Hong Bi-cheong

Hong Bi-cheong is the eccentric Sword Marquess of Yuldoguk, an Ulleungdo farmer whose Plant Growth ability becomes one of the Korean Peninsula's most important survival resources. He initially carries a fake aluminum sword and cannot use Aura, yet insists that he is heir to Mount Hua's Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword. Across exceptional cycles, that conviction becomes real enough to reverse his aging, create a world-class swordsman, and sustain a final battle against the being he calls the Heavenly Demon. (Chapters 44–47, 139, 221, and 424)

Biography

The farmer who called himself Sword Marquess

Bi-cheong grows up poor and hungry on Ulleungdo, using martial-arts fiction as the story that gives his life direction. He trains with sticks, rejects an instructor his mother finds for him, and dreams that the 260th leader of Mount Hua has chosen him as heir. He later purchases a noble title from the tiny Sirland Duchy, renames it Yuldoguk in his private worldview, and promotes himself from baron to Sword Marquess after the state disappears in the apocalypse. Almost no one respects the claim, but Bi-cheong never treats it as a joke. (Chapters 44 and 424)

His true early value lies in farming. Plant Growth accelerates crops several times over regardless of season, soil, water, or contaminated climate, turning fields golden in a world where ordinary agriculture has become unreliable. Guild leaders tolerate his threats, titles, and theatrical martial clothing because his harvests keep their members alive. For the National Road Management Corps, he is the support unit that makes roads and patrols sustainable: reconnecting cities means little if travelers and settlements cannot eat. (Chapters 44–45)

Mount Hua, rejuvenation, and the awaited enemy

During a journey with Undertaker, Bi-cheong follows the route of his imagined Mount Hua lineage, plants plum trees, and disappears into the mountain's fog. In another cycle, a chance encounter with a luck Anomaly allows his enlightenment to reverse his aging. The man who had been over sixty-five reappears as an extraordinarily handsome gray-haired youth of about eighteen and fights Undertaker to a standstill for 101 rounds. Because the event had never occurred before, Undertaker later reconstructs its words, sword dance, and sensations to force Bi-cheong toward the same realization again. (Chapters 46–47, 139, and 221)

Lee Ha-yul's puppet strings, Oh Dok-seo's distorted recitation, cursed recordings, and repeated healing turn that recreation into an ordeal rather than a natural epiphany. Even so, the process confirms that Bi-cheong contains a genuine martial possibility beyond Plant Growth. In the ruined route where the alliance has fallen, he walks alone through a world frozen by Udumbara and confronts Go Yuri as the Heavenly Demon. Twenty-four time-imbued sword forms replace the world tree's flowers with plum blossoms, and he continues an unwitnessed battle he expects to lose but never considers meaningless. (Chapters 221 and 424)

Appearance and personality

Bi-cheong initially appears as an Ulleungdo man older than sixty-five, with a long white beard, a frail-looking frame, theatrical martial robes, and a fake aluminum sword taken from a failed kendo school. His endurance and farming work belie the apparent weakness. After rejuvenation, he resembles an exceptionally handsome young man of about eighteen with vivid gray hair, elegant movements, tattered old-style clothing, and a wooden sword at his waist. He still strokes an absent beard and speaks as the same old master. (Chapters 44–45 and 139)

He is proud, stubborn, generous with food, and completely committed to interpreting modern life as a martial world. Titles, sect lineage, internal injuries, demons, and enlightenment are not casual role-play to him; they are the framework through which he understands duty. His eccentricity can become coercive when he threatens the food supply, but his chivalric ideal is sincere. Bi-cheong does not require witnesses, recognition, or even a likely victory before walking toward the enemy he believes has corrupted humanity's time. (Chapters 44–47 and 424)

Abilities

Plant Growth

Plant Growth allows Bi-cheong to raise crops and trees in hostile conditions and accelerate their development several times beyond normal speed. The ability works across poor soil, unusual climate, and seasons that ordinary farming could not survive. It supports peninsula-scale grain production, rare plant cultivation, and experiments involving Udumbara. The story sometimes ranks the ability as S- or SSS-class in value, but those descriptions measure its overwhelming social importance rather than a formal promotion sequence. (Chapters 44–45, 139–143, and 424)

Mount Hua swordsmanship

Before enlightenment, Bi-cheong does not know Aura and uses a fake sword, though decades of private training give him unusual discipline. Rejuvenated Bi-cheong uses internal energy, water-stepping, high-level swordplay, and the Twenty-Four Forms of the Plum Blossom Sword strongly enough to hold Undertaker for 101 exchanges. In the final ruined-world confrontation, each form carries the essence of time: plum blossoms spread through Udumbara, wither its roots, and give his blade a path toward an opponent who exists through reincarnation and frozen history. (Chapters 44–47, 139, 221, and 424)

Power progression

Relationships

• Undertaker: Undertaker protects Bi-cheong's farming role, accompanies him toward Mount Hua, spars with his rejuvenated self, and reconstructs the enlightenment route. Bi-cheong calls him a younger martial peer and Sword Duke, then guards his flank in the final divine-realm battle. (Chapters 44–47, 139, 221, and 436)
• Lee Ha-yul: Ha-yul uses puppet strings to force Bi-cheong's joints through the Mount Hua sword dance while Ah-ryeon heals the strain. The humiliating ordeal helps reproduce a state that originally appeared only through extraordinary luck. (Chapter 221)
• Oh Dok-seo: Dok-seo helps stage the forced enlightenment and later seeks Bi-cheong because he alone can cultivate the Udumbara needed for a wider plan. She treats his strange destiny as indispensable rather than dismissing it as fantasy. (Chapters 221 and 424)
• Noh Do-hwa: Do-hwa manages the infrastructure dependent on Bi-cheong's crops and negotiates around the temperament of a man capable of collapsing food security if alienated. (Chapters 32 and 44–45)
• Go Yuri: Bi-cheong identifies Yuri's time-bound anomalous existence as the Heavenly Demon he has trained to confront. Even knowing she remembers and outlives each encounter, he challenges her as a human acting without hope of recognition. (Chapter 424)

Items

• Fake aluminum sword: Bi-cheong carries a practice weapon taken from a bankrupt kendo school. Its very lack of spiritual prestige helps it avoid the apparitions that cling to more meaningful blades, making the “fake” sword appropriate for his final purpose. (Chapters 44–47 and 424)
• Seeds and cultivated plants: Seeds, grain, plum trees, Eunshincho, and other plants are the material through which Plant Growth feeds settlements and establishes paths invisible to ordinary observation. No single seed pouch is established as a unique supernatural artifact. (Chapters 44–47 and 424)
• Twenty-Four Plum Blossom blades/forms: In the final confrontation, Bi-cheong invests twenty-four sword forms with time and spreads plum blossoms through the Udumbara garden. The count belongs to the technique and its manifested arsenal rather than a stable set of named relics. (Chapter 424)