Han BoLao

The Aspirants

Daughter to Han BoHai, cousin to Han BoShui. Advisor to the Purges.

## Appearance

Pale-skinned, raven-haired, green-eyed beauty.

Wears dark, metal vambraces sporting a set of imposing spikes, adding a sense of menace to her appearance.

Her Purge outfit includes a leather breastplate and trousers shockingly red in color.

## Personality

Socialite, with impeccable manners and an angelic laugh. Deep down, the same girl who'd never grown accustomed to the harsh truths of the world.

## Background

> "*Better Dead than Defiled*"
>
>

At twenty-five and as an untested Warrant Officer, she’d been swept up in the Purge after stumbling across a mountain hideout of several hundred Defiled bandits on a routine patrol. She questioned the need for death and torture, and aired her doubts to trusted subordinates, or so she thought. During the first day of Purging, she’d broken down into an inconsolable mess and hid in her tent, trying to block out the harrowing screams and inhuman cries. That night, desperate to save those she saw as innocents, she threw caution to the wind and tried to smuggle a group past the blockade. She’d been caught almost instantly, sold out by her snake of a ladder-climbing Second. Only the intervention of her now Master saved her from harsh sanctions and possible execution.

Her Master exerted his Aura and forced her hands to take part in the mutilation of those she'd tried to save. Her first was a boy no older than her darling cousin BoShui. She tried everything in her power to resist, begging forgiveness, but her efforts were wasted. After hours of agonized torment beneath her hands, augmented by skillful healing from her Master, the boy was little more than a mass of exposed organs, whimpering softly as he stared out from unseeing, empty sockets. Numbed by shock and dead inside, BoLao had gone silent long ago, her emotions drained and emptied as each passing moment etched itself into her memory. Indifferent to their suffering, Master guided her hand to the boy’s throat and gently squeezed the life from him, his shredded lips curling into a grotesque, toothless smile. Once certain the boy was dead, Master bowed in silent prayer, before bringing her to the boy’s mother with knife in hand, ready to begin anew.

After the mother came others, a kindly grandfather, a venomous sister, a pleading uncle, a crying daughter and more, each one suffering their ministrations in the same manner, every cut, every strike, every torment repeated without deviation or rest. Uncounted hours and seventeen victims later, Master handed her the knife and pointed at her eighteenth victim, a boy younger than the first, and she knew exactly what to do. Unguided, she stepped forward to peel flesh and scrape bone, moving mechanically as if in a dream, numbed to horrors before her.

As she plucked the boy’s first eye out, his screams of pain turned to anger, though she cared nothing for it. As she moved to take the other eye, Master caught her hand and shook his head, pulling her away as the boy’s remaining skin rippled and exposed muscles shifted. His tiny frame swelled in size as his voice turned guttural and harsh, his single brown, beautiful eye staring at her with pure vitriolic hatred. Lesions erupted across his body, covering his pale skin with dark pustules and bubbling abscesses, the exposed, deformed bones of his hands snapping together to form a massive talon. A writhing mass of blackened flesh erupted from the void where his eye used to be, covering his face in a fiendish, grim mask, leaving only the one eye exposed, shockingly human amidst the monstrous visage.

On that fateful day, BoLao gazed deep into the abyss and saw the vile evil hiding within.

After killing the Demon with ease, Master took her aside and washed her hands gently, speaking for the first time since they began. His soothing voice explained everything plainly, leaving little room for doubt. The Defiled were a plague passed on through proximity, with Demons lurking in the dark void of their souls. The sickness needed to be removed, root and stem, torture nothing more than a tool to expose the sickness for what it was and ensure no Officer or noble use the Purge for nefarious purpose. Cause and effect, simplicity itself, she had done the Mother’s work, necessary work, unpleasant and horrific though it may be. She was the surgeon removing the cancer of Defiled from the body of the Empire, a cleansing flame freeing these souls from the Father’s clutches.

Since then, she has been responsible for overseeing three Purges in the last decade, her Aspirants travelling year round, searching high and low for signs of corruption. If a Purge is called, they ride with all haste to offer their services, believing it is a Divine calling, a sacred duty, to do what others can or will not.

## Relationships

Han BoHai: Her Father only ever asked her to return and visit, only worried for her safety. She distanced herself from him, concerned about how he now saw her.

Han BoShui: Her ShuiShui. More like close siblings than cousins.

Master: Indoctrinated and radicalized her, molded as his successor to lead the Aspirants, further isolating her.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 170
2. ↑ Chapter 171
3. ↑ Chapter 173
4. ↑ Chapter 188
5. ↑ Chapter 172, 174, 175