He was well aware that going after a Hwacheon Academy teacher would result in being pursued by the Hwacheon Clan, but was completely indifferent to this fact. This was because he was already wanted by the Hwacheon Clan.
Hae-san looked over at Dang Eun-ah.
Despite her having a transcended level of cultivation, it was not difficult for him to bind her up in steel chains.
Her martial skills were on a similar level to his, but she allowed him to tie her up without much resistance as she was threatened with the students' lives.
It was difficult to look at Dang Eun-ah's face in the condition it was in. Her face, which was renowned for its beauty, along with her whole body, was bloodstained and covered in bruises.
As soon as he was aware that she was a member of the Dang Family, he had immediately confiscated her Am-gi weapons, as well as the poison that was on her person. Whilst he had dumped the poison in an unknown location, he kept the Am-gi weapons and was using them to torture her.
A puddle of blood had formed around Dang Eun-ah.
Despite her condition, the reason why she was still alive wasn't because of her high cultivation, but rather because she was desperately holding on, willing to remain conscious.
"What do you mean you don't know, you guys are the only people who would know where that man at Goseon Mountain is. You b.i.t.c.h!"
*Pok!*
She fell down as Hae-sak kicked her stomach once more.
At the sight of Dang Eun-ah vomiting blood, the students beside her, who had been tied up with rope, cried out.
"Please don't hit the teacher!"
"Didn't she say she doesn't know?! Why do you keep on hitting her?!"
The students clenched their teeth.
All this time, as their teachers cursed when speaking of Dark Cultivators, they wondered, 'Could they really be that bad?'
However, the truth of the cruelty of the Dark Cultivators that their teachers had repeatedly informed them of was now deeply imbued into their bones.
They too had received dozens of beatings whilst trying to stop the kidnappers as they tortured Dang Eun-ah, but despite the beatings, they didn't stop crying out.
At the raising of Hae-sak's hand, the other Black Snake Sect warriors began beating the students again.
"I told you little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to be quiet!"
*Pok!*
"Shut up! I told you to shut up!"
*Pok! Pok!*
"Stop! Please stop! Don't touch the students, I beg you!"
Hae-sak grabbed Dang Eun-ah by the hair at her cry of protestation.
"Thinking about it, haven't you been speaking a bit informally from the beginning? Shall we eat up a few of these kids?"
Dang Eun-ah clenched her jaw.
"Pl-please don't touch them."
Hae-sak stopped the warriors.
"You sure are a teacher of Hwacheon Academy! Your heart bleeds for the students! So, you really don't know where that fellow is?"
"I-I don't know."
"My Lord ordered him to get Wolf Essence, but he seems to have gotten lost."
"...."
"He's one of the most powerful men we have, with his nickname being Iron Snake Sword, so how could he be missing just like that?"
He pushed Dang Eun-ah against a wall, and then trampled on her collapsed body.
*Pok!* *Po-ok!*
"I'll be reprimanded by my Lord if we don't get him back! d.a.m.n it! How did this happen?!"
He sighed with the fires of anger burning within him.
"Stubborn b.i.t.c.h! If you don't know, I'll have to ask that teacher that ran away, and the people that came to find him! Whilst you let him escape, I sent a few of my men after him. Hah!"
Hae-sak pulled his trousers down.
"Until they arrive, I'll have to find a way to uplift my spirits. You look a little battered, but you still have quite a pretty face."
Dang Eun-ah backed away, knowing what his intentions were.
"N-no…"
However, Dang Eun-ah's clothes ripped easily under his grasp. She quickly covered her chest with her arms.
"You're covering yourself with your arms? I see how this is going to be."
Hae-sak addressed one of his subordinates.
"Take one of the students out and kill them!"
"Yes!"
Dang Eun-ah's face paled at the thought.
Thankfully, at that moment.
*Boom!*
A deafening boom rang out as the ground shook. The force of the movement caused the warriors to stagger backwards, losing their balance.
It was a good opportunity.
Whilst the students were tied up, their legs were not bound. A few of the students moved rapidly thanks to this chance.
Their goal however, wasn't the exit of the cave, but Dang Eun-ah. They quickly covered her body with their own.
"What is this? These rascals!"
The students were frightened by Hae-sak's gaze, but didn't budge from Dang Eun-ah's side.
The oldest student from the group that had escaped, spoke up.
"You can't touch our teacher!"
"What? I see you're a man overflowing with justice."
Hae-sak laughed in a scornful manner.
He was only slightly surprised that the students had moved to protect Dang Eun-ah.
'They're all weak hypocrites that will end up dead anyway!"
He unsheathed his sword.
"There are only three of you anyway…."
"It doesn't matter if we kill the rest of them either."
The students' eyes widened, but they didn't sway, remaining to stand by Dang Eun-ah's side.
"No, no, please!"
Dang Eun-ah's shrill plea rang out.
Hae-sak then raised his sword.
"I guess we'll have to draw some blood for all of you to come to your senses! You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"
Just as he was about to strike.
*Boom!*
As the ground shook, a boom echoed throughout the cave once more.
"What, what Is this?"
But this booming sound was different from the last. Along with the boom, the sound of screaming warriors could be heard from the entrance of the cave.
"Arghhh!"
"Urgh!"
Not long after, the sound of three male voices resounded.
"You should have moved earlier! We'd better get that hawk!"
"The entrance seems to be over there."
"Wai-wait for me!"
Dang Eun-ah's eyes widened in surprise at the voices. The voices were familiar.
The students, who recognized the voices, cried out.
"It-it's Yun Hseong Seonsaengnim!"
"I also hear Oh-Tae Seonsaengnim!"
"And Kang-hyuk Seonsaengnim!"
As soon as the voices were heard, three men appeared. Their ident.i.ties were as the students had said.
Heading the group at the centre stood Kang-hyuk, with Yun Hseong to his right, and Oh-Tae to his left.
Dang Eun-ah spoke with tears in her eyes.
"You've come to save us."
She noticed that it was quiet outside, and nervously asked, "But where is everyone else?"
"There is just the three of us!"
Her face was coloured with despair at Yun Hseong's words.
Despite having a transcended level of cultivation, Dang Eun-ah herself was not been able to do much against the captors.
Against them was Hae-sak, who also had a transcended level of cultivation, along with twenty of his men, who had a peak level of cultivation.
And to think that their only defence was Yun Hseong with a transcended level of cultivation, Oh-Tae with a peak level of cultivation, and Kang-hyuk, a mere Horticulture teacher!
The result of this battle was obvious to her.
'Will we at least be able to save the students?'
She bit her lips.
Dang Eun-ah considered that they would be able to save the students' lives only if she and Yun Hseong lay aside theirs.
Whilst she was still chained, she knew that she would be able to take down at least ten warriors with the Am-gi weapon that was lodged in her body.
Hae-sak roared in laughter at Dang Eun-ah's anxious face as she heard that there were only three people that had come to save her.
"Hahahaha! I don't know how you've gotten here, but you've just walked into the tiger's den! If you don't want to endanger the students' lives, quietly allow me to tie you all up…."
But Hae-sak was unable to finish his words.
"You! When did you enter the Black Snake Clan?"
Kang-hyuk had unexpectedly interceded.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Wasn't your name Hae-sak? I remember seeing you with those bandits, but I guess you managed to escape to get to this point."
Beads of sweat were forming on Hae-sak's forehead at Kang-hyuk's words.
They were from recalling an incident that had occurred many years ago.
It was a time where thousands of bandits had been gathered under the command of a man known as the 'Bandit King', which had been slaughtered by troops led by a single man.
Hae-sak had been a youth at the time, and had barely managed to escape in haste by wielding his sword like a mad man and smearing himself with Baekdo's excrement and urine from a nearby collection pit.
He had found out later on that the man leading those troops was none other the Hwacheon Clan Leader, the 'Invincible Warrior'.
However….
'Why do I feel that guy's energy emanating from this man? That guy's already in retirement, I thought I'd never come across him again!'
He was perplexed as to how such a fresh faced teacher knew of his name.
'Well, I am a wanted man, so he must know me from a wanted picture the Hwacheon Clan must have drawn of me.'
Having explained the situation to himself in such a way, Hae-sak began to threaten Kang-hyuk.
"How dare you call an Elder by their name…."
"You should shut up if you want to die with reduced beatings!"
"…..what?"
Hae-sak was speechless at Kang-hyuk's audacity.
He felt that this was most definitely not a situation in which he could be treated in such a way. Especially not by a man who seemed to be a complete greenhorn with his martial skills.
Kang-hyuk looked around carefully at Dang Eun-ah and the students.
The blue uniform she wore didn't seem to be soaked in blood, but there was a pool of blood surrounding her.
Her clothes were torn.
Along with the Am-gi wapon lodged in her body, there were several other blood stained Am-gi weapons lying on the floor.
He could see that whilst the students were bleeding profusely from their head, a few of them stood around Dang Eun-ah, covering her body.
He roughly grasped what had happened.
'This is just what I expected! Trying to cover Dang Eun-ah's body with their own to uphold some of her dignity! Those kids, I don't know who taught them, but they taught them well!'
Whilst he was glad that the future of Baekdo would be bright with such a generation, at the same time, rage rose up within him at the thought that Dang Eun-ah and the students had been treated in such a merciless way by Hae-sak.
All of a sudden.
Angered by Kang-hyuk's confidence, Hae-sak thrusted his sword towards him.
"This b.a.s.t.a.r.d is ignoring me! I'll cut off all four of your limbs and feed them to the wild animals!"
Yun Hseong cried out, taken aback at the sudden attack.
"Escape…..?"
Within seconds, his cry of warning had become a question.
*Po-ok!*
Kang-hyuk's new body moved with speed, wedging Hae-sak's body between the cave walls.
*Clang!*
"Arrghh!"
His sword dropped to the floor, vomiting blood from the severity of his injury.
"Over-reacting is a type of disease too! Tsk tsk."
However, Kang-hyuk didn't just stop at that.
Kang-hyuk picked Hae-sak up, throwing him against the cave wall with force.
*Poseok!*
Half of Hae-sak's body was stuck in the cave wall.
He wasn't simply in the gap between two walls this time, he was actually lodged into the rock of the wall!
The students and teachers were left with their mouths hanging open at the spectacle.
"You can wait there. Your turn will be at the end!"
Kang-hyuk, who had borne the nickname of 'Dragon Lord' for many years at this point, took no notice of the reactions of the other teachers and students.
"Yun Seonsaeng and Oh Seonsaeng."
Yun Hseong and Oh-Tae promptly nodded their heads at his call.
"Deal with the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at the cave entrance who are trying to escape!"
"Understood!"
Yun Hseong drew his sword as he nodded, whilst Oh-Tae picked up Hae-sak's fallen sword and prepared himself for combat.
"And all of you!"
"Yes!"
"Don't move from your current positions, just stay put! If you needlessly move and your arms and legs are cut off, it'll be quite painful!"
"Huh?"
"Where's your response!"
"Yes! We understand!"
The students blinked. They responded despite not fully understanding what Kang-hyuk meant. Kang-hyuk turned around to look at the warriors of the Black Snake Sect.
"There are a lot of you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, aren't there?!"
Kang-hyuk moved into action as he spoke.
*Pok!* *Pok pok pok pok!*
*Pok Pok Pok!*
The sound of light, graceful striking was ceaseless.
As Yun Hseong dealt with the men that were running away, he occasionally glanced over at Kang-hyuk's combat in admiration.
'Nothing less could be expected from the Clan Leader's secret envoy! His level of cultivation seems to exceed even the Princ.i.p.al's!'
Oh-Tae, who was sweating whilst wielding his sword, had chills running down his spine.
Kang-hyuk's current appearance wasn't that of a greenhorn with rookie martial skills.
He was certain from Kang-hyuk's crazy fighting abilities that he had spent many years in combat.
'Is he really the man I've been so rude to this whole time? To think that I drew my sword in front of him, and even tried to expel him from the Academy! I must be a lunatic!'
