Jeong Ye-ji

Jeong Ye-ji, better known as the Saintess, is the Regression Alliance's principal observer and communications specialist. By combining Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Time Stop, she constructs the constellation system that watches over Awakeners across the Korean Peninsula. Her calm support makes her indispensable to the Undertaker, but the same powers expose her to more suffering—and more years of solitude—than almost anyone around her can perceive. (Chapters 3–7, 39–41, and 382)

Biography

The woman behind the constellations

Ye-ji first approaches the Undertaker through the persona of the Saintess of National Salvation, one of many supposed Constellations sending messages to Awakeners. When he meets her beneath a convenience-store parasol, he finds an aqua-haired woman rather than a transcendent being. She initially withholds the truth because prophecy or mind-reading could imitate a regressor's knowledge, but a later meeting reveals that the Constellations are roles she created herself through observation and telepathic performance. (Chapters 3–4)

Her goal is not worship. Clairvoyance shows her how easily Awakeners can abuse their new strength, while Telepathy gives her a way to reward, warn, shame, and coordinate them without revealing the vulnerable person behind the messages. The Undertaker recognizes the system's stabilizing value and becomes the combat partner her powers lack. From the thirty-sixth cycle onward, forming an alliance with Ye-ji becomes one of his first essential steps; Seo Gyu's SG Net later gives her constellation identities a durable public forum. (Chapters 4, 6–7, and 39)

This partnership turns Ye-ji into the peninsula's spiritual infrastructure. Her observations guide deployments, detect dangerous Awakeners, and support the National Road Management Corps, while her messages create the impression that moral authorities are always watching. Yet her sight reaches Awakeners rather than ordinary civilians. When civilians harm one another beyond the road network's control, she can witness or infer the tragedy without directly reaching its victims, a limitation that intensifies her determination to remember those whom she cannot save. (Chapters 39–41, 70, and 103–105)

The Executor at the end of stopped time

Ye-ji's hidden Time Stop explains how one person can monitor many Awakeners and speak as numerous Constellations at once. At first, stopping time leaves only her consciousness flowing, with little more than her eyes able to move. As the ability develops, she can walk across the country while everyone else remains frozen. Clairvoyance lets her share an opponent's view, imperceptible aura conceals her approach, and years of private practice turn a support specialist into a hand-axe fighter capable of evading the Undertaker's sword. (Chapters 39–41)

Her growth also creates the Executor route. Continuous observation makes every unattended crime feel like a personal failure, while Time Stop grants effectively limitless private time to judge and intervene. The same compassion that sustains the constellation system can harden into unilateral punishment when she concludes that ordinary institutions cannot reach the guilty. The Undertaker does not defeat this version through greater force; he appeals to the alliance that made her burden shareable, asking her to help rather than carry the whole world alone. (Chapters 39–43 and 94)

Her most extreme vigil comes when she stops time to contain Hecate, later corrected to Nut, for two thousand years. Without Complete Memory, she relies on a worn diary to preserve the voices and histories of her companions. Even so, Noh Do-hwa's tone, Cheon Yo-hwa's laughter, and the Undertaker's voice begin to fade. She eventually resumes time only after judging herself strong enough to face the enemy, demonstrating immense temporal mastery at the cost of a life lived between unmoving people. (Chapter 382)

Allowing Jeong Ye-ji to be seen

For many cycles, Ye-ji treats her personal feelings as another variable to control. When she realizes that Dang Seo-rin stands beside the Undertaker, she suppresses her own early affection and sincerely supports their relationship. She hides her real name because it is a weakness within the constellation system, and the title Saintess gradually becomes safer than being an ordinary woman whose childhood friends, schoolmates, and companions can be taken from her by reincarnation and anomalies. (Chapters 382 and 412)

That discipline falters when she begins to suspect the Undertaker may retain awareness inside her stopped time. During ordinary alliance gatherings, Ye-ji remains the composed person everyone respects, but in private she uses Time Stop to test whether he can hear confessions she cannot make while the world moves. She alternately wants him to know and fears that being known would destroy the immaculate trust on which their partnership rests. Her decision to refrain from Clairvoyance for his sake is therefore both an ethical boundary and an attempt to meet him without the advantage of constant observation. (Chapters 454 and 457–458)

When the Undertaker arrives at her home, Ye-ji initially searches for a strategic explanation, then releases Time Stop and opens the door. She remains the alliance's rational center during the disputes awakened by Pandora's box, restraining both Cheon sisters and insisting that impossible memories be handled deliberately. Her development does not require abandoning the Saintess. Instead, she allows Jeong Ye-ji—the private, desirous, occasionally irrational person beneath the role—to exist beside the observer who has always protected everyone else. (Chapters 457–459 and 474–481)

Appearance and personality

Ye-ji has aqua-colored hair, initially worn tied back, and deep black eyes. At her first meeting with the Undertaker she otherwise appears ordinary, an impression reinforced by simple clothes and a hiking backpack. Her Yongsan home is crowded with aquariums whose bubbling water becomes part of the atmosphere around her. She usually speaks with exact pronunciation and an even, rational voice, quietly using stopped time when necessary to prepare her words. (Chapters 3–5 and 382)

Her expression is characteristically composed, but not emotionless. Anxiety appears in clenched fists, hesitation, lowered eyes, and pauses that she attempts to smooth away before anyone notices. She is intelligent, compassionate, private, and extraordinarily patient. Even allies who initially recoil from learning that she watches them continually come to trust her, because her surveillance is paired with years of dependable warning, counseling, and restraint. (Chapters 4, 39, and 457)

Ye-ji's greatest virtue and danger share the same origin: she finds it difficult to stop taking responsibility. She can allocate resources with ruthless practicality, yet she continues observing deaths she has no power to prevent. She avoids burdening the Undertaker with tragedies beyond their jurisdiction while privately retaining them herself. The resulting isolation can produce the Executor's certainty, but it also explains why ordinary gestures—sharing coffee, holding a hand, hearing a remembered voice—carry such weight for her. (Chapters 39–43, 94, 382, and 457–459)

Abilities and anomalies

Ye-ji's abilities form an integrated support and temporal-control system. Clairvoyance selects and shares perspectives, Telepathy transmits information to those she can reach, and Time Stop gives her the private duration needed to operate both at enormous scale. Their combination makes her appear omnipresent, but each power has boundaries: her early sight has a finite radius, ordinary civilians are invisible to direct Awakener-targeted observation, Telepathy depends on valid targets, and long periods in stopped time impose psychological and mnemonic costs.

Clairvoyance

At first disclosure, Clairvoyance can observe any Awakener within a radius of one thousand kilometers, including sight and sound. Its range later covers most of the Korean Peninsula. Ye-ji can switch among many targets or synchronize with a specific person's view; against the Undertaker, shared vision tells her exactly where he is looking and helps her evade attacks. The ability cannot directly observe ordinary civilians, and cognitive hazards can travel through the act of observation. Go Yuri's passive corruption is dangerous enough that the Undertaker makes never watching her a central rule. (Chapters 4 and 39–41)

Telepathy and the constellation system

Telepathy sends Ye-ji's voice to perceived Awakeners. She can also transmit short written messages, initially limited to 140 characters. By combining the ability with Clairvoyance, she gives each recipient a tailored Constellation, praises achievements, issues warnings, conducts counseling, and coordinates field operations. The system's authority is socially constructed rather than divine: it works because her observations are accurate and because Awakeners believe the many voices represent higher beings. Telepathy does not naturally reach ordinary civilians, leaving the constellation system strongest among the very people most capable of supernatural violence. (Chapters 3–7 and 39–41)

Time Stop

Time Stop halts the external world while preserving Ye-ji's awareness. Its earliest state permits only mental activity and slight eye movement; later growth allows her to move freely, travel across the peninsula, speak, fight, and perform thousands of actions within what others experience as an instant. This is how she maintains multiple observations and Constellation performances without visible delay. The frozen interval is real lived time for Ye-ji. A sufficiently long use can isolate her for centuries or millennia, erode unrecorded memories, and tempt her to make unreviewable decisions while everyone else is unable to answer. (Chapters 4, 41, 94, 382, and 454)

Aura and temporal combat

Ye-ji initially lacks direct combat power, but years of training produce aura so unobtrusive that even the Undertaker struggles to sense it. She learns to throw and wield a small hand axe, move through stopped time, and use Clairvoyance to exploit an opponent's own sightline. In the Cemetery of the Sea of Corpses and Blood, the Undertaker's permission restores her toward the prime preserved in his memory: Time Stop no longer exhausts her there, and she believes she can counter opposing time acceleration. This prime state depends on the divine realm and should not be treated as her unrestricted condition everywhere. (Chapters 39–41 and 435)

Power progression

Relationships

• Undertaker: Ye-ji's principal ally from the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth cycles onward. His combat and future knowledge complement her observation, while her guidance makes nearly every later plan possible. Their bond develops from strategic necessity into trust, concealed love, and a difficult attempt at mutual honesty. (Chapters 3–7, 39–43, 382, and 457–459)
• Noh Do-hwa: The National Road Management Corps depends on Ye-ji's surveillance, and Ye-ji relies on Do-hwa to turn information into material rescue. Forgetting Do-hwa's voice during the two-thousand-year vigil becomes one measure of the personal cost of stopped time. (Chapters 39, 51–52, 70, and 382)
• Dang Seo-rin: Ye-ji recognizes Seo-rin's relationship with Undertaker and supports it sincerely across many cycles, initially treating her own affection as a seed that can be removed. Pandora's box later forces both women to confront routes in which those boundaries changed. (Chapters 382, 457, and 474–482)
• Go Yuri: Yuri's passive mental corruption is the critical blind spot in Ye-ji's observation system. Direct Clairvoyance can become the route by which Yuri reaches, brainwashes, and destroys her, so refusing to observe Yuri is an essential survival protocol. (Chapters 39–44)
• Regression Alliance: Even members unsettled by constant observation grow emotionally close to Ye-ji because she watches over them without demanding public intimacy. In the final disputes, her compassion and rationality make her the person able to restrain both Cheon sisters and keep the group from acting solely on restored bad endings. (Chapters 435, 457, and 474–481)

Items

• Silver Bell: The Undertaker gives Ye-ji a bell bracelet as a promise linking his continuing regressions to her isolation inside stopped time. (Chapters 213–214, 273, 379–430)