Chu Zihang

Biodata

Power Progression

• Known ceiling: Chu Zihang believes a sixth degree exists, but his proportion of Dragon Blood limits him to the fifth; forcing the sixth could make his blood boil 87.
• Uncontrolled escalation: Lu Mingfei's oppressive aura later forces Blood Rage automatically to the fifth degree and toward greater intensity. Chu Zihang nearly dies before Lu withdraws the pressure; this is not established as a mastered sixth stage 133.

Background / History

The Typhoon and Chu Tianjiao's Disappearance

Five years before his private discussion with Lu Mingfei, Chu Zihang and his father, Chu Tianjiao, entered a Nibelungen during a typhoon. There they encountered Odin, who was pursuing the case Chu Tianjiao carried. Chu Zihang escaped the elevated highway alone in the Maybach 42.

Afterward, Chu Zihang deliberately rehearsed every detail of that night before sleeping. He believed himself the only person who still remembered his father and feared that forgetting him would erase the last proof of his existence 42.

He attended Shilan High School, where his photograph appeared on the wall of honor. Although he later became a formidable swordsman, his initial instruction came from a youth activity center rather than a traditional samurai school 22 66.

Cassell College and Free Day

At Cassell College, Chu Zihang became President of the Lionheart Society, opposing Caesar's Student Union during Free Day. His severe training habits and destructive approach to missions earned the Executive Department's favor; Nono reported that many considered him a future department director 21 22.

During Lu Mingfei's one-man Free Day challenge, Chu Zihang fought after Caesar. He adopted a defensive stance, but Lu systematically overwhelmed his swordsmanship and drove him against a wall. Although the encounter felt lethal, every apparent hit had only cut his combat uniform without injuring him 22 23.

Chu Zihang accepted the defeat and later offered Murasame as his promised wager. Lu declined the sword and invited both presidents to remain for dinner 23.

Beijing Mission

Norma reassigned Chu Zihang from command of an A-Rank reconnaissance mission to Lu Mingfei's top-secret S-Rank team. Schneider personally requisitioned a Philosopher's Stone for him, but Chu gave it to Susie, judging that the reconnaissance team's new leader needed the trump card more 52.

In Beijing, he built mathematical models to search seismic data for signs of a Dragon King. A live anomaly led him to Eastern Suburbs Wetland Park, where Odin's Nibelungen trapped him among waves of Deadpools. He reached Second-Stage Blood Rage and deflected an assassin's alchemical knife before Lu Mingfei arrived, killed the attacker, and carried him out 54 56 57.

Chu Zihang awoke with severe muscle strains and multiple arm fractures. Susie cared for him in the intensive care room. His Blood Rage-enhanced healing soon repaired most of the damage, allowing him to break his casts and leave when another supernatural disturbance reached the hospital 58 61.

He subsequently fought alongside Caesar in the subway Nibelungen. To protect the wounded passengers, Chu cut his own arm and drew the Deadpools away with his enhanced Dragon Blood; Caesar followed his example 62 65.

At the terminus, Xia Mi revealed herself as Jormungandr and admitted that she had watched Chu Zihang to investigate Odin. Their battle drove him to Third-Stage Blood Rage and Deadpool transformation. He briefly pushed her back before Fenrir emerged and caught him in his jaws. Chu nevertheless reappeared alive afterward, reunited with Caesar, and escaped with the survivors 66 67 71 72.

At the subsequent banquet, Lu Mingfei exposed Jormungandr's possession of Chu Zihang. He persuaded her to leave Chu's body for a vessel, then trapped her spirit within a crystal maid outfit 74.

Return Home and Advanced Training

During his recuperation leave, Chu Zihang brought Susie home. She quickly became close to his mother, while Chu left to help Lu Mingfei investigate the elevated highway associated with his father's disappearance 77 78.

Lu explained that Chu Tianjiao's case had contained the Sky and Wind King's egg. Despite retracing the route in a Maybach, they found no elemental disturbance marking the Nibelungen's entrance. Lu arranged patrols, and the pair later set out again toward Highway 10 in a heavily modified Maybach 78 83.

On a sparsely populated South Pacific island arranged by Su Enxi, Fingel supervised Chu Zihang's Blood Rage training at Lu Mingfei's request. Following Jormungandr's possession, Chu could reach the fifth degree without the usual dreams of slaughter described in records of Hybrid degeneration 87.

Japan Mission

Chu Zihang reunited with Caesar at Narita Airport for an SS-Rank mission under Lu Mingfei. Their friendship after Beijing did not end their competition as presidents of rival student organizations 89.

During the Japanese Branch's pursuit, Chu used compressed King's Flame explosions to clear a path through Enforcement Bureau agents. He and Caesar avoided treating the pursuers as ordinary villains, recognizing the confrontation as a political conflict between Hybrid organizations 93.

When Friedrich von Long confronted Angers's group, Chu escalated from Third- to Fifth-Degree Blood Rage. Even at that level, he could not keep pace with Angers's Time Zero 96.

Bone Vessel and Timeline War

Chu Zihang later brought a frost-covered canister to Lu Mingfei and insisted on seeing the requested process through, whether it succeeded or failed. Lu observed that his outlook had changed: Chu now acknowledged death and change without accepting that they erased the meaning of a life 132.

Lu grew an unfinished, egg-shaped Bone Vessel from a bone using an Alchemical Matrix and his blood. After nearly crushing Chu with his aura during the process, Lu gave him the vessel and instructed him to speak to it 133.

During the war against Nidhogg, Chu and Caesar served together in an army special operations unit. After communications failed and their camp fell, they killed several hundred Deadpools, including a Second-Generation Dragon 142 143.

As neighboring timelines converged, they encountered another Caesar accompanied by Abbas and Fingel. Chu and his partner defeated and captured the three, then recognized that they came from a parallel world. Their altered route delayed the pair's return to camp, but all five ultimately died fighting Deadpools when a nuclear strike brought the timelines back into alignment 145.

Phantom-World School Life

In the phantom-world school sequence, Chu Zihang offers to tutor Lu Mingfei, helping improve his grades and standing at school. He later gains admission to the business school at Washington University in St. Louis, and Lu's family sees him off at the airport 118 120.

Appearance

• Hair: Rebellious black hair, little changed from his Shilan High School wall-of-honor photograph 22.
• Eyes: Golden Eyes described in his intelligence profile as never going dark 20.
• Expression and bearing: Habitually cold and stern; his appearance while delivering Murasame makes Fingel mistake him for someone seeking revenge 23.
• Mission clothing: Wears an Executive Department trench coat over a weapons harness during the wetland investigation 56.
• Dragon transformation: High-level Blood Rage produces scales and bone spurs. At the third stage against Jormungandr, he develops savage armor-like scales, reversed joints, and bone wings 67 133.

Personality

Chu Zihang is disciplined, ascetic, and intensely goal-oriented. Nono contrasts his daily training and cold showers with Caesar's luxurious habits, describing him as someone who lives every day as though preparing for a battlefield. His fixation is rooted in the typhoon and his refusal to forget his father 22 42.

His severity does not exclude consideration for others. He gives Susie the Philosopher's Stone because he judges her need greater, accepts his Free Day defeat without resentment, and risks himself to draw Deadpools away from wounded companions. His conduct is practical rather than performative 23 52 65.

He is academically capable and methodical, repeatedly testing seismic models and personally checking suspicious locations. Socially, he can be unusually literal: he patiently explains mission-security procedures to Xia Mi when she asks to visit, and initially considers Susie's stay at his home chiefly in terms of spare rooms and inconvenience to his mother 42 54 55 78.

His emotional reserve gradually softens around Susie. Seeing her wait for him in near-freezing rain, he begins to recognize that her concern exceeds a secretary's professional duties 77.

Abilities & Skills

King's Flame

King's Flame is a high-risk Word Spirit ranked eighty-ninth in the sequence, used for both area destruction and close-range sword combat 62.

• Envelops Murasame in flame, combining cutting force with heat that burns and ruptures struck enemies 57.
• Creates a spherical defensive space hot enough to keep rain out and ignite intruding shadows 57.
• Expands into an explosive domain that incinerates surrounding Deadpools; can also be compressed into a small, precisely positioned blast 57 93.
• Limit: Jormungandr suppresses and shatters its domain even while Chu uses Second-Stage Blood Rage 66.

Blood Rage

A forbidden Lionheart Society technique that briefly activates and strengthens the user's dragon bloodline 57 62.

• Increases strength, speed, perception, regenerative ability, and the power of King's Flame 57.
• Gives Chu healing far beyond ordinary Hybrids; his fractured arms are nearly healed before he removes his casts 61.
• Risk: Can push bloodline purity past the critical limit and cannot be voluntarily switched off once activated 62.
• Advanced control: After Jormungandr's possession, Chu repeatedly experiments with Fifth-Degree Blood Rage. Fingel's seventeenth recorded trial lasts 1,386 seconds 87.

Swordsmanship and Close Combat

Chu Zihang treats swordsmanship as a means of defeating enemies, without a samurai's obligation to preserve the weapon itself 66.

• Uses Waterfowl Style counter-swordsmanship, defensive parries, and Reverse Kesa cuts 22 57.
• Is willing to risk breaking Murasame to survive: his final interception of the wetland assassin's knife nearly shatters the sword and tears his strengthened muscles 57.
• Can improvise with sharp metal fragments as daggers and thrown weapons; their effective lethal throwing range is slightly over twenty meters 71.
• Coordinates closely with Caesar, including maintaining a staggered formation and exploiting openings created by gunfire and Word Spirits 66 71.

Investigation and Technical Skills

• Builds mathematical models to analyze seismic data and locate possible Dragon King activity 54 56.
• Uses rigorous elimination methods to test misleading results and records the investigative steps for mission reports 55.
• Drives at high speed with exceptional stability, aided by a powerful Hybrid's senses and reflexes 78.
• Had completed more than twenty solo missions, including several A-Rank assignments, by the elevated-highway investigation 78.

Abilities Used by His Alchemical-World Double

The figure resembling Chu Zihang in the alchemical world is controlled by an outside dragon power; its abilities are not established as Chu Zihang's own 47 48.

• King's Attendant, sequence 28: Multiplies the physical capabilities of living beings within its domain 47.
• Heaven and Earth as the Forge: Melts surrounding metal and reforges it into a massive scythe after Murasame breaks 47.
• Alchemical-world authority: Makes attacks behave unpredictably and creates apparent absolute defenses. The figure names its side “Sky and Wind” before beheading itself 47.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Murasame — His principal alchemical katana and an inheritance from his father. Cleaning and oiling it becomes part of his training and meditation. Lu Mingfei refuses his offer to surrender it after Free Day 23 66.
• Weapons case and harness — Carries firearms and a dagger alongside Murasame during Executive Department operations 56.
• Philosopher's Stone — Personally requisitioned for him by Schneider; passed to Susie before the Beijing mission 52.
• Modified Desert Eagle — Temporarily entrusted to him by Caesar as a backup means of firing a Philosopher's Stone round at the Dragon King; returned before the fight with Jormungandr 62 66.
• Pride — An Eight-Faceted Han Sword selected from the seven alchemical weapons delivered by Fingel in the subway tunnels 72.
• Bone Vessel — An unfinished, egg-shaped living vessel created by Lu Mingfei and entrusted to Chu with instructions to speak to it 133.

Relationships

• Chu Tianjiao — Father and the central figure in Chu's search for answers. Chu preserves his memory through nightly recollection and investigates the Nibelungen where they were separated 42 78.
• His mother — Chu conceals his dangerous work behind academic explanations and quietly looks after her, including reminding her to drink warm milk before bed 77 78.
• His stepfather, addressed as “Dad” — Courteous and generous, but emotionally distant from Chu, who deliberately gives late notice of visits to avoid being formally accommodated 78.
• Lu Mingfei — School junior, Free Day opponent, mission leader, rescuer, and ally in investigating Chu Tianjiao. Later creates the Bone Vessel for him 22 23 57 78 133.
• Caesar — Archrival who becomes a trusted friend through repeated life-and-death battles. Their student-faction rivalry persists even after Beijing; they later serve and die together during timeline convergence 89 142 145.
• Susie — Lionheart Society secretary who openly admits that she likes him. Nurses him after Odin's ambush, waits for him in freezing weather, and accompanies him home; Chu gradually recognizes the personal nature of her care 57 58 77 78.
• Xia Mi / Jormungandr — Former schoolmate who secretly watches him to learn about Odin, attempts to seduce him, and later possesses him. Her possession precedes his access to Fifth-Degree Blood Rage 66 74 87.
• Schneider — Mentor and Executive Department superior who personally arranges valuable equipment for him 52 78.
• Fingel — Supervises his advanced Blood Rage training at Lu Mingfei's request 87.
• Lancelot — Lionheart Society vice president who supports his command during Free Day and urges him to conserve his strength for Caesar 21.

Notable Quotes

“If weapons are named after sins, they can only refer to the enemy's sins.” 72

“Everything comes to an end, but that doesn't mean any existence loses its meaning.” 132

“I asked for this. Whether it succeeds or fails, I want an outcome.” 132