Hana Baek is a supporting antagonist in The Warrior Returns. She is the Faith Warrior and a member of the 9-Heroes, having joined the group to vent her trauma of being abused when she was younger.
"Hana Baek's birthday is July 9th"
Appearance[]
Hana is a Hero of Faith of the newer generation she appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She has blonde-colored shoulder-length hair with a braid on the left side and her hair was tied with her headband. Her eyes were covered by a black Headband with a cross in the center.
Hana wore a black coat with some ornament and a cross, underneath the coat was a black suit matching her pants as well. When she's on air She had a pair of wings made from light, it's possible that she needed to sacrifice her follower to make it happen.
In the past, Hana has her hair always down and wore a plain indigo grey sweater and grey jeans. She also wore the same clothes as she has now that being a black coat, underneath the coat was a white collar neck polo with a black suit tie and a black patterned skirt as a school uniform.
Personality[]
Prior to becoming a hero, Hana was a depressed, traumatized, and sorrowful young girl due to the discrimination from her classmates and her being sexually abused by the head priest of the cult her mother and her joined.
After finishing her journey from the otherworld and joining the fallen heroes upon returning, Hana's personality changes drastically, turning into a violent, sadistic, fanatic, and immoral individual with the hobbies of brainwashing, sacrificing, and deforming her followers and other innocent lives.
Hana losing her temper
Despite what happened to her in the past, she was still calm during the chaos at the Reconstruction Government base, and the Southern part of Italy liked most of the havoc while her followers sacrifice and blessed her for her accomplishments.
But when the previous Hero of Faith name Saint Damian Arcadius arrives at the scene. She was delighted and greeted the hero. However, things took a turn when Hana realizes that Damian can feel her emotions, which flies her into a rage. Simply exclaiming that he doesn't understand her sorrow no matter what.
However, after being pierced by the spear that contains the faith, hope, and goodwill of past generations, Hana's own body forcefully unbinds herself and causes her to let go of the tragic past that she suffers, making her finally accept defeat and cry after being relived from her misery, now completely forgiving humanity and gives life another chance.
History[]
Current Timeline[]
In the past, Hana attended a praying session along with her mother in a church run by a corrupted priest. She thinks that religion might help with her mother's financial situation, so she prayed to God, saying "Please make mom happy."
At school, her classmates were aware that she along with her family are religious, and thus, took every opportunity to bully her by vandalizing her desk and calling the church she visits a cult. She always had to ignore and endure all these tragedies every day. She also thought about her mother wasn't smiling and living in a poor environment without even knowing the fact that Hana's mother always neglects her.
Not long after, the head priest of the church invited Hana's mother to a late-night prayer session. However, to Hana's shock, she discovers that the priest abuses his authority to manipulate Hana's mother so he could have sexual intercourses with her without anybody knowing except for Hana, and after he raped Hana's mother, he also turns to do the same thing to Hana as well.
She was struggling mentally as fear began to take her whenever the priest showed up. It is implied that the priest even domestic violently abused her as well, and it is presumed that this is the cost of her death and her descending to villainy.
In the following year right after the incident, she became the now-known Hero of Faith. After returning from the Faith World, the first thing Hana did was get back at the cult leader who raped her by painfully mutilating his body and killing him in front of his cult while sarcastically applauding him. She learned of a man named Minsu Kim who went on a rampage for a long period of time. She decides to join Kim along with the rest of the heroes who are now viewed by the government to be war criminals. According to Yerin Ma there is two factions of heroes, the ones who defend humanity from Kim's world domination, and the one who supports him in destroying and enslaving the world. Most of the resistance have all died with the Vampire Hero betraying and joining the 9-Warriors for unstated reasons.
Original Timeline[]
In Chapter 61, it is revealed that Hana was also one of the 9-Warriors of the original timeline, before Seongjun Lee traveled back in time and began altering events, having likely joined the group for the same reason as in the current timeline. At some point, however, she ended up being defeated and killed by the rebel warriors, which in this timeline included Minsu Kim and Seongjun Lee.
Alternate Timelines[]
Seongjun peacefully talks Hana out of her rampage
During one of his time loops, Seongjun Lee managed to peacefully talk Hana into stopping her rampage.
In one of the alternate timeline’s where Seongjun stopped and helped the 9-Warriors from going mad and taking their anger out at the world, he ended up becaming a good friend to Hana and accompanied her to St.Damian’s Orphanage to cook the orphan’s a meal.
Synopsis[]
The Warrior of Revolt's Arrival & Reconstruction Government Raid[]
In the present days, Hana was notified that two of their members were killed at the hand of the Warrior of Revolt, she later joined the rest of the team at the reconstruction government base to wreak havoc and gain more followers. Hana was caught off guard by the warrior Park who launch a destructive beam and ended up destroying her entire body leaving behind only a pair of feet, She later regenerated and watch the battle between the two warriors unfold. When Jeonguk Choi detonate his bomb the building was blown as a giant part of the building was about to land on top of them, Hana sacrifice her followers and summon a giant hand made of light.
Aftermath of the Reconstruction Government[]
After completely slaughtering the rest of the refugees, Seongjun Lee let all the fallen heroes hear through his explanation that there is a possibility that there are other heroes that live outside of Korea, and he also mentions that some of these Old Generation heroes still exist today (mostly the ones who have transcended from human to non-human species.)
Hana was skeptical if there are any heroes that might be immortal or have longer lifespans like her and the Hero of Reformation, she follows the plan by splitting out from the group of fallen heroes as each of them chooses a continent as their next target for their plans of world domination.
Old Generation[]
At the time when she was about to destroy the Vatican State, when the Hero of Faith, Saint Damian Arcadius arrives to defend his country. Hana was astonished to see another Hero of Faith like her, but, after Damian claimed that he can sense and feel immense pain and fear from her, Hana snapped and in a bitter rage, she sacrifices her believers to kill him. The two engage in combat with Damian having the upper hand for a short period of time before realizing that Hana's futile attempts of killing are all part of her plan to make his believers have doubt, soon, she manages to overpower him and beheads him before he could react to the situation that happens.
However, he later returns after getting resurrected in a small orphanage that was built after his name. At some point, right after the first battle, the Southern part of Italy has fallen at the hand of Hana and her followers, But when she noticed Arcadius came back, thus resuming their battle, with Hana trying to use the brainwashed servants and angels to kill Damian. At the last moment, Damian had managed to reach her range and formed a spear that would dispose of all of her fear.
Hana orders her people to block the spear, but they instead refuse due to witnessing the sight of good-will faith, her forceful followers have gained the power to resist her brainwashing abilities.
Damian washes away Hana's fears
She is then impaled by the spear and her fears slowly disappear from her heart, but knowing that it would weaken her power, Hana now suffers from a villainous breakdown exclaiming that Damian should've helped her when she needed him the most, and even admitting that the place she visits truly is a cult, Hana tries her best to charge and kill Damian once more with the hopes that it might make her forceful believers once again sided with her.
But Damian, accepting his fate, embraced and comforted her while letting the spear pierce through himself.
At her last breath, Hana asks Damian if her prayers were heard by him, would she be living a miserable life like that, in response, he apologizes, saying that if he only consoled her, maybe something would have changed. He, impaled on the same spear as Hana, locks him and Hana in an iron maiden, locking them in, sealing them in an Iron maiden for the foreseeable future.
Powers and Abilities[]
Faith Hero[]
Hana collecting believers amongst the terrified masses
As the Hero of Faith, Hana possesses faith-based skills and abilities that allow her to draw upon the energies and power of her “believer’s” “Faith” in her. Hana’s own unique type of “Faith”, seems to be based on the emotions of Fear and Doubt, allowing her to make anyone who has sufficient levels of those two emotions become her believer.
Fear implanted
As shown, a major weakness to her ability is that it is ultimately rooted in Hana’s own “faith”, her fear, her doubt, her anger and hatred are the foundations of her powers as the faith hero and the second Hana’s begins to lose these emotions and change, her abilities falls apart. This is shown where Damian’s faith of benevolence and kindness injected to Hana began removing her negative emotions, her brainwashing began to come undone.
- Fear and Doubt/Brainwashing: As shown, Hana’s faith primarily focuses on Fear and Doubt, allowing her to turn anyone who feels fear and doubt towards her and her actions into her believer. As shown, this ability allowed Hana to make the strongest believers of the enemy start, the second they begin feeling fear, which then turns into doubt, allowed her to instantly take control of them and turn them into her followers which then increases her power. So those with even the smallest doubts with the most devout beliefs are turned, and these people are made into her power. This power can even reach to the highest angel, as the seraphim Michael was affected by her power. As shown, when Hana successfully transforms someone into becoming her believer, a black blindfold with a Cross design would manifest and cover their eyes. The same blindfold would also appear in her victim's hearts as well. To put it short, anyone who feels even the smallest fear or doubt will all be susceptible to being brainwashed by her.
- Faith Magic: By using her believers "faith" as fuel, Hana can perform several techniques and spells. As shown and stated, the overall amount of faith that Hana possess and number of followers she has directly correlates with how powerful her techniques and spells are and losing believers would weaken her powers and limit what she can use. So far, Hana has displayed the following abilities;
- Transmutation: By sacrificing her followers, Hana can use a magic spell that transforms, alter, or transmute matter, energy, elements, objects, and beings (animals, aliens, mythical beings, etc.) into anything else. As seen when she is able to turn the soldiers including the fired-out missiles into Sakura petals, and even melted the battleships. Hana also showcased the ability to transform her followers into monsters. Later, Hana showcased the ability to transform her followers into weapons as well, having turned one into a sword and a halberd spear to fight Damian. This ability also extends to Hana herself, as shown when she could morph her hand into a scythe in a last-ditch attempt to kill Damian.
- Healing Magic: Hana is seen healing Kim after he was severely injured. It is also said in chapter thirty that healing magic was her specialty, shown when she could even regenerate from just her head. During the reconstruction government raid, She was seen to be able to regenerate her entire body after Park disintegrates her with a powerful beam. As admitted by Hana, her healing magic and regenerative ability is immense enough that she could easily live past the normal life span of a normal human, having admitted that like the Reformation Hero, she could likely live well past 100 years.
- Wing Manifestation: Hana has the ability to manifest angel-like wings to fly although, it is unknown whether the wings can also be used as a weapon or not. As implied by Hana while fighting Damian, the number of wings that she and other faith heroes have is an indicator to how many followers and faith they possess, with having a full set of three wings being the indicator that a faith hero is at full power and possess access to immense faith.
- Levitation Inducement: Hana can even make her followers levitate in the air.
- Light Magic: By sacrificing her brainwashed followers, Hana can create, shape and manipulate light, as seen when she manifested a giant pair of glowing hands to destroy a building.
- Barrier Creation: Using her followers, Hana is able to create powerful barriers in order to protect herself.
- Summoning: By sacrificing her followers, she can summon otherworldly beings, as seen when she summoned a gigantic monstrous fallen angel to fight for her. As shown during her fight against Saint Damian Arcadius, Hana is also capable of corrupting the angels summoned by other Faith Heroes, as shown were she took control of Seraphim Michael and later Cherubim Samatiel, provided that they themselves doubt and thus feel fear.
- Fallen Angel Mirtaniel: Using her believers faith, Hana can summon the fallen Angel Mirtaniel to fight for her. As shown, the angel possess the ability to fire a powerful blast of demonic blue/black fire at Hana’s target, requring Saint Damian Arcadius to block the attack using another summoned angel.
- Corrupted Seraphim Michael: As shown where after Damian summoned him, Hana was able to take control of this angel due to him beginning to also fear and doubt Damian’s ability to defeat her due to rapidly losing believers. With Hana ordering the angel to use his flaming sword to attack Damian instead.
- Corrupted Cherubim Samatiel: After defeating Damian the first time, Hana was able to corrupt his original summon, Cherubim Samtiel and use her as her own summon. As shown the Angel is able to fure the same energy attack using her horn, but now being corrupted, now uses Hana’s faith of fear and doubt to power it. As shown, the beam is now purple colored with black maiasma leakng out of it.
Trivia[]
- Hans Joseph Belgisch was Hana’s direct predecessor as the Hero of Faith of the 20th Century. Belgisch, like the previous Sword and Golem Heroes of his generation, ended up joining the Nazi Party during WWII. Belgisch in particular was considered an even worse threat than the other two and worked behind the scenes taking advantage and growing the Nazi craze and insanity using his skills as the Faith Hero. Belgisch’s type of faith in particular is known to draw power from Fascism and converts/brainwashes others into becoming Fascist Nazis.
- Saint Damian Arcadius is a previous Hero of Faith from medieval times and one of Hana’s predecessors. Damian himself was known to have used his powers in old times to help the world and establish the Catholic Faith, with his exploits soon fading into myth and legend. Damian himself was said to have saved the world from the Black Plague by defeating his generation Plague Hero and using his skills to gather plague he unleashed into himself before sealing it alongside himself to prevent its further spread.
- In a special QnA hosted and answered by the author Narak, a user questions what happened to Hana's relatives, classmates, and neighbors after she returns. Narak simply answers that Hana killed all of them.
- In another question asked in the QnA section, Narak reveals that Faith Warrior's powers doesn't summon literal angels, rather, these are just summoned that are the visual manifestations based on their beliefs and ideologies.