Characters – Imperium

They call him a prodigy in both Eclipse magic and Psytum Sword combat. They whisper about the Purge of Seoul, where his talents served the Imperium by annihilating the last vestiges of democracy and unifying the Korean Peninsula. Prince Joon-Seok has learned to carry both reputations with the same measured grace.

From his household in Jin Syue, he governs Venus’s largest Imperial settlement while his fiancée Min-Jung wastes away from an illness no healer can cure. His primary Supplicant Kaori waits in the wings, eager and ambitious. And somewhere in his servant quarters, a tea girl named Ume moves through her duties, unaware of how many powerful people are searching for her.

Joon-Seok quotes Confucian philosophy to his enemies and writes classical Korean poetry in his private hours. He has met with Fenris lieutenants behind closed doors. Whether he is a monster wearing refinement or a man trapped by imperial expectations depends entirely on who is asking.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 1 (Returns in Volume 2)

House Ri is one of Choson’s three founding families. Ming was matched with Joon-Seok when he was twenty-three and she was thirty-two, a week after the Imperium’s massacre and annexation of South Korea. Seven years and four postponed weddings later, they remain unmarried despite Joon-Seok moving to Venus and living in her palace. The physicians give her a year. Perhaps less.

The degenerative illness started in her thirties, attacking her lungs, and every Eclipse spell she casts accelerates the damage. She coughs blood on bad days and needs assistance to walk. Yet her mind remains sharp enough to terrify Chengdu’s politicians, who remember when she ordered a servant executed for selling secrets to the Rakshasa. Her advocacy against Imperium tolerance of the Fenris Horde has made her enemies in the capital.

Ice on the surface, warmth beneath for the few she trusts. She knows Joon-Seok better than he knows himself: his secret fondness for Alliance films, how he hums off-key when alone, which poets make him weep. She also knows that Kaori is waiting for her to die. What Ming plans to do about that, in whatever time remains, she keeps to herself.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 2

At nineteen, Kaori possessed nothing but good health, fading noble blood, and a family drowning in debt. House Ouyang offered her to Prince Joon-Seok as a contract to restore their standing. She accepted. Nine years of intimate service to one of the Imperium’s most gifted Eclipse practitioners have transformed her into something far more dangerous than the desperate girl who first knelt before him.

Now she wields SMGs and Thermal Daggers with lethal precision, pilots the Draconic Engine in combat, and commands Eclipse magic that rivals trained Conjurers. To servants and diplomats alike, she is ice and contempt. To Joon-Seok alone, she bends completely. This duality is survival perfected.

Min-jung Ri stands between Kaori and the title of wife. The fiancée’s illness worsens by the month. Kaori has learned patience. She has also taken the new servant girl Ume under her wing, training her privately in weapons. Whether this kindness stems from genuine sympathy or something colder, perhaps even Kaori herself does not know.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 2

One of thousands produced to build and maintain the Imperium’s infrastructure. Someone taught him to answer to “Agui” instead of his serial number. He remembers her voice but not her face—only that she was kind, and then she was gone.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 2

The woman who looks forty and remembers emperors. Dispatched from Chengdu to ensure House Pak remembers where its loyalties lie, Ying-Zhu has memorized entire classical Chinese texts on sexual cultivation (which most scholars could only reference with AI assistance or Extranet searches). From Esoteric Techniques of the Daoist Chamber (洞玄子) to Counsels of the Plain Maiden (素女經), nothing is beyond her memory. Prince Joon-Seok owes his Eclipse mastery to her tutelage. Foreigners receive her courtesy. Never her respect.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 4

Thirty years ago, a young soldier from Gansu province took a plasma bolt meant for a Lady Conjurer named Ying-Zhu Qin. She repaid the debt by sponsoring his education, his promotions, and eventually his posting to Venus when Chengdu assigned her to oversee House Pak. Where she goes, Tie-Jun follows.

Now he coordinates Jin Syue’s three Rust Crow battalions with quiet efficiency. Prince Joon-Seok values his tactical counsel; the enlisted men trust him because he still eats in their mess halls and remembers their names. He finds Kaori’s combat instincts impressive and her methods distasteful—a woman who kills for pleasure will eventually kill the wrong person. His nationalism runs deep, but duty runs deeper. The Imperium endures because soldiers like Tie-Jun hold the line while princes play politics.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 2