Jerome

Jerome is the Lord of Ebony, ruler of Pitch Black's Ninth Zone, and the strongest Great Lord of his era. As Big Brother's most powerful known Vicegerent, he leads the Great Lords' alliance with Rift and becomes Jaehwan's principal opponent at the Seventh Site.

Biography

The Struggle for Gorgon to Only One World

Jerome's influence reaches Chaos long before he appears directly. He supports Geumcheon Hall Master Im Jinhong, rules the zone that sponsors powerful Field Commanders such as Sa Myeonggaram, and bears ultimate responsibility for the Palace of Rebirth administered by Pitch Black. He does not personally receive the dream demon who warns the Lords about Jaehwan, but listens to Sa Myeonggaram's report before deciding how to respond. The collapse of the Palace and deaths of his commanders therefore make Jaehwan both a political threat and a personal accumulation of losses. (Chapters 48, 76, 79, 86, and 92)

Jerome later leads ten Great Lords into negotiations with Rift and serves as the Great Lands' representative. His World Pressure overwhelms the Division Commanders' preliminary resistance, and the resulting alliance advances through the Abyss. At Epoche he agrees that Nameless should not be underestimated, but treats the campaign with the confidence of a commander who has helped seal Catastrophe and end the war in the Great Lands. (Chapters 206, 208, and 215)

At the Seventh Site, Jerome faces Jaehwan directly. He argues that nothing exists outside the System and demonstrates the extreme heights that Adaptation can reach through Bash and Shadow Substitute. He also tries to break Jaehwan's will with news of the attack on Chaos, unaware that Jaehwan's allies have already restored his link to Catastrophe. Jaehwan's new power eventually overturns the advantage; a thousand sword strikes shred Jerome's soul, and the Lord of Dragons retreats after sensing the strongest Great Lord's death. (Chapters 217–223)

Appearance and personality

Jerome first appears on the Seventh Site battlefield as a strange figure concealed in a black cloak, with a voice compared to profound pitch black. When he draws the Ice Dragon Sword, his eerie eyes and the dark aura around the pale blade announce the beginning of the serious fight. The corpus supplies no fuller stable description of his face or build. (Chapters 217–218)

He is crude, mocking, and intensely assured of his rank, but not careless. Jerome investigates Jaehwan's history and known powers before their duel, measures Nameless's danger, and uses psychological pressure alongside physical force. His deepest conviction is ideological: Awakening and Adaptation are merely different Systems, and existence cannot survive outside them. Jaehwan's refusal to accept that premise enrages him because it challenges the world Jerome has trained within for roughly one hundred thousand years. (Chapters 208, 215, and 218–220)

Powers and limitations

System and World Power

Jerome's Unique World is System, identified as Big Brother's world rather than a creation belonging to Jerome alone. That shared foundation makes it difficult for Jaehwan's Destruction to annihilate: Jerome explains that no single Vicegerent could bear all of Big Brother's World Power without their soul bursting, yet the portion he carries still sustains attacks without a visible decrease in his reserve. The protection is not absolute. Jaehwan's multiplied sword strikes ultimately bypass or overwhelm it and destroy Jerome's soul. (Chapters 218–223)

Bash and Shadow Substitute

Jerome has trained the beginner Skill Bash for about one hundred thousand years. Channeled through the Ice Dragon Sword and powered by World Power, one use tears apart a large portion of the Seventh Site and leaves Jaehwan's arm nearly broken; Jerome can repeat it without apparent depletion. Shadow Substitute creates fifty copies, each with roughly half the original's power, allowing many Bashes to converge at once. These are the only Skills the duel explicitly establishes, and their power comes from extreme refinement within the System rather than from Awakening. (Chapters 218–220)

Adapter ceiling

Jerome demonstrates that Adaptation can approach the same ultimate boundary as Awakening, and his strength is compared with that of the Divine Thrones. Even so, he does not know Big Brother's face or voice and admits that its existence is uncertain, limiting his supposed authority as its Vicegerent. His reliance on a shared world and on a small, deeply trained Skill set leaves him vulnerable once Jaehwan produces greater World Power and more simultaneous attacks than System can absorb. (Chapters 210 and 218–223)

Relationships

• Jaehwan: Jaehwan dismantles operations tied to Jerome throughout Chaos and the Great Lands before killing him at the Seventh Site. Their duel opposes Jerome's perfected life within the System to Jaehwan's insistence that something can exist beyond it. (Chapters 92, 218–223)
• Big Brother: Jerome serves as Big Brother's Vicegerent and borrows power through System, but has never seen or heard the being he serves. He treats that uncertainty as irrelevant until Jaehwan turns it into evidence against the System's claims. (Chapters 218–219 and 232)
• Sa Myeonggaram: Sa Myeonggaram is one of Jerome's foremost subordinates and delivers the dream demon's warning about Jaehwan. Jerome's other fallen Field Commanders are among the reasons he regards Jaehwan as a threat to Pitch Black. (Chapters 76, 79, and 218)
• Maiad van Declan: Jerome negotiates the Great Lords' alliance with Maiad's Rift and leads its Lord contingent. The partnership is tactical rather than trusting, with both sides measuring one another's strength before cooperating. (Chapters 206–208 and 215)

Items

• Ice Dragon Sword: The genuine pale sword forged from ten-thousand-year ice and containing the soul of Ice Dragon King Velkisus. Jerome acquired it after conquering the Forgotten Land and uses it to channel Bash. It resembles Solitary Unbowed, whose original Ice Dragon Sword form began as a replica, but the two are distinct weapons. (Chapters 218–219)