Beru

Beru is the shadow extracted from the Ant King, the ultimate weapon produced by the ants of Jeju Island. He evolves from a predator seeking a human “king” to defeat into Jinwoo Sung’s most emotionally expressive commander, healer, bodyguard, and eventual caretaker of Jinwoo’s son.

Biography

Birth of the Ant King

The Ant Queen creates the Ant King as the answer to the colony’s inability to escape Jeju Island and conquer the mainland. He develops for roughly half a year as the queen concentrates the nest’s resources into one being with intelligence, wings, rapid growth, and the power to acquire traits by consuming other creatures. Unlike the ordinary ants, he is designed not merely to hunt but to command. (Chapters 35–36)

During the fourth Jeju raid, the Ant King tests himself against the strongest intruders. He kills Japanese S-rank hunters at extreme speed, searches for the humans’ “king,” and treats ordinary resistance as beneath him. When the Korean team kills the Ant Queen, he returns to the nest and destroys the raiders’ formation, killing Min Byunggu and gravely injuring Haein Cha. By consuming Byunggu, he acquires Korean speech and high-level healing, adding learned human abilities to his natural weapons. (Chapters 34–35)

The queen’s death severs his original purpose rather than ending his ambition. He consumes her and asserts himself as king of the ants, then follows the surviving hunters’ claim that a greater human king waits outside. Jinwoo answers that challenge. The Ant King expands his body, accelerates, regenerates, and adapts through a violent close-range battle, but finds every advantage surpassed. Jinwoo defeats him without needing the army whose master the Ant King had hoped to challenge. (Chapter 35)

Extraction and submission

Jinwoo extracts the Ant King’s shadow after the battle and names him Beru. The new soldier inherits the creature’s intelligence, combat instincts, wings, Predation-derived knowledge, and healing, but is bound by absolute loyalty to the Shadow Monarch. Beru immediately recognizes Jinwoo as his sovereign, replacing his former claim to kingship with service to a power he accepts as unquestionably greater. (Chapters 35–36)

As a shadow, Beru initially possesses less raw strength than his living body, yet remains above most of Jinwoo’s existing soldiers. His presence reorganizes the army’s hierarchy: he can command ant shadows, speak fluently, act independently under broad orders, and perform tasks that require judgment rather than simple attack commands. He also learns that shadow existence makes destruction temporary as long as Jinwoo has mana to restore him. (Chapters 36, 39, 41–42)

Haein’s entrance test

Beru becomes the final opponent in Haein’s test for entry into Ahjin Guild. Jinwoo orders him to avoid lethal force, and Beru initially obeys with precise restraint. He evades dozens of Haein’s sword attacks without moving his feet, answers her acceleration, and treats the match as controlled evaluation rather than battle. (Chapter 39)

Haein’s Sword of Light pierces him and awakens the Ant King’s memory of their fight on Jeju. Beru’s body expands, his claws and jaws lengthen, and predatory instinct momentarily overwhelms the order to protect her. Jinwoo stops the killing blow and punishes him for losing control. Beru’s immediate terror and remorse show that loyalty is already stronger than pride, but the episode also proves that his living instincts do not vanish merely because his allegiance changes. (Chapter 39)

Independent commander and healer

Jinwoo increasingly assigns Beru missions away from his direct supervision. During a Knights Guild raid, Beru replaces Jinwoo as the decisive reinforcement and leads a group of ant shadows under two rules: protect the humans and kill the beasts. He decapitates a death knight, directs his soldiers, and communicates with the raiders well enough to stabilize a dungeon that would otherwise overwhelm them. (Chapter 41)

Beru’s healing is as strategically important as his offense. When an ant shadow lashes out at the healer Yerim, he restrains the attacker and repairs the injury more effectively than she can heal herself. Later he travels to Jinho Yoo after the Scavenger kidnapping and restores wounds caused by sustained torture. His healing carries Byunggu’s acquired expertise, but Beru applies it with the urgency of a servant protecting people his king values. (Chapters 42, 55–56)

That power has limits. Beru reaches Gunhee after the Frost Monarch’s attack and attempts treatment, but cannot reverse a fatal wound inflicted by a Monarch upon an already failing human body. His inability is not indifference or lack of effort; it marks a class of damage beyond even his copied S-rank healing. (Chapter 59)

Growth into a marshal

Beru asks Jinwoo for opportunities to grow rather than remaining idle. In a borrowed guild dungeon, he competes with Igris for kills and experience, revealing both ambition and a need for recognition within the army. His level and rank rise through later campaigns, while his rivalry with Igris becomes a recurring way of measuring the two commanders’ progress. (Chapter 61)

During the Monarch ambush, the Frost Monarch seals Beru and the other shadows inside ice to prevent Jinwoo from summoning them. Beru breaks free through desperate force when he senses his king’s life in danger. The Frost Monarch identifies him as a marshal-grade soldier, and Beru immediately attacks the Plague Monarch. His charged roar strips away masses of insects and his physical assault protects Jinwoo, but a true Monarch can still damage and drain his shadow existence faster than he can sustain it. He is nearly erased before the battle changes. (Chapter 64)

Jinwoo’s full inheritance restores Beru and removes the old restriction of a finite human mana pool. Beru’s emotional reunion with his sovereign is followed by a new challenge: Bellion, Ashborn’s grand marshal, arrives with the original Shadow Army. Beru contests Bellion’s position, loses clearly, and accepts the hierarchy. The defeat tempers his pride without diminishing his status as a marshal or Jinwoo’s most trusted personal attendant. (Chapters 66–67)

Beyond the Cup of Reincarnation

Beru remains with Jinwoo when the world is restored because the shadow held within the Monarch persists across the reversal. He joins the twenty-seven-year war against the Monarchs in the dimensional gap and returns to an Earth where no one remembers hunters. His loyalty therefore outlives the public history that created him. (Chapters 75–76)

In the rewritten world, Beru becomes a guardian within Jinwoo’s family. He watches over Haein and their son Sooho, monitors the child’s developing power, and alternates between fierce protectiveness and theatrical emotion. He is not simply a weapon stored between wars: he tells stories, comments on the household, and helps introduce Sooho to the supernatural inheritance hidden from ordinary society. (Chapters 76–77)

Appearance and personality

Beru has a humanoid ant body with a dark exoskeleton, wings, mandibles, long claws, and a predatory silhouette. In shadow form, black smoke-like mana replaces living flesh and permits regeneration. He can expand into a larger battle form in which his jaws, claws, and mass become more extreme; at rest, he contracts into a more controlled shape suitable for speaking and serving beside Jinwoo. (Chapters 35, 39)

His personality changes more than his capabilities. The living Ant King is intelligent, contemptuous, and obsessed with proving himself against kings. Beru redirects that absolutism into devotion. He addresses Jinwoo as sovereign, reacts dramatically to praise or disapproval, and is intensely protective of anyone connected to him. He remains proud, competitive, and occasionally overzealous—especially around Igris and Bellion—but can exercise independent compassion, restrain his own ants, heal strangers under orders, and care for a child. His absorption of human language and habits makes him unusually talkative among the shadows. (Chapters 35, 39, 42, 61, 67, 76–77)

Abilities, skills, and rank

Marshal-grade physical power

Beru combines immense strength, speed, durability, reflexes, and regeneration. In life he moves too quickly for most S ranks to track, kills elite hunters with claws and jaws, and changes body size during combat. As a growing shadow he reaches marshal grade, breaks a Monarch’s ice restraint, and can briefly engage a Monarch directly. Bellion and the Monarchs still demonstrate higher power at key points. (Chapters 35, 39, 64, 67)

Flight

Functional wings let Beru cross long distances and attack from the air. Flight was the evolutionary solution that allowed the ant colony to threaten the mainland, and as a shadow it makes Beru an exceptionally fast messenger, escort, and reinforcement beyond the range of ground forces. (Chapters 34–36, 55)

Predation

The living Ant King acquires knowledge, language, and abilities by consuming other beings. Eating Byunggu grants Korean speech and healing expertise, while consuming strong prey contributes to his rapid evolution. The ability belongs to his living biology; the corpus does not show shadow Beru continuing to gain new powers by eating after extraction. (Chapter 35)

Healing

Beru reproduces Byunggu’s high-level healing magic. He can rapidly restore S-rank hunters and healers, treat Jinho after prolonged torture, and evaluate injuries with acquired medical instinct. He cannot repair every form of damage: Gunhee’s Monarch-inflicted mortal wound remains beyond him, and he cannot heal while sealed away from the person who needs him. (Chapters 42, 55–56, 59)

Roar and magical discharge

Beru can concentrate mana into a devastating roar. Against the Plague Monarch, the charged sound strips away vast numbers of insects and creates space around Jinwoo. The attack is powerful area control but does not by itself defeat a Monarch. (Chapter 64)

Transformation, claws, and jaws

Beru expands his body to increase reach, force, and intimidation. His hardened claws and mandibles tear through armored monsters and hunters, while the enlarged form strengthens the predatory reactions inherited from the Ant King. Jinwoo’s order is therefore essential when Beru must spar without killing. (Chapters 35, 39, 41)

Command, telepathy, and sensory range

Beru commands ant shadows, understands complex mission priorities, communicates through the Shadow Army, and senses changes in Jinwoo’s condition across separation. He can lead a raid without Jinwoo present, discipline another ant, and reorganize workers for construction or defense. These faculties make him a field commander rather than merely a powerful summon. (Chapters 41–42, 64, 67)

Shadow regeneration and dependence

Damage to Beru’s shadow body can be repaired through the Shadow Monarch’s mana. Before Jinwoo fully awakens, repeated destruction and Monarch attacks can exhaust the available energy or threaten Beru’s continued existence. After the inheritance, the army’s restoration becomes far more secure, though superior enemies can still overpower him in direct combat. (Chapters 39, 64, 66–67)

Power progression

Relationships

• Jinwoo Sung: Jinwoo defeats, extracts, names, and commands Beru. Beru’s identity is organized around absolute loyalty to him, but that loyalty matures from fearful submission into trusted service, independent command, and protection of Jinwoo’s family. (Chapters 35–36, 39, 41, 64, 66–77)
• Haein Cha: The living Ant King nearly kills Haein, and Beru nearly repeats the act when her sword triggers his old instinct. In the restored world, she becomes his queen’s human partner and someone he protects as part of Jinwoo’s family. (Chapters 34–35, 39, 76–77)
• Min Byunggu: Beru kills and consumes Byunggu in life, acquiring his speech and healing. The healer’s abilities become one of Beru’s most valuable forms of service, giving the victim’s power a long afterlife within his killer. (Chapters 34–35, 42, 55–56)
• Igris: Beru and Igris are elite commanders whose competition over kills, growth, and rank often becomes comic. Beru is more verbally boastful, while Igris’s restraint provides a counterweight to him. (Chapters 61, 67, 76)
• Bellion: Beru challenges Ashborn’s grand marshal for the army’s highest position and is decisively defeated. He accepts Bellion’s superior rank while retaining his personal closeness to Jinwoo. (Chapter 67)
• Jinho Yoo: Beru heals Jinho after the Scavenger abduction because Jinho is precious to Jinwoo. The mission shows how Beru translates loyalty to his sovereign into care for the sovereign’s human relationships. (Chapters 55–56)
• Sooho Sung: In the rewritten world, Beru becomes Sooho’s hidden guardian, observer, and supernatural mentor. His fierce temperament is softened by the everyday responsibility of watching the child grow. (Chapters 76–77)

Items

• No signature owned item: Beru fights through his body, inherited abilities, and shadow power rather than a persistent weapon or artifact. His wings, claws, exoskeleton, and healing are biological or magical traits, not separate possessions.