Arteina

Arteina is one of the Metaverse Six Gods and the architect of Yesterday, a system that gives gods private dreams while draining their World Power. Once a Companion of Andersen, she becomes the principal defender of the Seventh Floor against Jaehwan's Gods of Today.

Biography

Building and defending Yesterday

Five hundred years before Jaehwan's arrival, Arteina climbs the Metaverse with Andersen, Ethan, and Justice as one of the Four Heroes. She wants to end conflict and construct a small, manageable paradise rather than Andersen's world of equality between gods and Followers. As King of the Seventh Floor, she turns that desire into the God Rearing project: newcomers are confined in Plant cocoons, supplied with convenience and pleasure, gradually reduced to Anonymous Gods, and used as a renewable source of World Power. The Prayer advisors who manipulate voter behavior help preserve her rule for five centuries, while Dolls and drones maintain the inhabitants' personalized dreams. (Chapters 131 and 139–141)

Jaehwan's training of rescued gods and use of a Time Cube breaks that stable cycle. Arteina first tries to win the Seventh Floor's election by presenting herself as each god's personal caretaker, then appeals directly to the fears of those considering Today: life outside the cocoons will be competitive, painful, and uncertain. When Jaehwan destroys much of the Seventh Floor despite her assurances, Arteina manifests Yesterday as a giant Cocoon, draws him into her Sanctuary, and uses the partially Dollified Jin Eunsae as a second trap. Her plan nearly works, but Jaehwan survives Eunsae's adult-erasing world and destroys the Main Plant that supplies her system. (Chapters 141–147)

The collapse strips Arteina from Yesterday and turns the Anonymous Gods' Prayer Flood Wave back upon her. Their final responses are complaints and demands rather than gratitude, yet she still reaches toward the cocoons and insists on her identity as their god. To avoid immediate destruction, she wraps herself in World Power and enters a dream of climbing beside her old Companions again. That last Yesterday contracts into a Time Cube, which Andersen takes so that Arteina's remaining World Power can run out within the dream. By the next chapter, the Alliance has received word of Arteina's death. (Chapters 147–149)

A fallen god remembered

Arteina does not return after the Seventh Floor battle. Later speakers name her with Ethan and Justice among Andersen's former Companions and thank Andersen for having taken them under her wing. The references preserve both sides of her history: she was once a hero who entered the Metaverse to rescue others, then became a ruler who manufactured dependency and called it protection. Jaehwan's later recollection of fighting a Metaverse Six God confirms her place in his development, but supplies no correction to the reported death or evidence that the dream inside the Cube continued after its World Power was exhausted. (Chapters 158, 172, and 192–193)

Appearance and personality

Arteina appears as a woman ruling from the terrace of Yesterday's royal palace. Her campaign imagery presents her personally caring for the Seventh Floor's gods, but her combat body is a Doll projected and supported through drones. Once Yesterday breaks, that Doll is battered, riddled with missing sections, and blinded as silver tears stream from its eyes. The corpus gives no more specific description of her face, clothing, or original divine body. (Chapters 139, 141, and 147)

She is proud, orderly, and accustomed to cleaning up the consequences left by her Companions. That habit becomes a possessive conviction that weak gods cannot survive without her. Arteina genuinely understands the attraction of comfort and the difficulty of leaving the Metaverse, yet combines that insight with contempt, calling the people she manages vermin or garbage while exploiting their World Power and anger. Her final dream reveals longing for the Four Heroes and doubt about whether she was wrong, but it does not undo the coercive system she defended. (Chapters 141 and 143–148)

Powers and limitations

Yesterday and the Cocoon

Yesterday is Arteina's Sanctuary, built upon at least five hundred years of World Power accumulated through the Seventh Floor's Plants. It can cover the floor with a gigantic Cocoon, distort perception, draw targets into private dream worlds, empower Arteina's guards, and weaken the reach of an intruder's World Power. Its infrastructure is also its weakness. The Main Plant is Yesterday's core and supply, so Jaehwan's attack severs its links and makes continued manifestation increasingly difficult. Once the Plant falls, the Sanctuary and its stored years break apart. (Chapters 139 and 144–147)

Drones, guard dogs, and Prayer

Arteina commands large forces of combat drones and guard dogs through the Plant network. The drones provide broadcasts and bombardment, while guard dogs regenerate and attack gods attempting to leave Yesterday. She also directs the Prayer Flood Wave, the combined messages and World Power of Anonymous Gods, to pressure dissenters and manipulate public opinion. These forces are dependent rather than unconditional: they retreat when their master is threatened, shut down with the Plants, and the Prayer Flood Wave reverses against Arteina when her followers reject her rule. (Chapters 141–143 and 147)

World Power and containment

Arteina is stronger than Justice and confident fighting on her own Seventh Floor, but she acknowledges that Jaehwan is stronger and expects only to exhaust him before his battle with Eoduksi. Her final use of World Power creates a personal Cocoon inside the Time Cube, letting her avoid immediate annihilation and remain within one last Yesterday. This is temporary containment, not resurrection or escape: the dream lasts only until her World Power is exhausted, after which her death is reported. (Chapters 139, 145, and 147–149)

Relationships

• Andersen: Arteina and Andersen were Companions among the Four Heroes, but their ideals diverged. Andersen tries to persuade her to end Yesterday and ultimately carries the Cube containing Arteina's final dream, giving an old Companion a gentler end without defending her system.

• Jaehwan: Arteina regards Jaehwan as a terrorist who corrupts the gods she manages. He exposes the coercion behind Yesterday, survives her layered trap, and destroys its infrastructure. Their conflict pits her managed happiness against his demand that people accept responsibility for Today.

• The Anonymous Gods: Arteina calls the gods her children and supplies them with individualized dreams, but deliberately makes them helpless and harvests their World Power. Their dependence sustains her kingdom, while their abuse and refund demands become the Prayer backlash that destroys it.

• Jin Eunsae: Arteina exploits Eunsae's weakened, partially Dollified state as insurance against Jaehwan. She suppresses the child's memories and uses World Without Adults inside Yesterday, but loses control when Jaehwan reaches Eunsae through the Sanctuary.

Items

• Time Cube: Jaehwan first uses the accelerated time inside Jihan's Cube to retrain gods removed from Yesterday. After Arteina's defeat, her self-made Cocoon contracts into the same Cube, where her last dream continues only while her remaining World Power lasts. Andersen takes custody of it. (Chapters 141–142 and 147–148)

• Plants and cocoons: The Plants connect sleeping gods to Yesterday, draw World Power from them, and power Arteina's drones, dreams, and Sanctuary. Their destruction frees the surviving inhabitants but also erases accumulated dream-years and collapses the system on which Arteina depends. (Chapters 139–147)