Mareum Yoon

* Season 0
* Season 1

**Mareum Yoon** was a minor antagonist of **The Warrior Returns**. He was the *Plague Warrior* and was a member of the 9-Warriors, having joined the group simply due to his powers naturally compelling him toward evil. He was killed at some point before the main story began.

## Personality

According to an author's Q&A, the Plague Warrior is naturally compelled toward evil by his powers.

Mareum used to be a despairing and miserably sad boy that had to suck up and lived powerlessly as he was mistreated by everyone around him, all of this surrounded misandry he faced day by day led him to hold a bitter grudge against society, leading him to grew tired of life and eventually decided to end everything. However, after acquiring and embodying the bio-engineered virus from The World of Perfection and becoming the Plague Warrior, Mareum is shown to have become a warped, malevolent, and hate-filled person who wants nothing but relishes over getting revenge on humanity due to the mistreatment he's forced to endured stemming from his impoverished and unequal life.

His "spite" (which is presumed to be a level of hatred) was stated to be so high, that even the likes of the inhabitants of the World of Perfection acknowledge and even sees that he is the perfect candidate to have the willingness to bring total extermination upon their race due to him being remarked to lack compassion, empathy, and hesitation.

Mareum was also shown to stutter when he speaks, likely a psychological scar caused by his hard life.

## History

### Youth

As a child, Mareum lived in such extreme poverty to the point he had to rummage through trash for food and was ostracized by his peers for it as well, leading to his budding hatred of humanity.

### Other World

At some point when he's now a teenager, Mareum was unable to handle the mistreatment he suffers, ends up committing suicide, and is transferred to another world, **The World of Perfection**. Mareum comes to learn that this advanced civilization has achieved perfection in everything to the point that they have undying bodies, perfect minds, and even limitless intellect, but, as time passes by, they curse their immortality and perfection, and wanted to regain their long lost mortality, this is what motivated them to sought their own deaths but needed someone who can do it, someone who was incomplete (or imperfect), and that was none other than Mareum, who was stated to have a "spite" (presumed to be hatred and willingness) to massacre and end their entire civilization.

Mareum was given a bio-engineered virus that was created solely to get rid of every last living organism within the World of Perfection. After he finally finishes his goal of ending every last civilization, he departs back to his original home world where he begins to exploit his given abilities to laid waste by spreading the plague to take revenge on the entire world that mistreated him.

### Warrior Crisis

#### Alternate Timelines

In a previous timeline, Seongjun Lee almost succeeded in turning the Plague Warrior into a Demon Lord. However, he was ultimately slain by Minsu Kim before his transformation was completed. Afterward, perhaps due to having given up on beating Minsu, Seongjun did not even bother to go back and save the Plague Warrior.

Interestingly, the Plague Warrior did not appear in the timeline where Seongjun Lee rehabilitated the 9-Warriors. This implies that rehabilitation is impossible for him, since it was his powers that drove him mad rather than some tragedy.

## Synopsis

By the time of the main story, the Plague Warrior was already deceased, being the only member of the 9-Warriors whom the South Korean government managed to defeat before the arrival of Jeongsu Park.

## Powers & Abilities

### Plague Hero

As his title suggested, the Plague Warrior's powers revolved around causing illnesses. As noted, Mareum was regarded as one of the most dangerous Heroes to the world at large due to him essentially being a living pandemic with a will of its own.

* **Plague Creation:** Maerum’s body was reconstructed and engineered by the god-like scientists of the World of Perfection, granting him various superhuman attributes and granting him the power to create and engineer plagues and viruses. As shown, using his new powers, he was able to bioengineer a virus powerful enough to kill all the perfect, immortal, god-like beings of the world he was summoned to. Mareum himself is connected to the plagues he creates and can tell the speed and location they are spreading in, allowing him to also tell if his plagues are cured or eliminated, as shown when he detected the Verdure Warrior curing his plague victims in a rapid pace.
	+ **”Spite”:** After returning, Mareum created a new virus specifically to massacre humanity. As shown, the virus can spread at an incredibly fast rate, infecting a great number of individuals in South Korea. The plagues can incubate within their victims for a prolonged period. In its early stages, it seemingly causes black sludge to leak out of its infected victim's eyes, inflicting them with fevers, causing their veins to begin showing, making their skin grayer, and causing severe coughs, gradually weakening the victims until they become bedridden. In its final stages, it causes its victims extreme pain that completely paralyzes them before causing them to bleed from their eyes, nose, ears, and mouth as they begin having seizures that will inevitably kill them. As shown, the virus completely baffled the doctors and medical experts of Earth, who were unable to cure or even treat its victims.
* **Plague Orb:** By gathering a large amount of the plague he created through his victim’s flesh and focusing them into a black sphere of miasma, Mareum can seemingly create an “altar” that concentrates his virus and enhances his powers, By offering more “sacrifices” to the orb by giving it the additional plague victims of his virus’s, the orb seemingly creates a concentrated virus pill that Maruem then eats, which then presumably increases his power further.
	+ **Clone Explosion:** Using the orb of plagues he created using his victim's infected flesh and blood, Mareum can dissolve and scatter himself into mist and from there explode and create numerous purple clones of himself made from his victim’s blood and his virus. The clones themselves are used by him as suicide bombers, running towards his enemies in mass and latching on to them before then self-exploding. As shown, by using his clones, Mereum could also spread his plagues and viruses more effectively. As shown his clones can directly attack and remove the safety, and hazmat gear of other humans to infect them with his diseases, and the explosions the clones create upon detonation also spread his sicknesses.
		- **Purple Plague:** As shown, the virus he spreads using his clones are different from the initial plague, “Spite”, he unleashed on Earth. The symptoms of this new plague are that it causes the skin and eyes of the victim to become discolored purple, causes bleeding in the eyes and mouth of the victims, and causes huge bulging lumps to form in the victim's body before the victim explodes and further spreads the disease. As shown, whoever is infected by this virus is placed under Mareum’s direct control, allowing him to then use them as suicide bombers. Maruem later showcased a unique variation of these plagues when he infected a high-ranked soldier, the symptoms caused his eyes to become glowing purple and bleed from his eyes and mouth and put him under Maruem’s control.
		- **Biological Manipulation:** Maruem himself can use the gunk created by his plagues within his plague victims to reconstitute or create his own physical body. As shown where he was able to influtrate a military based where he infected a soldier, had him return to the base and then have him vomit purple gunk from his mouth that Mareum then used to create his body, showing that he could infiltrate enemy bases by literally becoming his virus and entering his victim's body. Later, upon being burned to death by the Taeil Choi giant robot, Mareum was able to escape by transfering his consciousness into one of his plague victims, have them vomit purple gunk and the recreate his body with it.
		- **Regeneration:** Due to his body beign created from his plague, Mareum had complete control over his physical body, allowing to regenerate his limbs as he pleases.
	+ **Animal Manipulation:** Mareum has shown the ability to take control of multiple murders of crows to fight in the air using his virus. As shown when he used this tactic to destroy the fighter jet battalion sent to do an air strike against him. Later, Mareum showcased that he could use the crows as something akin to aerial drones, allowing him to share his vision with them, allowing him to use them to scout out locations from afar.

Mareum creating clones using victim’s flesh and bloodPlague ClonesInfected CrowsMaruem’s new plaguePurple Plague VariationPuking Purple Gunk
* **Enhanced Strength:** Its been shown that after being rebuilt and mdofied by the scientists of the World of Perfection, Mareum gained some level of superhuman strength, being capable of crushing a human being’s skull by stomping on it.

## Trivia

* According to Narak's Q&A conducted by Yongdol Gallery, Mareum couldn't appear earlier in the Manhwa due to a problem with the quantity of Heroes in Season 1, as there wasn't enough room for all the characters. It was also revealed that his official nickname was 'The Warrior of the Plague'.
* One of the predecessors of this hero was responsible for unleashing and likely created the Black Plague during the middle ages. This Plague Warrior was defeated by Saint Damian Arcadius and the plague was sealed alongside himself to prevent its further spread.