Heroes or Warriors are people that have been summoned by the "Otherworlds" from Earth, the World of Void, to defeat a Demon Lord, with each being given extraordinary powers respective to their world to defeat their version of the “Demon Lord” who is terrorizing and endangering that world’s inhabitants.
After “saving” that world, the Heroes are then returned to their homeworld, fully retaining their powers, abilities, and equipment from the otherworld.
Overview[]
Earth is known by the Otherworlds as "the World of Void". This is because the World of Void doesn't have a Hero or a Demon Lord, which makes it the only world used by the Otherworlds to call Heroes. Heroes are all formerly normal children and teenagers who were summoned at random coordinates by Otherworlds just as they were about to die or just after they died. These people vary in background but are mostly in bad situations when summoned, due to the other worlds only summoning the dead or dying. In a Q&A, it is explained that the current coordinates for the Heroes of the 21st Century are set in Korea, which is different from the coordinates from the 20th-century Heroes, and, if the World of Void was not overturned by the birth of a Demon Lord, then the 22nd-century Heroes would have been summoned from different coordinates other than Korea.
Once summoned, they are usually tasked with defeating their respective world's Demon Lord, with failure destroying said world. However, even after being killed, the Demon Lord will resurrect after a century, prompting the otherworlds to summon a new warrior and start the cycle anew. Furthermore, each time the Demon Lord resurrects, it will be stronger than the last incarnation, which means that each successive generation of hero is generally stronger than the last generation: the Sword Hero of the current generation is stronger than the Sword Hero of the previous generation 100 years ago.
Although unknown if it is only to this world, The World of Perfection is unique in that it does not summon its Hero to save it from a Demon Lord but rather to kill its residence. The people of the world of perfection have successfully evolved into a race of immortal, highly intelligent, and advanced beings. Having achieved such immense technological advances they were living in a virtual utopia. However, this perfection also caused them to despair, as over time they came to grow tired of their immortal lives and the perfection they achieved, as there was nothing more for them to achieve, and desired to once again return to being imperfect beings. This singular collective desire eventually triggered the summoning of their Hero, whom they summoned and empowered specifically to kill immortal beings such as themselves and end all life in their world, effectively resetting their world.
This shows that while a majority of worlds summoned heroes to combat Demon Lords terrorizing their world, this is not truly the reason for their summoning. But rather the collective desire and thought of the otherworlds residence is what makes a hero summoning happen.
While inside their respective alternate world, warriors become capable of developing special abilities native to said world, with them typically ending up getting slightly stronger than their world's Demon Lord. As a result, there can be a huge discrepancy in power between various warriors. Each warrior is also given a title that reflects their world: the Hero of the Transformation World is known as the Transformation Hero, the Glaciation World is as the Glaciation Hero, etc.
As stated, heroes are summoned to the other worlds not simply because they are beings from foreign worlds, but rather, because after they are summoned to another world, they gain and possess the unique ability that allows them to "ignore" the rules of the world they were summoned to. This example is seen in the Mage Hero, where he was noted to be able to defy the rules regarding the magic system of the sorcery world and utilize their magics in a completely unorthodox way that breaks those rules, this is seen where he could stack numerous magic circle on top of each other and combine these magics to create an entirely new and unique magic.
The circumstances of the Heroes' summoning also differ from world to world. Some are summoned by the “God” that oversees the world, as shown with the Glacial, Sword, Verdure, and Return worlds, whereas others are summoned by the denizens of the other world directly. As shown by the Spear, Iron Arm, Reformation, Magic, Perfection, Time, and Golem Worlds. However, a Q&A reveals that when the "will and sacrifices" of a World has reached its highest peak is when a dead person will be summoned from the World of Void to the Otherworld to become a Hero. After defeating their respective Demon Lord, a Hero can choose to either stay in the Otherworld or return to their home world. It is explained that there have been many Heroes who have failed to defeat their Demon Lords and have had the Otherworld they were summoned to be destroyed, preventing any further generations of those Heroes with their specific titles and abilities. The few Heroes that succeed then typically go on to use their acquired powers to leave a huge mark on human development, with some of the most influential people in history and legends being Heroes who returned from their respective Otherworlds and used their acquired abilities and powers to accomplish numerous things and fulfill their desires.
As shown with the Junho Yu, Hwarang Hong and Sun-Hwa Yoo the summoners of the other worlds can place specific conditions on summoning their heroes, as Yggdrasil stated that the criteria for being summoned as the Verdure Hero was to a kind-hearted person who had never taken the life of another sentient being and that Hwarang’s teacher from the Exorcism World revealed that the criteria to be summoned as an Exorcism Hero was to be someone with all four limbs intact and having the mentality of “never giving up”. The summoner of the Shield Hero had stated that to be summoned as a Hero Of Shield you needed to understand and act out the meaning of a huge sacrifice and give up something equal to everything.
As stated by Ivan, Heroes are stated to follow a set of ironclad rules that they cannot overcome as long as they are heroes, one of those being that once a Hero has successfully killed the Demon Lord of their respective summoned other world and returned to back home to their homeworld of Earth, they can no longer develop their abilities and powers and get stronger. So far, as shown with the cases of the Sword Hero, Vampire Hero, and Glacial Hero, the only way to overcome this and obtain more power is by "abandoning" being a Hero and becoming either a Demon Lord, a being similar to a Demon Lord, or a being "beyond logic" that surpasses the Demon Lord.
As shown in the case of Jeongsu Park, another way to circumvent the stagnation of a Hero’s power on Earth is by using items and gear. This is shown when Jeongsu is able to increase his power exponentially by acquiring the Relics, the equipment of the other Heroes, who acquired them from their respective otherworlds.
Due to his uncontrollable power locking the worlds in an unknowing time loop, Seongjun Lee initiated a plan to create a Demon Lord on Earth to die and free the world to move towards the future. However, it is also noted that, as a Demon Lord had been born on the World of Void, Earth can no longer be used by the otherworlds to summon Heroes to defeat their worlds' Demon Lords. This all but guarantees their destruction as they can only summon from worlds that do not have their own Demon Lord or Hero, of which Earth was the only world. Without this, however, Earth has been saved from any potential future rampages by corrupted Heroes that return to Earth.
In a Q&A in Season 1 afterward, it is confirmed that there is a high probability that the Otherworlds will collapse without a summoned Hero from Earth. However, it is also explained that there might be different variables in play if those Otherworlds instead found a way to seal their respective Demon Lords with their strength instead of relying on a Hero to defeat them every century. Regardless of which, there will not be a "new" World of Void created.
In another Q&A conducted by Yongdol Gallery, it is revealed that Demon Lords are beings that can only be killed by a Hero, and are invincible against non-Hero methods such as being dumped in lava or attacked with advanced/modern weaponry unless the person wielding them is a Hero. Despite this, it is also stated that a strike with multiple nuclear weapons could kill some Demon Lords, though some Demon Lords will not die from it, and even several heroes like Minsu Kim and Uiho Jeong never die if hit by a nuclear weapon.
In addition, each Demon Lord of each generation is not necessarily the same being, and there are cases where they have different triggers, and thus they do not have the memories of the previous generation's Demon Lord. Each Demon Lord in the otherworlds also has different concepts for them - for example, the Demon Lord of the Spear World has the concept of being a companion of a former Hero, while the Demon Lord of the Resurrection World is a "glitch" that gives itself slightly higher stats based on the strongest person in its world. They also don't necessarily seek the destruction of the world itself, but rather the destruction of the normal order of the world they share as a common goal, which can be considered something of a systematically frozen goal the Demon Lord has. It is also hard to say whether a fallen Hero who uses the power of a Demon Lord is stronger than a Hero who awakens the power of a God, as both are quite powerful. However, a Hero that uses the power of both a God/Hero and a Demon Lord would be really strong.
The Q&A also explains that the reason each Faith Hero has different powers is because the World of Faith is influenced by the summoned Hero's beliefs, religion, disposition, etc. However, compared to the number of their believers, the power of the numerous branches of "faith" of the Heroes are not necessarily inferior to another Faith Hero's, only different. The beings summoned by the Faith Heroes, such as the angels and demons summoned by Damian and Hana, are not the actual beings but instead are illusions that are embodiments of faith created by a religious icon.
Likewise, it is confirmed that although all past Iron Arm Heroes have had immense strength as a basic ability, they each had an ability unique to each generation. Uiho Jeong's unique ability was his immense durability.
It is also clarified that there are in fact multiple worlds that have the title of Magic World; Yuseong's World of Magic is the World of Wizards, while Yerin Ma's World of Magic is the World of Magical Girls.
Furthermore, it is revealed that Seongjun's Return ability not only trapped his world in a time-loop, but also all the otherworlds and all timelines as well are affected by his Return power, and not even the Goddess of the Resurrection World that gave him this ability is immune to its effects, nor is she aware of its time-loop side-effect. It also reveals that, although Pushkin has abandoned his Hero status to surpass the power of a Hero, he is not a Demon Lord. In fact, he is "something" that goes beyond the boundaries of a Hero and is neither a Hero nor a Demon Lord.
Known Warriors[]
| Active Heroes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.png "Kim Min-Soo (Normal).png (1.74 MB)") |
.png "Park Jung-Soo (Hero).png (1.55 MB)") |
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| Minsu Kim (Sword Warrior) (Lost hero status: Demon King) |
Jeongsu Park (Spear Warrior) |
Yerin Ma (Magic Warrior) | ||
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| Junho Yu (Verdant Warrior) |
Garam Lee (Transformation Warrior) (Lost Hero Status: Human) |
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| Old Generation Heroes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Ivan Pushkin (Glaciation Warrior) (Lost hero status: Lich)(Deceased) |
Saint Damian Arcadius (Faith Warrior) (Sealed) |
Marie Stevenson (Transformation Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Hans Joseph Belgisch (Faith Warrior) (Deceased) |
Siegfried (Sword Warrior) (Deceased) |
Jonas (Golem Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Sir Pendragon (Crystal Warrior) (Deceased) |
(Plague Warrior) (Sealed) |
Don Quixote (Time Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Moses (Faith Warrior) (Deceased) |
Shi Huang (Spear Warrior) (Deceased) |
Four Previous Sword Warriors (Sword Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Previous Shield Warrior (Shield Warrior) (Deceased) | ||||
| Inactive Heroes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.png "Jeon Seung-Woo (Hero).png (1.06 MB)") |
.png "Shin Sua (Hero).png (2.62 MB)") |
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| Seungu Jeon (Golem Warrior) (Deceased) |
Su-a Shin (Sea Dragon Warrior) (Deceased) |
Hana Baek (Faith Warrior) (Sealed) | ||
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| Jiseong Cheon (Martial Arts Warrior) (Deceased) |
Hwarang Hong (Vampire Warrior) (Deceased) |
Uiho Jeong (Iron Arms Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Sun-Hwa Yoo (Shield Warrior) (Deceased) |
Jiwon Ahn (Metamorphosis Warrior) (Deceased) |
Yuseong Jin (Magic Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Mareum Yoon (Plague Warrior) (Deceased) |
Taeil Choi (Combination Warrior) (Deceased) |
Do-Hoon Lim (Time Warrior) (Deceased) | ||
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| Seongjun Lee (Return Warrior) (Deceased) | ||||
Trivia[]
- In the Yongdol Q&A, when asked if a Demon Lord can become mortal by abandoning their mission of destruction, just as a Hero can become a Demon Lord by accumulating karma, the author stated that it was a good idea but that they haven't thought about it deeply enough to apply it to the story.