Gourmet

The Gourmet is a Skyfire Avenue councilor, master chef, and estranged scion who was once intended to inherit the Chu family's Hades mantle. He first appears as one of Lan Jue's closest connoisseur friends, concealing both his combat strength and the grief that drove him away from his family. After accepting a future with the Seamstress, he completes his ascent to Paragon and takes the title Infernal Vanguard, becoming a senior guardian of Skyfire Avenue and a recurring battlefield ally of Lan Jue.

Biography

A councilor behind the kitchen door

The Gourmet occupies a senior place on the Skyfire Council but builds his public life around food rather than power. His small surface shop is not open to the public and exists chiefly to entertain friends, while its larger Underground counterpart serves Avenue Adepts. At wine gatherings he is both craftsman and social anchor: he prepares rare ingredients with exacting technique, teases the Wine Master over his cellar, and listens without pressing when Lan Jue speaks about Hera. His friendship is practical and restrained, expressed through meals, invitations, and an ability to recognize when company will help more than advice. (Chapters 2–28 and 64–68)

That ordinary persona is deliberately incomplete. Other councilors believe he has never raised a hand in violence, yet Lan Jue knows his quiet cabin can become a death-filled world at a shift in mood. When the Western Citadels prepare to visit, Lan Jue wins his participation through food and the promise of exceptional wine. The Gourmet chooses the team battle, recommends the hidden strengths of the Pauper and Pharmacist, and helps assemble a response strong enough to prevent the visitors from dictating terms. His willingness is loyalty to the Avenue, but also the first public step out of a long withdrawal. (Chapters 250–260)

The cause of that withdrawal is Mina, the woman he loved. Her murder broke him, separated him from the Chu family, and left the Seamstress waiting while he remained fixed on the dead. The arrival of Satan and Mika forces the wound into the open because Mina was Mika's sister and Satan's daughter. Satan admits the darkness made him kill his wife but denies killing Mina; the corpus does not resolve Mina's killer in these scenes. The Gourmet's anger cannot produce certainty or restore her, and the confrontation instead makes him recognize how completely grief has ruled the living. (Chapters 252–265)

The Infernal Vanguard and a life with the Seamstress

The Gourmet's Paragon breakthrough coincides with that emotional reckoning. He returns to the Seamstress with flowers, a rare whisky, and an apology for making her wait, admitting that power and fixation on the past cannot give him happiness. He asks for another chance, and she accepts after venting years of anger. Their reunion is not presented as erasing Mina; it is his choice to stop treating remembrance as a reason to refuse every future relationship. The couple later make their partnership official and marry. (Chapters 254–255 and 371)

He refuses the Paragon title Hades because adopting it would not bring Mina back. Instead he names himself Infernal Vanguard, imagining his new role as a watch over the darkness where her soul might one day appear. The title preserves grief without letting it govern all his choices. He declares that he has no relationship with the Chu family and will never return, while his nephew Chu Cheng inherits the mantle and later becomes its patriarch. Gourmet can still share Hades knowledge and act as Chu Cheng's uncle without reclaiming a family position he has permanently rejected. (Chapters 164, 264–265, 398–423, and 829)

The Great Adept Tournament shows the quieter work of that new role. Gourmet leads Skyfire's delegation alongside the competitors, protects Jun'er during her mother's matches, and responds seriously when her precognition awakens. He uses Nether Isolation to keep the discovery private and helps the Pharmacist understand that the child has inherited the Clairvoyant's path. He also advises Lan Jue, watches Chu Cheng's progress with informed pride, and negotiates with the Terminator from the standing of one Paragon to another. His contribution is guardianship and judgment, not taking attention from the younger fighters. (Chapters 390–433 and 456–492)

Building and testing Star Division

After the Clairvoyant's death, the Gourmet pledges to protect Jun'er and the seer's legacy. He joins the newly formed Star Division as assistant to Lan Jue and serves with Second Brigade's ace squad. He is not made a brigade commander because the unit requires commanders with stronger mecha specialization, but his presence gives its field teams a Paragon-level reserve. The division can therefore train ordinary members as soldiers while retaining a combatant able to stop a disaster that their formations cannot manage. (Chapters 509–545)

The arrangement is tested when Star Division encounters an alien progenitor during what should have been a routine operation. The Gourmet deploys in a light, fast grey mecha designed to amplify his Discipline, burns away corrosive remains with crimson fire, and helps Lan Jue and the Pharmacist protect the formation. The discovery turns training into preparation for an actual extinction war. Gourmet accepts Lan Jue's command and uses his greater cultivation in support of the unit rather than making the mission revolve around his rank. (Chapters 539–545)

On the pirate campaign he is both weapon and companion. Star Division treats him as its secret answer to entrenched forces, but he accepts plans that prioritize safety rather than demanding a direct display of Paragon strength. After the fighting he returns immediately to food, drink, teasing, and finding the Seamstress, who participates under her former God-pilot identity Windbreaker. That contrast is central to him: Infernal Vanguard can erase hostile forces, but Gourmet's desired life is one in which battles end and people share a table. (Chapters 563–588)

The encounter with the Violet Princess establishes that Paragon status is not invincibility. Gourmet, Pharmacist, Driver, and Lan Jue together cannot defeat her and are forced to retreat after the Barber is killed. He helps bring the survivors home and supports the Division as grief hardens its resolve. The failure shifts his role from deterrent against human enemies to one fighter among many facing beings beyond ordinary Paragon levels. (Chapters 585–593)

The Northern offensive and the planetary rescues

During the Northern offensive, Gourmet deploys with Skyfire's Paragons to protect Kang Hui and Tyrannosaurus. He accepts Lan Jue's operational authority despite being older and formally stronger, remaining with Luo Xianni and the Pauper when Lan Jue divides the team for reconnaissance. The decision preserves a retreat route and keeps the Northern commander alive. Gourmet's concern is not abstract: the Chu family fights elsewhere in the operation, and his nephew's survival becomes a personal stake in the coalition's success. (Chapters 668–701)

When the human fleets move to rescue occupied planets, Gourmet joins the Paragon spearhead. His Domain spreads a grey stillness in which the landscape withers and aliens burn silently to ash. He later helps defend Middle Heaven from the catastrophic detonation of planetary cores and worries openly about Chu Cheng, who led a ground assault. His combat maturity lies in continuing to serve within the formation while acknowledging fear for his family rather than pretending detachment. (Chapters 733–749)

On Angel and during later reconnaissance, he repeatedly uses Hades' unholy flame to alter the battlefield rather than only kill. Against Monarch's doppelganger, a grey path pulls his companions out of a crushing attack, although the superior enemy anticipates their escape and still forces them back. During Lan Jue and Qianlin's ascension he gains substantial insight but does not reach Reflection; his progress since becoming Paragon has been slow, and the breakthrough leaves him only a step closer. The distinction matters because later alien elites consistently outclass him in direct cultivation. (Chapters 779–797)

Holding the line for the Banishing Strategy

As the alien war approaches its end, Gourmet continues to fight as part of coordinated Paragon groups. His soul fire contributes to massed strikes against Nirvana-level avatars, and his Hades inheritance becomes especially effective against the Violet Princess: grey flames block her energy vessels and devour vital essence. Unlike alien consumption, his power destroys life essence as part of death and rebirth rather than storing it to amplify himself. Even with that favorable interaction, he needs the Pontiff, the Gods of Wine, and Skyfire's scientists to hold an Infinite-level opponent, and the fight leaves him injured and exhausted. (Chapters 829 and 845–874)

The final battle places him among the Paragons shielding Lan Jue, Lan Qing, Zhou Qianlin, and the Pharmacist while they establish the Banishing Strategy. He continues after the Pauper, Keeper, Bookworm, and both Gods of Wine fall, one of only six defenders still standing between the aliens and the formation. His task is not to defeat Monarch himself but to buy the seconds the four bearers need. The Strategy succeeds, and Gourmet survives the war after helping hold that line. (Chapters 888–901)

Three years later he is still living on Skyfire Avenue and cooking. Jun'er brings Lan Jue's and Hua Li's young sons to his house for a promised meal, showing that he remains part of the extended family formed around the Avenue. This quiet epilogue fulfills the choice made after his breakthrough: the Infernal Vanguard protects humanity when required, but the life the Gourmet preserves is measured in homes, children, and food shared after danger has passed. (Chapter 903)

Appearance and personality

The Gourmet has coarse, craggy features and can initially appear older or rougher than his tailored clothing suggests. He favors formal suits, waistcoats, and carefully chosen accessories when social occasions require them, while his hands are slender and precise enough to slice food nearly translucent. After overcoming his long emotional fixation and reaching Paragon, he appears younger and more alive, with a warmth absent from his earlier withdrawn demeanor. (Chapters 4–6, 22, 105, and 254–255)

He is exacting, sardonic, and unapologetically ruled by taste: if food is not good enough, he would rather not eat, and rare ingredients or wine can move him to elaborate bargains. Beneath the fussiness he is observant and loyal. He does not force Lan Jue to speak when grief is raw, recognizes hidden talent among Avenue residents, guards Jun'er with patience, and accepts subordinate operational roles without resentment. His greatest weakness is prolonged fixation; for years he uses Mina's death to shut out the Seamstress and his family. His later steadiness comes from accepting that devotion to the dead does not require neglecting the living. (Chapters 22–24, 250–265, 394–433, and 549)

Disciplines and abilities

Gourmet inherits the Chu family's Hades bloodline, a death-faith Discipline that later manifests through the Paragon identity of the Infernal Vanguard. Before his breakthrough he hides its full extent so effectively that fellow councilors doubt he fights at all. He reaches Paragon through an emotional and spiritual release rather than a technological shortcut, but remains at the first degree for much of the story and only approaches Reflection after benefiting from Lan Jue and Qianlin's ascension. (Chapters 250–265, 390–392, 531, 600–601, and 788)

Hades fire and life-essence destruction

His principal combat expression is grey, red, or dark flame aligned with death. At small scale it can fill a room with a chilling aura; in battle it burns away alien matter, reduces creatures to ash, and manifests as soul fire against advanced targets. It is not ordinary heat alone. Against the Violet Princess, grey flames block energy vessels and drain vital essence directly. The corpus distinguishes this from the aliens' predation: Gourmet destroys essence within a death-and-rebirth cycle rather than consuming it for personal growth. (Chapters 251, 541, 740, 829, and 871)

The ability's effectiveness depends on the target and the difference in cultivation. It devastates common aliens across a broad area and can exploit a favorable conceptual opposition against alien life theft, but it does not let a first-degree Paragon defeat Nirvana- or Infinite-level enemies alone. Sustained fighting against the Violet Princess exhausts and injures him, and he relies on allies' light, science, spatial control, and direct attacks to maintain pressure. (Chapters 585–593 and 868–874)

Infernal Vanguard Domain and movement

Nether Isolation submerges an enclosed area in a muted grey field, suppressing color and sound while preventing an important conversation from being observed outside. Its threatening atmosphere reflects his death-aligned Domain, but the scene does not establish its maximum range or whether it can defeat other Domains as a seal. (Chapter 408)

At battlefield scale, his Paragon influence withers the environment and spreads a monochrome zone of destruction. Hades' unholy flame can also lay a grey route that shifts allies out of an enemy attack, functioning as a form of escape or battlefield repositioning. The doppelganger's ability to meet them at the route's end demonstrates the limitation: changing position does not guarantee safety against an opponent with vastly superior speed and perception. (Chapters 740 and 784)

Mecha support and leadership

Gourmet is not among Star Division's specialist pilots, and the text explicitly separates his Adept strength from Lan Jue's God-ranked mecha mastery. His custom grey suit therefore emphasizes speed and Discipline amplification, using six wings and thrusters to keep pace with faster teammates. It lets him clear biological hazards and support a coordinated charge without implying that the machine is the source of his Paragon abilities. (Chapters 533–545)

As a senior councilor and assistant commander, his non-combat skill is judgment. He identifies useful fighters, helps organize Skyfire delegations, protects strategically important people, passes Hades knowledge to Chu Cheng, and follows Lan Jue's mission assignments when unity matters more than rank. He is not shown as a fleet strategist, and his authority should not be confused with Lan Jue's direct command of Star Division. (Chapters 250–265, 391–433, 509–545, 549, and 668–701)

Power progression

Relationships

• Lan Jue: A close friend and operational commander. Gourmet feeds, advises, and protects him, then accepts his leadership in Star Division and the alien war.
• Seamstress: The woman who waits through his long fixation on Mina and later becomes his wife. Choosing a life with her is the emotional turn that accompanies his Paragon breakthrough.
• Chu Cheng: His nephew and successor within the Hades bloodline. Gourmet passes on experience while ultimately recognizing Chu Cheng as family patriarch and the bearer of the Hades mantle.
• Mika: Mina's sister and a bearer of the rival Satan bloodline. Her confrontation with her father exposes the unresolved history that had governed Gourmet's life.
• Pharmacist: A fellow Avenue protector and Star Division combatant. He watches Jun'er during her tournament fights and repeatedly battles beside her in the alien war.
• Jun'er: A child he guards during the Great Adept Tournament and continues to feed and welcome after the war.
• Wine Master: A fellow councilor, friend, and connoisseur whose cellar inspires recurring contests over rare wine.

Items

No cataloged items are directly associated with Gourmet.