Jihan — The World After the Fall

Jihan is Ethan Cart's former Vicegerent, who betrays the old Metaverse revolution and spends five hundred years in Alliance Mogi under the concept god Highcircle. Jihan's pursuit of power ultimately circles back to Ethan: mortally wounded and severed from Highcircle, the former traitor offers one final prayer and becomes the God Without a Vicegerent's Doll before both are restored.

Biography

Alliance Mogi and the Sixth Floor

Jihan serves as Mogi's second battalion commander and Highcircle's Vicegerent, joining the advance force without waiting for Galateon because Ethan is among the targets. Jihan once learned Doll-making from Ethan, stole those methods, and became the first revolutionary to join the Alliance. The new contract is deliberately impersonal—Highcircle supplies World Power without a personality—matching Jihan's desire to escape dependence on a god's will. Carrying the Time Cube previously used against Andersen, Jihan traps Ethan and Jaehwan and orders Andersen neutralized for God Devouring while Runald is to be killed and made a Doll. (Chapters 122–123)

Jin Eunsae takes the damaged Cube after overpowering Jihan and Beris. When Runald later carries it away, Jihan confronts Andersen and says the old dream of equality requires a rat to become as strong as the cat rather than merely befriend it. The attempt to seize the Cube turns Jihan against both Mogi and the wider Alliance: Jihan kills Beris's Doll when the broadcaster interferes, then faces Rakers, who always expected a first betrayal to lead to another. Jihan absorbs the Cube into the body and briefly believes its vast World Power has produced Awakening, but Rakers withstands the enhanced vortex, shatters Jihan's soul, and forces the pierced Cube back out. (Chapters 125–127)

Jaehwan's return prevents immediate execution, but Jihan is left mutilated, subjected to God Severance, and deprived of Highcircle. With both hands destroyed, God Devouring is no longer possible. Instead Jihan prays to the equally ruined Ethan, admits that the long search for a different world has led back to the world once abandoned, and asks to become his Doll so the god can survive. Ethan accepts the dying soul, and their restored bond ends with Jihan's prayer that the God Without a Vicegerent live on before lava destroys the Sixth Floor Worldview. (Chapters 127 and 135)

When the Metaverse falls, its dead return. Ethan awakens outside the Tower with Jihan unharmed and again identified as the god's Vicegerent. The miracle restores the pair beyond the fatal injuries and Doll state, though the chapters do not show Jihan fighting afterward or establish whether any prior link to Highcircle remains. (Chapter 175)

Appearance and personality

Jihan has a face familiar to Ethan and Andersen from five hundred years earlier, but the supplied chapters do not give its detailed features. In battle Jihan wears gloves, carries a silver staff, and maintains a cold expression that breaks into anxiety or trembling under pressure. By the final Sixth Floor scene, both hands are destroyed, the body below the former intestines is missing, and the lower jaw is shattered before restoration returns Jihan unharmed. (Chapters 122–127, 135, and 175)

Decisive, guarded, and obsessed with escaping weakness, Jihan betrays allies whenever an existing structure blocks the desired future. That makes Jihan ruthless enough to order a child turned into a Doll and kill a fellow Alliance manifestation, yet the old relationship with Ethan never becomes indifference. Jihan refuses to devour the dying former god, uses the final remaining agency for Prayer, and acknowledges that five centuries of searching have not produced a better world than the one once shared. (Chapters 123, 126–127, and 135)

Powers and limitations

Whirlwind Settings and World Power

Highcircle supplies Jihan with World Power, which can be synchronized to a high level and directed through a silver staff. 「Multi Whirlwind」 creates several powerful currents, and Jihan can form dense vortices or use air movement to evade Ethan's crows. Long training makes the straightforward strikes unusually strong for a Follower. Jin Eunsae nevertheless redirects the Setting, while Rakers remains completely unharmed even after the Cube-driven surge produces a vortex Jihan believes can kill gods. (Chapters 123, 125, and 127)

Doll-making, God Devouring, and the Time Cube

Jihan learns Doll-making from Ethan and develops a Part capable of God Devouring, though the devouring process requires both hands and is never successfully performed in the cited scenes. The Time Cube can seal powerful beings within accelerated time, and Jihan uses it to imprison Jaehwan and Ethan. Absorbing the damaged Cube produces immense World Power and the perception of an Awakened world, but the state is unstable: Rakers's blow expels the pierced Part and shatters Jihan's body. Later God Severance removes Highcircle, leaving Jihan destined to become a Lost One until Ethan converts the dying soul into a Doll. (Chapters 123, 127, 135, and 141)

Relationships

Ethan Cart: Jihan is Ethan's cherished Vicegerent, betrayer, and eventual returned Follower. Their five-century separation ends when Jihan gives up the last World Power and asks Ethan to keep living.
Andersen: Andersen remembers Jihan as a revolutionary Companion and pleads for the earlier ideals. Jihan threatens her while pursuing the Cube, but swears Ethan's safety to the King of Crows rather than to Highcircle.
Jin Eunsae: Jin Eunsae defeats Jihan's whirlwind techniques and steals the Time Cube, exposing the limits of a highly trained Follower against an Awakened One.
Rakers: The God of Assassination distrusts Jihan from the moment of entry into the Alliance. Jihan's second betrayal vindicates that suspicion, and Rakers destroys the borrowed god-link and near-fatal body.

Items

Time Cube: Jihan carries and operates the Alliance Part, using it to seal Jaehwan and Ethan before trying to absorb its power.
Silver staff: Jihan channels whirlwind attacks through an unnamed silver staff that Rakers later tosses aside.