Huojin

Biodata

Background / History

Huojin received the title of Void Hunter in the early days of Old Eridu. He once adventured with companions while his flesh-and-blood body was still intact, and his early research chiefly concerned machinery and Ether. His long life and severe early psychological trauma later contributed to a deteriorating mental state that required daily medication 21 24 46.

He adopted Nicole Demara and accompanied her throughout her childhood. Nicole once attended a press conference with him, leaving a newspaper photograph of her younger self. Despite his position as TOPS’s CEO and his Void Hunter title, his identity and photographs remained concealed from the public 24 27.

Huojin subsequently spent five years dormant. During that period, Nicole ran the Cunning Hares, accumulated debt, and endured financial hardship despite having an allowance available. On awakening, he requested detailed reports about her life and immediately sought her activity logs after learning that she had come under heavy weapons fire 2.

Appearance

• Build: Approximately two meters tall, with a lean, sturdy, broadly humanoid frame 2.
• Chassis: Durable Ether Superalloy; predominantly black with gray areas and gold fittings 2.
• Face: A gold mask-like structure covers the eye area, with an unidentified symbol on his forehead 2.
• Clothing: Lavish formal attire, including a top hat, gloves, and an overcoat draped over his shoulders like a cloak 2 13 36.
• Mechanical features: Moving body panels vent hot air; a concealed feeding port opens beneath his lower jaw 2 3.
• Voice: Slightly deep and middle-aged in tone 31.

Personality

Huojin is intensely affectionate toward Nicole but frequently confuses protection with control. He monitors her contacts, investigates her employees, and initially interprets her refusal of money and assistance as a desire to sever their relationship. He even suspects that someone might have brainwashed her into choosing independence 2 3 28 33.

His theatrical entrances and threatening humor often frighten the people he means to approach. He immobilizes Nicole’s companions before introducing himself as her father, then claims he merely wanted to know them better. Nicole can nevertheless make him back down: when she objects to his treatment of Anby, he apologizes and promises compensation 19 21.

Toward perceived enemies, Huojin is ruthless. He publicly kills a TOPS conspirator and arranges a false suicide report. Elder He nevertheless describes him as someone who rarely kills people without ill intent toward him 14.

Huojin recognizes that his emotions can become dangerous. After Nicole refuses to return home, he briefly considers forcibly taking her back, then suppresses the thought and is disturbed by it. His medication appears to be losing effectiveness, and emotional agitation can coincide with sharply rising Ether activity 14 24 33.

Despite his poor communication, he can accept advice and change course. With Wise and Belle’s help, he acknowledges Nicole’s wishes and promises to support the life she chooses. He rewards assistance extravagantly, even when the recipients insist that payment is unnecessary 33 34.

Abilities & Skills

Ether Manipulation and Immobilizing Barrier

Huojin creates a trembling black sphere surrounded by colored rings, then expands it into a translucent, purple-tinted spherical barrier 19.

• Immobilizes Nicole, Anby, Billy, and Eous, making movement feel like struggling through a mire.
• Slows Billy’s bullets until they stop two centimeters before Huojin’s eyes.
• Prevents Billy’s gun cylinders from turning.
• Allows Huojin to move freely and selectively release Nicole.
• Produces intense Ether fluctuations detectable by Fairy; its precise mechanism is not explained 19.

Remote Force and Physical Strength

Huojin can move restrained targets without touching them and exert overwhelming force at close range 14 19.

• Lifts and moves Billy, Anby, and Eous with gestures 19.
• Forces a standing executive back into his chair through sudden heaviness 14.
• Lifts a man by the head and applies enough pressure to crack his skull 14.

Materialization and Disintegration

Huojin demonstrates the ability to produce objects and reduce others to colored particles 14 21 31 37.

• Conjures stone and crystalline chairs 21 31.
• Causes a conspirator’s body to blacken and shatter into multicolored particles 14.
• Dissolves Trigger’s signed contract into colored particles 37.

Instantaneous Disappearance

Huojin repeatedly vanishes with Butler and abruptly reappears near other characters 11 14 21 34.

• Can take Butler with him, including by grabbing his shoulder 34.
• Uses sudden appearances during conversations as well as covert departures 21 34.
• No range or technical explanation is provided.

Networking, Surveillance, and System Control

Huojin can connect directly to networks and process information at extraordinary speed 3.

• Manually reads individual holographic reports in approximately 0.01 seconds, despite being able to obtain their contents instantly through a network connection 3.
• Takes control of a TOPS conference room’s systems through its internal network 14.
• Uses extensive dossiers, Nicole’s beacon location, and the Insurance Ball’s surveillance function to track her affairs 3 16 28.
• His arrival is accompanied by an intrusion that deprives Fairy of communications privileges under her current configuration. Fairy estimates that five times her power supply would let her recover control 19.

Robotics, Cybernetics, and Biological Research

Machinery and Ether are Huojin’s established specialties; biology is a comparatively underdeveloped field in his research 46.

• Replaces Trigger’s limbs and entire spine with cybernetics and treats her hidden injuries 36.
• Uses a brain implant to seal and restore Trigger’s memories, inflict pain, and remotely lock her prosthetics 36.
• Remotely locks Red One and Blue Two’s joints 18.
• Conducts embryo cultivation and modified cloning research beneath his estate 35 36.
• Faces a biological research bottleneck because his existing specimens no longer yield new results 46.

Intimidation

Huojin can deliberately activate an intimidation mode, creating pressure that makes Trigger instinctively obey him. His presence also leaves TOPS executives sweating and makes Wise and Belle feel short of breath 13 31 36.

Equipment / Resources

• Ether Superalloy body — His durable robotic chassis 2.
• Specially made suit — Contains his Ether emissions under ordinary conditions, but fails to contain leakage during an emotional surge 14.
• Medication — Taken daily, including as medicine packaged like fine liquor and as a small edible cube. Butler warns that excessive consumption can harm his remaining flesh 24 33.
• Estate laboratory — Underground facility containing nutrient pods, cultivation tanks, cybernetic equipment, and a console supporting a direct neural connection 35 36.
• Iron Guards — Forces deployed to seize Vision’s checkpoints, secure observation stations, and support operations connected to Nicole’s safety 18 21.
• Hongke Unlimited Company access card — A black metal card with an invisible barcode, contact information, and access to private security and Hollow search-and-rescue services 32 47.

Relationships

• Nicole Demara — Adoptive daughter. He treasures their former closeness and fears losing her affection; she confirms that choosing independence does not mean rejecting him 21 33 34.
• Butler — Personal attendant and TOPS CFO. Handles intelligence, logistics, combat support, subordinate discipline, and medication reminders 3 13 18 24.
• Wise and Belle / Phaethon — Nicole’s friends and business partners. Huojin approaches them to investigate her feelings, accepts their communication coaching, and pays their electricity bills for life 28 32 33 34.
• Billy — Nicole’s employee and a briefly paid informant. Huojin hires him to question Nicole, but Billy obtains little useful information 27 28.
• Anby — Nicole’s employee and Trigger’s former captain. Huojin investigates her genetic-weapon background and rules her out as an informant because she is too loyal to Nicole 2 28 37.
• Nekomata — Initially regarded with suspicion because she previously intended to kill Nicole. Huojin agrees to arrange her rescue, while deliberately describing it as a capture 21.
• Trigger — Research subject turned contracted bodyguard. Huojin coerces her through implanted controls, then secures a five-year service agreement by revealing that her captain survives; the contract includes wages, supplies, training, and protection 36 37.
• Red One, Blue Two, and Yellow Three — Mechanical subordinates he disciplines for abandoning their posts. He later offers them release from confinement through another mission 16 18 37.
• Hoshimi Miyabi — Fellow Void Hunter who sends him a formal letter of challenge 24.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Cretan Hollow Intervention

After awakening, Huojin secretly supports Nicole’s search for a commissioned safe. Butler eliminates nearby Ethereals, including Dullahan, while Huojin inspects the safe’s black data chip. He leaves the chip behind as of little use to him and departs before Nicole’s group arrives 3 6 11.

Butler’s subordinates also eliminate the hacker who compromised Phaethon’s HDD and stage the death as suicide. After Nicole’s group escapes, Huojin identifies the chip as containing an exceptionally valuable Hollow-specialized intelligent system—the technology subsequently activated as Fairy 11 12.

Return to TOPS

Huojin returns to a high-level meeting attended by the heads of TOPS’s thirty leading family companies. He occupies the seat of honor left untouched during his five-year absence 12 13.

He expels unauthorized guards, displays detailed records of the executives’ secrets, and executes a conspirator linked to rebels and the Order of the Condemned. He dictates both the public explanation for the death and the succession arrangements 14.

Vision Demolition Crisis

Nicole’s manually triggered emergency alarm brings Huojin to the demolition zone. His forces secure the area and dismantle the Ether-explosive detonators, while Red One, Blue Two, and Yellow Three are sent after the Dead End Butcher 16 18 21.

Huojin reveals his identity to Nicole’s companions after restraining them. Once Nicole rebukes him, he apologizes and assures her that the crisis is under control 19 21.

Reconnecting with Nicole

Nicole’s refusal to return home deepens Huojin’s anxiety. After Billy’s unsuccessful questioning, he turns to Phaethon, offering gold bars for a secret commission to discover why Nicole appears to resist her family 24 27 28 32 33.

Wise and Belle identify a simpler problem: Huojin talks about subjects Nicole finds inaccessible or alarming rather than asking about her life. Their coached phone call lets Nicole address his fears directly. He accepts her independence and rewards the siblings with the prepared commission payment and lifelong electricity coverage 33 34.

Laboratory Projects and Further Investigations

Huojin works on the Offspring Cultivation Project, including an embryo, and a Partner Project involving a modified clone derived from the Defense Force’s Silver Army project. He separately restores Trigger’s memories and recruits her as his bodyguard 35 36 37.

His effort to create a child uses his own remaining organic material, but progress is threatened by inadequate biological specimens. Meanwhile, intelligence gathered by Butler exposes Bringer’s involvement in Vision’s affairs, and an anomalous signal suggests a possible target of the Order of the Condemned. Huojin considers sending Iron Guards to retrieve the suspected subject covertly 46.

Notable Quotes

“I am Hawking Hongke, Nicole Demara's adoptive father. My main occupation is CEO of TOPS, and my side occupation is the title of Void Hunter, bestowed in the early days of Old Eridu.” 21

“Nicole, do whatever you want to do. Even if it means standing against all of New Eridu, as long as I'm here, it'll be fine.” 34

“You don't get to refuse what I want to give you.” 34