Leike

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Leike (雷克)
Alias(es)	Reke; Mother of Swarm 480
Species/Race	Human; Eerie Transcendent fused with Swarm Insects
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Night Watch; Bronze City Night Watch Branch
Occupation/Role	Night Watcher; Klaus's concealed Fourth Order operative
Status	Stable but unconscious; undergoing fusion with Hope after his Authority was stripped and his vessel was critically damaged 498 500 502 509

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Fourth Order / Fourth Rank Eerie Transcendent	236	Secretly serves Klaus while posing as a Second Rank Night Watcher in Third Squad. His humanity and Weird power are balanced, but this balance leaves his potential seemingly exhausted.
Stabilized Fourth Order	302, 313	The Pipe Network battle lets his Swarm Insects devour flesh and blood, improving their compatibility with his human form and opening a possible path forward.
Peak Fourth Order	452	Klaus identifies Leike as already at the peak of Fourth Order and considers using Hope to help him reach Fifth Order.
Early Fifth Order	472, 473	Seizes a Fifth Order Eerie core and potion, advancing at the cost of being overwhelmed by proliferating Swarm Insects.
Pinnacle Fifth Order	473	Invokes his contract with the Person on the Wall, who fulfills Leike's wish to reach the Fifth Order pinnacle while preserving his dominant will over his Pathway.
Temporary Sixth Order	485, 486	Receives a wisp of Authority through Lu Yuan and manifests a Sixth Order Sea of Worms capable of resisting the Newborn Taboo.
Taboo-level perception	487	At his temporary Sixth Order, his innumerable Swarm Insects grant him near-omniscient perception throughout the Inner and Outer City, leaving no apparent blind spots.
Authority stripped	496, 498	His borrowed Authority expires; the Swarm Insects die en masse and his Pathway begins merging completely with him. He survives as a severely damaged giant insect.
Fusion with Hope in progress	500, 502, 509	Hope's roots connect to Leike's insect body and stabilize his condition. The fusion is ongoing and is intended to preserve his life and stabilize his powers, though it requires the permanent loss of his human identity.

Background / History

Leike's hometown was devoured by Swarm Insects. After witnessing victims—including a child—consumed and turned into anomalies, he killed the remaining insects, burned the husks, and resolved to become a Night Watcher who could protect others from such horrors 326.

He later returned to the town with the Night Watchers and found familiar people reduced to hollow shells. The insects used these shells as wandering bait to attract other Eerie beings; Leike personally tore the shells apart and burned them. A Night Watcher involved in his childhood ordeal was later identified as a senior to Klaus 326.

Rather than merely surviving the infestation, Leike devoured the Swarm Insects in return. The process made him a half-Eerie existence: effectively an oversized Swarm Insect held together by an unusually powerful human will. He rose rapidly to Fourth Order, but his incompatible human and insect natures prevented further advancement for many years 473.

By the time of the Bronze City incidents, Leike was working for Deputy Chief Klaus under the name “Reke,” concealing his true Fourth Rank strength behind the identity of a Second Rank member of Third Squad 236. He considered himself better suited to serving as a hired hand than holding a leadership post, since age or disruption of his internal balance could turn him into a Contamination Source 243.

During the Pipe Network confrontation with Nine, Leike overloaded his power and used an Insect Tide to engulf and dismantle his opponent after Lu Yuan destroyed the altar. An ancient power beneath the Stone Tablet then transformed Nine's red threads into black veins and repelled the insects 299.

The Pipe Network battle released his suppressed Swarm Insects and allowed them to consume a large quantity of flesh and blood. The resulting improvement in compatibility let him maintain a human appearance without forcibly suppressing the insects, though Fifth Order still remained distant 302 313.

While investigating the Copper Wall, Leike was pulled into the gray-mist domain of the Person on the Wall. Stripped of all Eerie power, he tested the entity's limits through a series of wishes and resisted its attempts to exploit his childhood trauma and faith 324 325 326. His eventual release came at a price connected to Lu Yuan's entry into the void; afterward, Leike and Lu Yuan were unable to disclose parts of their encounter because of an imposed rule 327 328.

Leike subsequently reported that contact between his Swarm Insects and the image of the Person on the Wall in a captive's memories had dragged his consciousness into the entity's domain. Klaus examined both him and Lu Yuan with the Bone Ring and found no contamination 329.

During preparations to hunt the Grey Covenant, Leike reported encountering an unidentified Fourth Order in the Pipe Network whom he considered strong enough that he might not be a match. He also agreed to watch over Lu Yuan during the assault on the abandoned workshop and help obtain a sample of the Wooden Men suspected of being connected to the Person on the Wall 330 333.

Together with Lu Yuan, Leike interrogated Kame about the fragments leaked from the Sea of Knowledge. Their questioning established that Kame had intercepted fragments, passed them to the Grey Covenant, and received advance warning of the leak through the Person on the Wall's influence. Leike reported the entity's incompleteness and the final Seed's location at the top of the Tower of Erudition to Klaus 343 344.

Leike joined the joint descent beneath Bronze City, where Adrian singled out his unusual resistance to Carrion Fungus as an advantage over other mutated Fourth Orders. During the expedition, he fought alongside the Blue Knight and used an insect passage to send Lu Yuan toward the Copper Pillar without demanding an explanation 357 364 368.

During the escalating crisis beneath Bronze City, Leike was left bedridden and difficult to treat because conventional Holy Water-based remedies were unsuitable for an Eerie Transcendent. Jurgen remained at his bedside, and Leike later forced himself back into the defense of the Branch despite his half-ruined body 437 453.

Before the final battle, Klaus considered using Hope to advance Leike, who was already at the peak of Fourth Order. He judged that a Fifth Order Leike following the Swarm Insect Pathway would be of greater immediate help to Bronze City than his own advancement 452.

During Bronze City's final crisis, Leike stole a Fifth Order core and potion from Klaus, appearing to betray his comrades in order to advance himself. His actual purpose was to save the city and preserve Klaus's potential to pursue a cleaner path of Transcendence 472. After reaching Fifth Order, he called upon the Person on the Wall to fulfill their contract, then led his Swarm Insects against the Starry Sky Flesh and the Newborn Taboo 473 480.

After reaching the Tower of Erudition to rescue Lu Yuan, Leike accepted a wisp of Authority granted through him and temporarily reached Sixth Order. He held back the Newborn Taboo while Lu Yuan attempted to open the Sea of Knowledge, exploiting the Taboo's incomplete Authority to resist its domain 485 486. He then allowed dying insects to carry fragments of Authority into the enemy's flesh before detonating them from within, disrupting its restoration and shrinking its domain 489.

Leike ultimately protected Lu Yuan against the Taboo at the cost of his borrowed Authority and his human form. Returned to the Outer City as a grievously damaged insect body, he was merged with Hope under Lu Yuan's guidance; the process stabilized him, though it permanently requires him to relinquish his human identity 498 499 500.

After Hope's roots connected to the core of his body, Leike remained unconscious beneath the massive tree while the golden light continuously passed between them. His condition was stable, but the integration had not yet concluded by Lu Yuan's departure for the Knight Academy 502 509.

Much later, Lu Yuan interpreted Leike's survival as the event responsible for increasing the Bronze City experience bar's limit from fifty to fifty-one. In his understanding, saving Leike had created an additional branch beyond the city's predetermined fate, rather than merely completing the original course of events 619.

Appearance

Leike's human appearance is that of an ordinary man in his early thirties, deliberately unremarkable despite the biological aura surrounding him 324.

• Short brown hair and dark red pupils 313.
• Usually wears a neatly buttoned dark coat in human form 313.
• His combat body is made of dense, writhing flesh-worms; early transformations retained fragments of a humanoid silhouette and visible eyes 239.
• During his initial Fifth Order advancement, hardened insects interweave into a massive black cocoon around him 473.
• After his wish is granted, his right eye turns deathly white, and newly born blackish-gray insects bear pallid eyeballs 473.
• As the Mother of Swarm, his human outline becomes an unstable mass of countless insects, with no clear boundary between body and swarm 480.
• After losing his Authority, he becomes a gigantic, fully insectoid creature with carapace, folded wings, and jointed limbs 498.
• His critically damaged insect body has no identifiable mouth; doctors administer medicinal liquids through gaps in his carapace 499.
• During his fusion with Hope, pale-golden roots coil around his carapace and take root in the core between his chest and abdomen 502.

Personality

Leike is quiet, restrained, and practical. He does not seek authority or recognition, judging himself more fit to be a useful operative than a Deputy Chief 243. Even when stripped of his powers before the Person on the Wall, he remains calm enough to probe the entity's limits rather than panic 325.

His central conviction is protecting people from anomalies. The loss of his hometown and family gave him an enduring hatred of Swarm Insects, even though they became the source of his own power 252 326. This conviction drives his decision to risk corruption, sacrifice his human form, and confront entities beyond the Fifth Order during the fall of Bronze City 472 485.

His apparent betrayal of Klaus is deliberately limited: he does not strike a killing blow, withdraws his swarm, and moves away from others before consuming the core. He openly recognizes Klaus's talent and hopes to preserve his opportunity to advance without accepting Bronze City's contaminated path 472.

Leike also displays considerable tactical patience. Against the Newborn Taboo, he waits until enough Authority-bearing insects have been devoured before triggering his attack from within its body 489.

Abilities & Skills

Swarm Insect Manipulation

Leike's body contains Swarm Insects that he can release, shape, and command as extensions of himself.

• Forms insect walls to intercept attacks and protect allies 424.
• Shapes insects into a fleshy whip capable of cracking a Chimera's bone armor 364.
• Creates insect passages for rapid transport across dangerous terrain 368.
• Uses his swarm to seize objects at range, including the Fifth Order core and potion taken from Klaus 472.
• Expands his swarm into a Sea of Worms that can contest the Starry Sky Flesh and carve a route toward the Tower of Erudition 481.
• His insects consume flesh and blood, which can fuel their growth but intensifies the danger of losing control 302 473.
• Uses the insects' stripping and reproductive abilities to dismantle an opponent through a continuous Insect Tide, as demonstrated against Nine 299.
• Can sustain a battle of mutual consumption against the Starry Sky Flesh, replacing insects that die while forcing a passage through the Sea of Blood 481.

Eerie Physiology

Leike can alter his body into a worm-based combat form with substantial resilience.

• Can deform his body to dissipate blunt-force impacts, then restore its structure 364.
• Can conceal or resume a human form when his compatibility with the swarm is sufficiently stable 313.
• His human identity depends on maintaining dominance over the insects; excessive power causes the boundary between Leike and the swarm to collapse 473 480.
• Possesses exceptional resistance to Carrion Fungus among mutated Fourth Orders; Adrian estimates that he can endure its environment half a day longer than the others 357.
• His swarm consists of polluted entities and is effectively unaffected by the gray-green spores encountered during the underground expedition 368.
• Bronze City's dense Eerie Inscriptions suppress his abilities, causing his tentacles to retract and his body's movements to stiffen. Adrian's Golden Blessing can block this suppression 330 334.
• After his Authority was stripped, his vessel became a fully insectoid body too damaged to respond to ordinary treatment 498 499.
• Hope's roots can stabilize his damaged body and Eerie power through their ongoing fusion 499 500 502.

Deep Study generated three treatment options for his critically damaged state. Lu Yuan selected fusion with Hope rather than restoration at a permanently reduced rank or indefinite preservation 499.

Treatment Plan	Success Rate	Principle and Cost
Touching Hope	99%	Fuse Leike with Hope, allowing recovery and potentially stabilizing both parties' powers while creating further growth opportunities for the tree. Requires permanently relinquishing his human identity.
Stabilization	87%	Use supporting potions and cleansing through the Sea of Knowledge's current knowledge to attempt restoration of his original state. Permanently halts him at the peak of Fourth Order.
Preservation	100%	Seal him in a special-material container to isolate him and delay the completion of fusion, allowing recovery over time. Awakening remains indefinitely distant.

The treatment plans and their assessed success rates were produced by Deep Study rather than demonstrated through completed treatment 499.

Memory Extraction

Leike can obtain information from memories extracted by Swarm Insects.

• Extracted memories from captured Grey Covenant members during the Branch's interrogation 321.
• Identified the Grey Covenant's interest in the “Root” and the Copper Wall through memories taken from their members 322.
• Contact with a memory depicting the Person on the Wall can draw Leike's own consciousness into that entity's domain, making extraction dangerous even when the captive is much weaker than him 324 329.
• Can extend a thin, dark-red insect through a slit in his palm, as demonstrated during his interrogation of Kame 343.

Mother of Swarm / Taboo Perception

At Fifth Order and beyond, Leike's connection with the swarm grows into battlefield-scale perception and control.

• Communicates through the collective swarm; its repeated phrase, “Mother is here,” can be understood by Lu Yuan through Ancient Music Theory 480.
• Uses countless insects as eyes, granting him no apparent blind spots across the Inner and Outer City while wielding temporary Sixth Order power 487.
• Perceives the competing powers within the Newborn Taboo and recognizes that the Person on the Wall retains Authority and a domain but cannot fully bring that power to bear in reality 487.
• Detects the Great Ascendant and an unfamiliar companion despite their attempts to avoid the swarm's gaze 487.
• Strategically seeds fragments of Authority into the Newborn Taboo through dying insects, then detonates those fragments to strip away its absorbed power 489.
• Is the first to notice the Newborn Taboo attempting to abandon its existing dominant powers and elevate another power within itself to call upon a different world 491.
• This state depends on borrowed Authority; when that Authority ends, Leike's insects die and his Pathway begins consuming his remaining human identity 496.

Contract with the Person on the Wall

Leike holds a contract with the Person on the Wall, who granted him the Right of Wish-Stating.

• Tested the entity's rules by wishing for the Empire's enemies to be eliminated and for himself to reach Seventh Order; both requests exposed limits on what the entity could grant 325.
• Successfully invoked the completed contract to request advancement to Fifth Order's pinnacle while retaining control of his Pathway 473.
• Researched the contract sufficiently to determine that his own obligations had been fulfilled, although he still did not understand exactly what he had provided. The Person on the Wall could not evade his summons without incurring unacceptable consequences 473.
• The granted wish temporarily made the Swarm Insects docile, allowing Leike to redirect the power they had intercepted into his own body 473.
• The fulfillment strengthened the Person on the Wall and did not remove the risks posed by Leike's own Swarm Insects 473.

Relationships

• Klaus — Deputy Chief and handler. Leike works as Klaus's hidden Fourth Order operative, respects Klaus's talent, and steals the Fifth Order core to spare Klaus from a path that would bind him to Bronze City 236 472. Klaus later supports Lu Yuan's decision to fuse Leike with Hope and continues to visit him during his recovery 499 502. He is willing to expend the entire tree if necessary to save Leike 500.
• Lu Yuan — Trusted ally and investigative partner. Leike works with him in the Pipe Network, sends him toward the Copper Pillar without hesitation, and later risks his life to rescue and protect him 323 368 485 499. Lu Yuan uses Deep Study to identify Hope as Leike's best treatment option and guides the fusion process 499 500. Klaus regards Leike as someone who will not reveal Lu Yuan's secrets to outsiders 502. Lu Yuan later associates Leike's survival with the alteration of Bronze City's predetermined fate 619.
• Person on the Wall — Contracted entity and dangerous counterpart. Leike resists its manipulation, receives the Right of Wish-Stating, and later forces it to fulfill his Fifth Order wish 325 327 473.
• Hope — The special tree used to stabilize Leike after his Authority is stripped. Their fusion is intended to preserve his life and stabilize both their powers, at the cost of his human identity; Hope's roots remain connected to his body while the integration continues 499 500 502 509. Using Hope to save him may prevent the tree from providing advancement to others 500.
• Blue Knight — Fellow defender of Bronze City. They fight alongside Adrian against the Chimera, and she witnesses both his Fifth Order transformation and his later battlefield-scale swarm 364 473 480.
• Jurgen — Young Night Watcher whom Lu Yuan considers placing under Leike's guidance 313. He keeps Leike company during his bedridden period and accompanies him when Leike returns to the Branch's defense despite his injuries 437 453.
• Adrian — Archbishop and fellow member of the underground expedition. His blessing protects Leike from Bronze City's Inscription suppression, and he recognizes Leike's unusually strong resistance to Carrion Fungus 334 357.
• Kame — Captive interrogated by Leike and Lu Yuan. Leike's questioning helps expose his role in supplying Sea of Knowledge fragments to the Grey Covenant and confirms information about the Person on the Wall and the final Seed 343 344.

Notable Quotes

“Humans are too weak, so weak that we have to rely on weird power to survive. That is why some people lose everything in their search for power, while others refuse to abandon those things, and thus formed the Night Watch.”
—Leike 252

“One more cripple at the initial stage of the Fourth Order won't make a difference.”
—Leike, before taking the Fifth Order core 472

“Let me do this.”
—Leike, after seizing the core and potion from Klaus 472

“I am now about to ascend to the pinnacle of the Fifth Order, but my body can no longer bear it. I need you to send me across that step I desire—on the condition that my pathway does not lose control and that I retain the dominant authority.”
—Leike, invoking his contract with the Person on the Wall 473

Trivia

• Leike's original advancement block was not a lack of willpower; his human will was specifically described as among the strongest in the Night Watch 473.
• He once regarded his own Swarm Insects as both the power that kept him alive and the source of his family's death 252.
• Deep Study calculated that fusion with Hope had a 99% success rate, while preservation of Leike in a sealed container had a 100% survival rate but an indefinitely distant awakening 499.
• Despite the severity of his injuries, Hope fusion had stabilized Leike's condition by Chapter 500, although the integration remained incomplete as of Chapter 509 500 509.
• Lu Yuan considered it likely that an awakened Leike could become a new Guardian at the peak of Fifth Order; this was a projected outcome, not a confirmed appointment or completed recovery 500.
• When examining the Rock Grand Knight Commander, Lu Yuan recalls Leike as one of the few people previously given a Gray-White Text evaluation associated with the legendary Sixth Order threshold 616.
• Lu Yuan attributes the additional point in the Bronze City experience bar's maximum to Leike surviving the final crisis, interpreting it as evidence of a new branch beyond the city's original fate 619.

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