Hishmith Kritz

Hishmith Kritz, the Eye Living in the Labyrinth, is a serpent constellation whose domains include secrets, revelations, information distortion, and mazes. He first courts Kim Gong-ja as a potential follower while secretly working with Mutia to keep Gong-ja from recognizing his own constellation status. Gong-ja defeats him in the Glass Palace and reduces his immense Jörmungandr manifestation to a threadlike snake that serves as an information-gathering bracelet.

Biography

The Glass Palace and a secret exposed

Hishmith helps design the Returner’s Clockwork Watch long before meeting its eventual holder. When Ja Soo-jung seeks a one-day regression skill, Hishmith proposes that it activate on death and add a second penalty: the killer’s past becomes a labyrinth that the regressor must experience. Gong-ja’s later ability to expose those traumas undermines the secrecy Hishmith promises his own followers, so Hishmith joins Mutia’s preemptive attack and uses Information Distortion to suppress messages about Gong-ja’s ascension. When the Wand of Ages suspends that interference, Hishmith abandons Mutia and retreats to his sanctuary rather than continue a losing alliance. (Chapters 324, 329–330)

Forced to manage the sixty-third floor, Hishmith challenges Gong-ja to find his true body inside the Glass Palace. The palace displays dolls associated with people who once relied on him and labels them with concealed truths. One particularly elaborate marionette is shaped like Patricia, but it is Hishmith’s speaking proxy modeled on her appearance—not Patricia’s body, a duplicate of her, or an independent version of her. Hishmith uses that proxy to expose her assassination plans and provoke Gong-ja into entering a dangerous constellation trauma. Gong-ja instead realizes that every doll is bait and that the scale-patterned “ground” is Hishmith’s discarded shell, beneath which the world-serpent himself is hiding. (Chapters 331–333)

Gong-ja cuts apart the Jörmungandr manifestation and exposes the tiny snake concealed inside it. Hishmith bargains desperately, offering secrecy and further powers, but loses the sanctioned duel and promises to help Gong-ja conquer the Tower. His explanation makes the original conflict explicit: Gong-ja’s trauma-reading ability has created a security flaw in Hishmith’s faith economy, preventing him from guaranteeing that a follower’s past will remain hidden. The defeat therefore turns the constellation’s threatened monopoly into the very service Gong-ja requires from him—revealing the information of other gods, stages, and opponents. (Chapters 333–335)

Bracelet, guide, and constrained revealer

In his reduced form Hishmith coils around Gong-ja’s wrist like a bracelet and reveals names, origins, intentions, and hidden stage rules. He identifies falsehoods during the constellation auction, exposes the psychological state of dishonest merchants, and forcibly satisfies information conditions that would normally block a challenger from seeing deeper explanations of the Nine Heavens. These contributions make him a reliable strategy guide, but not a willing lifelong ally: Gong-ja describes both Hishmith and Mutia as beings subjugated by force who may rebel if his power weakens. (Chapters 335, 337–338, 340–341, 344, 349–351, 357, 363)

The Constellation Killer raid shows both the value and the boundary of Hishmith’s authority. He can identify the hidden sanctuary’s coordinates because ignorance and secrecy both concern concealed truth, yet he cannot create access rights or break the sanctuary’s security. Gong-ja therefore temporarily transfers ownership of the snake bracelet to Kim Yul; Hishmith pinpoints the location, while Kim Yul supplies the authority needed to enter. An earlier failed attempt is erased when Gong-ja dies and regresses, restoring Hishmith after the snake had been annihilated in battle. (Chapters 373, 375–376)

By the Garden of Withered Flowers period, Hishmith remains attached to Gong-ja’s wrist and participates through his revelations rather than regaining his cosmic body. Gong-ja reminds him that people are not dolls to display, directly rejecting the Glass Palace’s treatment of private lives as exhibits. His latest directly evidenced state is therefore alive and still carried by the man who defeated him. The service is useful and continuing, but the corpus does not turn his coerced subordination into freely given devotion. (Chapters 371, 381)

Appearance and personality

Hishmith’s grand manifestation is Jörmungandr, a blue-scaled serpent vast enough to occupy the sky and coil around an entire inner world. His triangular eyes have bright blue pupils set in black sclera, and his discarded, scale-patterned shell forms the floor and enclosure of the Glass Palace. After Gong-ja splits that body, the true vessel that emerges is a palm-sized snake with sea-wave scales and vivid inverted eyes; it later rests around a wrist like a thin bracelet. (Chapters 329, 333–335)

He is proud, secretive, theatrical, vindictive, and quick to protect his status. Hishmith boasts about perfect security and the breadth of his domain, mocks human trust, flees when Mutia’s attack fails, and begs Gong-ja not to reveal his diminished form to his followers. Defeat makes him cautious and obedient rather than humble. He still bristles at insults and flaunts successful revelations, but his self-interest also makes him diligent when proving that his authority remains valuable. (Chapters 324, 329, 332–335, 337, 349–351)

Abilities and skills

Secrets, revelation, and information control

Hishmith governs the concealment, distortion, manipulation, and exposure of information. He can block selected system messages, reveal a target’s true name and origin, detect lies or summarize hidden intentions, and display increasingly deep explanations for a stage. He also grants derivative powers to followers: Patricia’s Lie Detector and abilities that quantify affection or alter displayed skill descriptions are identified as expressions of Hishmith’s domains. These abilities originate in the faith he receives from people who want either another person’s secret revealed or their own secret protected. (Chapters 329, 332, 334–335, 337–338, 340–341, 344, 349–351)

His revelations can override ordinary prerequisites, but they are not omniscience. Hishmith may expose information that exists even when it is deliberately concealed, yet cannot reveal what has been erased into nonexistence, independently bypass a sanctuary’s access control, or guarantee secrecy against Gong-ja’s trauma mechanic. His information also functions as guidance rather than automatic victory: Gong-ja must interpret the disclosure and supply the force, authority, or strategy needed to act on it. (Chapters 334, 337–338, 340–341, 344, 349–351, 375–376)

Labyrinths, shells, and constellation existence

The Glass Palace is Hishmith’s sanctuary and a physical expression of his powers. Its walls and cases hold innumerable marionettes, while his old shell forms the apparently indestructible ground over the abyss where his great serpent form coils. He can speak and act through displayed dolls, making every apparent body a possible proxy and baiting intruders toward a trauma maze. Gong-ja defeats this arrangement by treating the entire landscape as the riddle and exposing the shell beneath him. (Chapters 331–333)

As a constellation, Hishmith can manifest on a world-spanning scale, strike with his tail, bite, spit poison, shed an outer body, and persist as a smaller divine snake after that manifestation is cut apart. The reduced vessel can be carried and its ownership transferred temporarily, allowing another holder to invoke his authority. Its limits are severe: the bracelet can be damaged or annihilated by stronger constellation-level attacks, and its continued service reflects the terms of defeat rather than independent control over Gong-ja. (Chapters 333–335, 373, 375–376)

Contribution to the Returner’s Clockwork Watch

Hishmith does not create regression alone. Mutia authorizes the time domain, Ja Soo-jung initiates the design, and other powers may also contribute. His demonstrated contribution is the death trigger and the “labyrinth” of another life: after the holder dies, the skill exposes the trauma of the killer. The mechanic suits his belief that every human path is a maze, but its later use against his own followers demonstrates a lasting design failure. Hishmith can influence the skill’s information architecture; he cannot revoke Gong-ja’s regression or close the resulting security breach by himself. (Chapters 329–330, 334)

Power progression

Relationships

• Kim Gong-ja: Hishmith first recruits, then ambushes, challenges, and loses to Gong-ja. He becomes Gong-ja’s portable information retainer under force and remains valuable without becoming a trusted eternal ally.
• Mutia: Hishmith’s collaborator in creating part of the regression skill and in attacking Gong-ja. He abandons Mutia when their powers are suspended, after which Mutia supplies information needed to pursue him.
• Ja Soo-jung: The Tower Master’s daughter who initiates the Returner’s Clockwork Watch project; Hishmith contributes its death-and-trauma labyrinth mechanic.
• Patricia: A prominent follower whose powers reflect Hishmith’s domains. The Patricia-shaped marionette in the Glass Palace is Hishmith’s proxy used to expose her secrets, not Patricia herself.
• Kim Yul: The temporary holder of Hishmith’s snake vessel during the sanctuary raid; Hishmith supplies coordinates while Kim Yul supplies access.

Items

• Hishmith’s reduced snake vessel is worn like a bracelet, but it is Hishmith himself rather than a separate artifact or catalogued personal item.
• No notable personal item is established for Hishmith Kritz within the generated item scope.