Hwarang Hong

* Vampire Warrior
* Exorcist Warrior

**Hwarang Hong** was a supporting antagonist in **Hero Has Returned**. He was the *Vampire Warrior* and a member of the 9-Warriors. It is eventually revealed, however, that he was being possessed by his world's female Demon Lord, his actual title being *Exorcist Warrior*.

## Appearance

### Hwarang

Hwarang Hong was a well-built man with long purple hair and black eyes. As the Exorcist Warrior, Hwarang's costume consisted of a long black and red trench coat, a cropped sweater underneath, red pants with black buckles, and a black fedora.

### Demon Lord

The Demon Lord of Blood, while possessing Hwarang's body, wore a similar outfit to Hwarang with a few differences being a cropped jacket, a red armband, red shades, an inverted cross necklace, and blood-red eyes.

Vampire Demon Lord
## Personality

### Hwarang

Whilst Hong was the Hero of Exorcism, he was described as someone who had trained themselves to surpass human levels, displaying grit and determination. He was also good at heart, which was shown when He joined the Reformed Government to stop the rampaging of the Heroes.

However, Hong was also shown to be rather reckless when driven to a corner, as shown when he willingly injected himself with the Vampire Demon King’s blood, despite being well aware that his mind could be corrupted and overpowered by her will, which ended up happening.

### Demon Lord

The Demon Lord of Blood was pure evil, being solely intent on causing as much chaos and destruction as possible. While willing to cooperate with the Fallen Heroes in their rampage, she ultimately had no real loyalty to them and was planning on betraying them. She was rude and impatient in her fight against the Magic Hero, believing her to be a weakling. However, she did display respect for those who were strong, as she even admitted that the Exorcism Hero, her nemesis, was someone who worked very hard to defeat Her.

As seen, The Vampire Demon Lord had the belief that as a Demon Lord, her “reason” for being born was to cause as much chaos, destruction, and death as possible, regardless of whether she was in her original world or the world where the heroes originated from.

As noted by Seongjun Lee, the Vampire Demon King has a very simple and somewhat predictable thought pattern common to a Demon King. Is shown where he/she was unable to guess what it is he was after and assumed that he wanted the stereotypical end goal of a villain such as guessing that his ultimate goal was world domination.

## History

### Current Timeline

Like all the other Heroes, Hwarang Hong was transported to a world where he became a vampire hunter. At one point, when he had defeated a werewolf demon, the demon ripped out its heart and offered it to Hwarang, wanting to know how far he could go before disintegrating. However, before he can consume the heart, Van Helsing, Hwarang's mentor, restricts him from doing so, saying that it's important for a human not to use such things despite the unfair advantage monsters have over humans.

Before Minsu Kim began his rampage, Hwarang Hong was a street performer who specialized in the electric guitar.

It is noted in Chapter 17 that the Vampire Hero was formerly a member who joined the group of heroes that are against Minsu Kim's goal to dominate the world before unknowingly for some unstated reasons betraying the heroes that protect the world and becoming one of the 9-Heroes who desired to destroy humanity.

It was later revealed in Chapter 56 that he was originally the “Hero of Exorcism”, who was recruited to help in stopping the Fallen Heroes, where he faced an impossible victory against the Reformation and Return Heroes.

With no means of defeating the pair, due to the Reformation Hero’s firepower, and the Return Hero’s reset ability, he decided to inject himself with blood taken from the Demon Lord of Vampires, as a last resort attempt to defeat them.

However, the blood ended up corrupting the mind of the Exorcism Hero, replacing his personality with that of the Demon Lord, who now possessed his body, and gladly joined the Fallen Heroes to conquer Korea.

One year after their rampage, each warrior/hero, excluding Minsu Kim, separated the territories of Korea amongst themselves. Hwarang did grueling experiments on the citizens he enslaved according to the Golem Hero.

### Original Timeline

The Hong Hwa-Rang in the original timeline, before Seongjun Lee traveled back in time and began altering events, was one of the Resistance Warriors who survived the Warrior's Civil War. Due to the resistance having the *Resurrection Warrior* and *Sword Warrior* on their side in this timeline, Hwarang did not resort to recklessly consuming the blood of his world's Demon Lord and thus was not taken over.

After the Civil War, Hwarang eventually started a romantic relationship with Yerin Ma, and they end up having a daughter. But, due to the circumstances of Seongjun Lee being trapped in a time loop, this future never happened in the Current Timeline.

## Synopsis

### Recovered Government Raid

After Garam Lee had found the underground bunker where Jeongsu Park and the restored government had taken shelter, Hwarang, along with the eight other warriors, invade the shelter. When he lands, he questions how these 'damn cockroaches' or the underground citizens, managed to build an entire city underground. Upon Minsu Kim's order to have everyone in the shelter in despair, Hwa-Rang Hong including the Iron Arm Warrior and Resurrection Warrior, successfully incapacitated the shelter's military defenses, as Hwa-Rang effortlessly takes down the military's helicopters.

When Jeongsu Park and Minsu Kim engage in combat, Hwarang sees the commotion from afar and tries to fly towards the fight to help Minsu Kim, but is distracted when a group of surviving citizens on the top of a building, starts throwing things at him. One of which is a rock that scrapes the side of his cheek, angering him. After he kills the survivors in the building, he overhears that Jeongsu Park had been defeated by Minsu Kim.

When Yerin Ma, the Magic Warrior, revealed herself as a traitor to the warriors, Hwarang pursues her and cuts his hand with a curved dagger to create a bow-shaped weapon formed from blood. However, when he shoots three large blood arrows at Yerin, he only manages to graze her with one of the arrows. He is later forced to deal with the remaining thousands of survivors of the underground city who buy five minutes' worth of time for Yerin Ma and Jeongsu Park to escape.

### The Old Guard

After killing every last survivor in the underground shelter, the warriors learn that the rest of the countries around the world have agreed to use God's Hammer, the most lethal satellite missile-launching weapon in space upon the warriors. After they realized that they can't survive the incoming nuclear missiles, the Hero of Return rewinds time and rewrite the inevitable fate of all the warriors.

After rewinding time and taking control of God’s Hammer and launching several nuclear attacks in several of the major cities all around the world, the heroes split up as each attacked an individual country. The Vampire Hero in particular went ahead to Cairo where he began slaughtering people in mass.

### Relics

Hwarang later makes his final appearance from chapter 55 to chapter 59 and challenges the Hero of Magic, which ended with the Hero of Vampires emerging victory, though, it backfired upon the Hero of Return arriving to her aid and killing the Hero of Vampires instantly.

## Powers & Abilities

### Hero of Exorcism

As the "Hero of Exorcism", Hwarang Hong was shown to have originally fought with stakes and a hammer/pick as his main weapons. As admitted by the Seongjun Lee, Hwarang was noted to have been exceptionally strong and was stated to have killed him numerous times in previous timelines and killed him more times than the Vampire Demon Lord who had stolen his body.

The original Hwarang Hong was also acknowledged by his world's demon lord as being truly powerful and someone who had exceeded the limits of humans through diligent training, with the demon lord holding him in high regard in comparison to the other heroes such as Yerin Ma. As shown, despite choosing to stay as a “human” and refusing to become a monster to gain more power, Hwarang’s strength was one of the most powerful among the current generation of Heroes, having overpowered and defeated Hana Baek on his own during her initial rampage.

* **Chains:** Using his stakes and then saying “Chains”, Hwarang possess the ability to conjure iron chains from them possessing dark purple aura. As shown, Hwarang makes use of this ability to trap, capture and restrain his opponents, rendering them unable to move and thus easier for him to finish off. Hwarang himself has shown creative use in his chains, by tying several of his stakes to it, he was able to make a barbed, whip like weapon to slash and cut multiple opponents around him.
	+ **Demon Sealing Formation:** By throwing four of his stakes around his opponent, Hwarang can activate a sealing technique. As shown, the four stakes transformes into four tall black crosses that once surrounding his victim, conjures more chains to restrain them. As seen during his fight against Hana Baek, this skill was powerful enough to restrain her and preventing her from using her own powers by sealing them.
		- **Demon Sealing Formation Demon Encasing Circle:** A stronger sealing technique where Hwarang throws several stakes around his victims in a circle in order to trap them in a powerful seal. After the circle is drawn and activated, the victims is then perched up in a black cross and bound with more chains. As shown, its been implied that this sealing technique is powerful enough to trap the Faith Hero indefinitely.

Hwarang’s Chains capturing one of Hana’s Flesh MonstersHwarang using his chains as a barbed whipDemon Sealing Formation capturing Hana BaekDemon Encasing Circle
### Items

* **Stakes & Hammer:** As shown in the flashbacks, prior to having his body stolen by the Vampire Demon Lord, Hwarang primarily used metal stakes and a hammer to fight. After getting his body stolen, the Vampire Demon Lord/Vampire Hero, abandoned Hwarang’s original weapons in favor of her own techniques. Later, his equipment would be collected by the Reconstruction Government and given to the Spear Hero.
* **Vampire Demon Lord’s Blood Vials:** After successfully killing the original Vampire Demon Lord in his summoned otherworld, Hwarang collected some of her blood using a double vial syringe. As stated by Hwarang, if he was prepared and in full strength, he could potentially successfully suppress the Vampire Demon Lord’s consciousness within the blood and gain access to her power if he injected it into himself.

Vampir Blood VialsHwarang Injecting himself with Vampir’s bloodStakes & Hammer
### Vampire Hero - Demon Lord Vampir

#### Blood Manipulation

Hwarang Hong, or rather the Vampire Demon King who took his body, possesses blood manipulation magic that allows him to create, shape, move, control, interact and manipulate blood, being able to use it for various purposes, such as for magic/rituals, examining, or most commonly combat.

As shown, The Vampire Warrior primarily created spears, spikes, and various other weapons using his blood to attack his opponents from afar and wrapping himself in armors of blood and coating his hands in blood to make claws for close-quarter combat. He would typically activate his abilities by usually cutting his hand to bleed blood to use for his techniques. He also showcased the ability to create barriers and shields of blood for more powerful defense and create wings made from the blood for flight.

* **Demon Beasts of Blood Iron:** Using drops of his blood, Vampire Warrior can create several hounds made out of blood to overpower an opponent with numbers.
* **Zapuared:** An offensive form that Vampire Warrior could transform into, with his entire flesh becoming blood red and shaping his hands into claws for close combat.
* **Hand of the Blood Iron Shandalared:** A restraining skill where Vampire Warrior forms a hand of blood to capture his opponent.
* **Blood Clone:** As seen during his fight against the Magic Hero, Vampire Warrior is also able to create clones of himself that can replicate his powers.
* **Blood of a Million:** In his possession, the Vampire Warrior possesses a small glass vile with a small marble made of blood inside it. As admitted him, this marble of blood was his hidden ace and something that he had acquired to eliminate the other 9-Warriors, including the Minsu Kim. The Marble itself was stated to have been created using the blood harvested from over a Million People. By absorbing this marble of blood, the Vampire Warrior could drastically increase his power and transform into an entirely different form. As shown, his new transformation turns wraps himself in an armor made completely out of blood.
	+ **Needles of Blood Iron: Sinpuared:** Using droplets of blood, the Vampire Warrior creates numerous spikes of blood to telekinetically hurl at his targets.
	+ **God of Blood Iron: Aphaured:** Originally shown in his base form, this ability allows the Vampire Warrior to create a skull made out of wires of blood. The wires of blood are in turn able to scatter around the skull and attack in all directions. The destructive power was shown to be extremely powerful and could easily destroy several metal transport ships in the Suez Canal. As stated by the Vampire Warrior, this technique is created using the blood he collected from over 200,000 people. In his transformed form using the blood of a Million, the Vampire Warrior was able to create several skulls of blood.
* **Blood Transference:** The Vampire Warrior possesses the ability to give other people his blood. This gives them the ability to heal wounds on themselves, including fatal ones. This also gives them supernatural strength and the ability to manipulate blood but to a lesser extent. (Examples of this in Chapter 49)
* **Blood Possession:** As shown where the original Hwarang Hong attempted to gain a power up by injecting himself with the vials of the Vampire Demon lord’s blood, the original Demon Lord possess the ability to revive herself through her blood. This is seen where after injecting himself, Hwarang initially hoped to suppress the Demon Lord and instead gain control of her powers, but his mind and consciousness was instead overpowered by the Demon Lord, where she then successfully usurped control of his body for herself.

Aphaured God of Blood-IronBeasts of BloodZapuaredHand of Blood-Iron - Shandala RedCloneBlood of a Million
### Items

* **Karambit Knife:** In order to access his blood based techniques, the Vampire Hero typically carries a curved karambit knife with him to cut himself with to bleed and use his abilities.
* **Blood Cube:** After killing people in Mass in Korea and harvesting their blood, The Vampire Hero then concentrated this blood into a glass cube in order to use the **Blood of a Million** technique.

## Trivia

* While still male, the demon lord that had taken his Hwarang Hong's body is originally female.
* As the Vampire Demon King, she was stated to usually perform the actions of a typical vampire, such as drinking blood and enjoying the blood of virgins the most.
* It's been implied that the reason why the Demon Lord Vampir managed to steal Hwarang's body was due to the latter having already been physically and psychologically exhausted fighting the 9 Warriors, making it much easier for her to overpower Hwarang’s personality with her own.