calm simply haven't been tested by incidents that could potentially fluster them. That's all.” Wiggins explained calmly to his disciple.

“...I see.” Lee Hyeon-Su muttered while lowering his head.

Lee Hyeon-Su proudly saw himself as the hidden brains of the Assembly's operation. But this event taught him how powerless and pathetic he actually was. Rather painfully so, too.

He couldn't do anything. He couldn't predict the Crimson King personally interfering. He didn't even entertain the idea of Kang Jin-Ho facing grave threats like this, either. In fact, didn't Lee Hyeon-Su willingly agree with Kang Jin-Ho's plans to go to China? Because he thought the Assembly would be safe while Kang Jin-Ho attracted attention over there?

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the Chinese would completely forget about the Korean Martial Assembly and target only Kang Jin-Ho. Yet Lee Hyeon-Su greatly overestimated the value of the organization he helped to establish.

...And the price of his arrogance was this situation.

Kang Jin-Ho was teetering on the border between life and death. Meanwhile, Wiggins lost an arm. Not only that, but Yi Myeong-Hwan and his comrades had to bravely walk into the jaws of death to rescue Kang Jin-Ho.

Not everything that happened was Lee Hyeon-Su's fault. That didn't mean he was not responsible for what happened, though.

Lee Hyeon-Su held his face in shame.

'God f*cking damn it!'

He almost bit his tongue to kill himself. This shame was unbearable! And what embarrassed him even more was Wiggins' calm demeanor. Even though he acted according to Lee Hyeon-Su's plan to rescue Kang Jin-Ho and jumped into the enemy camp... How could Wiggins be more composed than Lee Hyeon-Su?

“Tell me, disciple. Are you planning to repeat your mistakes here?”

Lee Hyeon-Su looked up at Wiggins.

“You can beat yourself up with regret later. Stewing in shame can be a valuable learning experience for you. However... Don't you still have things to do?”

Wiggins was right. Lee Hyeon-Su still had plenty of things left to do. If he let his shock prevent him from performing his duties properly, what would Kang Jin-Ho say after waking up later?

Lee Hyeon-Su was not confident in handling the inevitable disappointed look on Kang Jin-Ho's face.

“Master... The Assembly Master will be alright, yes?”

“Do you think he'd die like this?”

“...No, I don't.”

Wiggins tutted softly. “Then, what are you worried about?”

Lee Hyeon-Su animatedly nodded away. Kang Jin-Ho was not fated to die in a place like this. Besides, he must not die for the sake of everyone who sacrificed their lives to rescue him.

Lee Hyeon-Su turned around to leave. Now that things had come to this, he must 'look after' what Kang Jin-Ho had created while putting his body on the line.

***

“Come on! Pull them in! Hurry!”

“Yes, sir!”

The current situation was quite literally a chaotic mess.

In the original plan, this ship should have been waiting for the demonic cultivators' arrival in the international waters. Once they had arrived and climbed aboard, that would've been the job mostly done.

However, Lee Hyeon-Su was left with no choice but to boldly order the ship to enter the Chinese territorial waters when the situation became urgent.

His judgment proved correct. If Lee Hyeon-Su hadn't ordered the ship to get closer to the coastline, most demonic cultivators would've drowned from fatigue.

Although, his decision could've killed the demonic cultivators if the ship had gone off in a different direction. Even so, Lee Hyeon-Su valued Kang Jin-Ho's survival far more than the lives of ten thousand demonic cultivators.

He didn't care about people potentially decrying his immoral decision. He also didn't care about people labeling him a devil. Lee Hyeon-Su became an uncaring bastard and ensured his command would be carried out.

As luck would have it, he managed to meet up with the demonic cultivators swimming toward the ship. That didn't mean he had the time to stop and pull them up one by one, though. So, Lee Hyeon-Su ordered all the nets and buoys in the ship to be thrown overboard and let the demonic cultivators climb up on their own strength.

Many demonic cultivators managed to climb onboard, but quite a few failed to do so after exhausting themselves too much in the ocean. The operation to rescue them was currently underway.

“Which son of a b*tch was it?!”

Unsurprisingly, demonic cultivators roared in anger after setting foot on the ship's deck.

“You! You insane motherf*cker! Who would think about moving the ship when people are still dangling on the sides?! Listen here, you motherf*cker! Do you have any idea how many people died because of you!”

The demonic cultivators instinctively figured out that Lee Hyeon-Su was the man in charge and unleashed their rage in his direction.

However, such a thing was utterly ineffective against Lee Hyeon-Su.

“So what?” Lee Hyeon-Su dismissively grunted.

“...What did you say?”

“I'm asking you why I should care about a few of you dying out there.”

The demonic cultivators got flustered when Lee Hyeon-Su began berating them in fluent Chinese.

“Can it with your tough guy act, alright? You f*cking insect piece of sh*t. You think I came to rescue you? If it weren't for Assembly Master, I wouldn't even give a sh*t about you and leave already.”

“You... You...!”

Lee Hyeon-Su pointed at the containers stacked on the ship's deck. “You crawled up here like goddamn cockroaches, so shut the f*ck up and go inside already. I don't have the time to listen to your whining.”

“You...! I'll kill you, you son of a b*tch!”

“Kill me?” Lee Hyeon-Su growled menacingly, his murderous glare locking on to the demonic cultivators.

“...!” The demonic cultivators all flinched. They were instantly suppressed by Lee Hyeon-Su's murderous aura.

“When I think about how our Assembly Master got injured because of you lot...! It's taking everything I have to stop myself from rounding all of you up and tossing you overboard. So, disappear from my sight while I'm still being civil, okay? I'm this close to ripping your head off myself.”

That was when Chang Min suddenly butted in. “It's as he says.”

Demonic cultivators hurriedly looked in the direction of his voice. “Elder Chang!”

Chang Min staggered toward the crowd. He shouldn't have been too exhausted while swimming to the ship, but the truth was, he was too tired to even stand straight right now. He spent most of his energy trying to assist all the weaker demonic cultivators and pull them up the ship, after all.

He glanced at Lee Hyeon-Su. “What is our liege's current state?”

Lee Hyeon-Su realized he must reply to this demonic cultivator. He only needed one look to figure out that this old man was a big shot. “He's in the operating room, receiving medical care.”

“Is that so...” Chang Min nodded, then addressed the crowd in a firm, unforgiving tone. “You heard him! Our liege is being treated for his injuries right now! In that case, I will not accept any unruly behaviors from you! Do not forget that we still have not reached the promised land. Don't let your guard down!”

“B-but, Elder Chang!”

“Didn't you hear me!”

The demonic cultivators flinched again and shrunk back. Chang Min sounded angry, his voice containing barely suppressed killing intent. They had never heard Chang Min speak this way before.

“Who among us isn't angry and sad at the losses and sacrifices?! If our liege and these people hadn't stepped up for us... We'd all be dead! Are you thinking of disobeying our liege's command!”

“N-no, Elder Chang...”

“...Then, hurry up and move!”

“Yes, sir!”

Lee Hyeon-Su watched Chang Min ably deal with the situation and sighed in relief. Of course, that didn't mean this situation had been completely dealt with just yet.

“Where's my master?” Vator asked while walking unsteadily toward Lee Hyeon-Su and Chang Min.

1. Angiorrhaphy is a surgical suture/repair of blood vessels. ?