Webcomic / 7FATES: CHAKHO

Please you stay alive.'^note From left to right: Hosu, Haru, Hwan, Zeha, Jooan, Cein, and Dogeon

Haru: Once a year, the Beom break through the seal from the world of shadows. They blend in with humans... devour them... and bring chaos to the world. [...] I am a deity who guards the entrance to Inwang Mountain, preventing the Beom from escaping.
Zeha: If that's who you are, then why are the Beom still at large?
Haru: Do you really wish to know? It's because you broke the seal.

7FATES: CHAKHO is a Korean Webtoon published weekly on Webtoon since January 14, 2022. It features a group of characters very, very loosely based on Korean group BTS in a fictional setting, as a collaboration between Naver, BTS' music company HYBE, and REDICE Studio.

One night, part-time worker Zeha is told to go find answers about his parents' deaths in Inwang mountain by a strange man. Days later, he wakes up in a hospital with no memory of what happened. As grisly murders by tiger-like beasts known as the Beom start spreading from the mountain through the city, Zeha goes back to the fateful place to investigate.

There he meets the guard deity Haru, who unlocks Zeha's memories: Zeha, who is the son of a Beom and a shaman who protected the gate between the human and the Beom world in the mountain, was tricked and mind-controlled into unleashing the Beom into the city of Sin-Si. Thus, Zeha teams up with Haru to fix his mistake by becoming a Beom hunter, meeting other young men whose lives were affected by the invasion along the way. However, the situation is more complex than it seems.

While it's an official BTS property, this series stands out in that it has no direct ties to BTS' main discography^note (for now) and is unrelated to the BTS Universe, with all characters having different names to their real-life counterparts^note whereas the BTS Universe's main characters, despite also having backstories that vastly differ from reality, shared the real names of the BTS' members. That said, BTS have contributed through promotion of the series: the members appeared as the characters in live-action trailers, and released the original song "Stay Alive" for the story, produced by member SUGA and sung by fellow member Jungkook. You can hear it while reading episode 4.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Due to the serial and currently active nature of this work, do not edit in changes that apply to episodes that can only be read with the Fast Pass system at the time. Only edit in what has been officially released to the general readers.

---

7FATES: CHAKHO provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: There seems to be a cyberpunk aesthetic about the comic, with floating signs made out of holograms. There's nothing else particularly different about the setting from Earth... except for the immense power of Yisal Group over Sin-Si.
• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The characters in the foreground are always drawn in 2D, while buildings, cars, and Dogeon's gun are rendered in 3D.
• Absurdly Sharp Sword: Zeha's Sword. It can easily cut through low- or mid-grade Beom like pieces of paper.
• Adaptational Badass: Absolutely. Each member, as we've seen so far, wields weapons and kicks Beom ass. Except for Jungkook, who is seen struggling in the first few episodes.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Jimin- Silver, Jungkook- golden, and SUGA- green.
• Adaptation Personality Change: With the possible exception of Haru (who likes to crack jokes and cause a little trouble), the main characters are less laid-back and noticeably more serious than their real-life counterparts, given the Darker and Edgier setting, with aspects of the BTS members' personalities/public personas appearing very subtly here and there.
  • Dogeon in particular is incredibly distrustful, aloof and prone to threats via gun. RM is well-known to be a Gentle Giant.
  • The biggest one might be Hosu, courtesy of significant periods of torture and falling into a hunger-induced rampage via being fed Beom blood prior to meeting the others. While j-hope (if also fully capable of doing dark performances) is commonly known as cheerful and generally the one to take care of the younger members in the earlier days of the group, Hosu can show extreme violence and hostility.
• Alone Among Families: An early flashback drives home how much Zeha's life was affected by the death of his parents by showing him walking out alone from the high-school entrance after his graduation while surrounded by kids happily walking home with their proud parents.
• Aloof Ally: Dogeon is serious, distrustful, and claims he's only tagging along with Zeha and Haru to cooperate until he finds the Beom he's after. Zeha thinks he might just be lonely, though.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Hwanwoong's children are a non-human species born (as implied by Maro) out of human blood. They look like teenagers and are genuinely childlike and adoring of their father, but they acquired those forms by eating human flesh since birth (provided by Hwanwoong himself) in the isolation of Hwanwoong's chambers. In battle, one of them excitedly kills two Beom with her deadly threads and comments with wonder about the steps a Beom can take after being beheaded, and throws a childlike tantrum when she's wounded about not wanting to die.
• Animal Motifs: The Beom are an entire race of humanoid tiger-like beasts, while the Gom used to have the traits of bears, before they lost their powers and became humans as we see them in the present. This is in reference to the Hwanung myth.
  • Hwanwoong's children, on the other hand, are more alien, and some take on the forms of spiders, dragons (with dragonfly-esque wings), wolves, or some odd mishmash.
• Anti-Villain: Zahu, of the Woobie type. He refuses to eat humans and honestly believes both races can coexist, and is locked up by his fellow Beom in a human cell to make him succumb to his hunger.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: This is a cyberpunk-esque setting where there's guns and grenades (see: Dogeon), which were made easily available due to the weapon business soaring with the Beom invasion; there's also mentions of police and a military. However, several of the main characters use swords, spears, arrows and daggers - partly justified by the characters' powers, Zeha's training under an ancient deity, and Hwan's background in archery competitions, as well as the... variable utility of modern weapons against the Beom. See Guns Are Worthless below.
• Art Shift: Occassionally, the art style will change from realistic to Chibi-esque. The intro to Episode 1 is drawn in a style reminiscent of minhwa.
• Bad Boss: Maro and especially Bulti have traits of this.
  Maro: Just get it over with already.
  Bulti: (preparing for an explosive attack towards Dogeon) All I need is a total of three seconds.
  Wounded mid-grade Beom: W-Wait, Bulti! You can't possibly use that here! Hey!!! That'll kill everyone here except for you two!
  Bulti: You're a Beom. Just dodge it.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Zeha's first Beom encounter has him appear just in time to save a young woman. In episode 4, he and Haru save a fellow hunter about to be killed by a group of Beom, and in episode 11, he does the same to a group of teachers and children.
  • In episode 8, Zeha runs out of energy from using the ancient Sword of Death for the first time; surrounded by Beom, he and Haru are about to die when Hwan saves them, though a Beom leaves him unconscious. The next episode, Dogeon arrives just in time to save them from the Tiger Butterfly in the museum, who have Zeha at gunpoint.
  • In episode 17, as Dogeon, Zeha, Haru and Jooan are struggling against some Beom (one of which is about to attack Dogeon), a vengeful Hwan appears and takes out three Beom at once.
  • An interesting example occurs in episode 30, where Zeha and Haru appear and take down one of Hwanwoong's children who was about to kill a human family... saving Hupo and Ogyeop in the process.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Beom" and "Gom" are the Korean words for "tiger" and "bear", respectively.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: Lower and mid-grade Beom, as well as high-grade Beom in their more powerful animalistic forms, have black sclerae.
• Blank White Eyes: Occasionally, characters receiving particularly harsh wounds get these, such as Jooan being thrown against a wall right after being stabbed and Dogeon being punched in the stomach by Bulti in Episode 19.
  • A particularly terrifying example is in Episode 20, where a hungry, rampaging Hosu slowly approaches Bulti from behind, Zahu's blood dripping from his mouth and eyes blank and unseeing.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Dogeon saves Zeha from the Tiger Butterfly by shooting the gun pointed at Zeha, which breaks.
• Blood from the Mouth: In episode 19, Jooan spits blood after being stabbed in the chest. This is eventually subverted: while his injury looked bad, next chapter he manages to get up and rejoin the fight. In episode 23, this is justified: he has the power of the Beom, granted by his dead girlfriend.
  • In episode 29, Hupo is shown to secretly be coughing blood.
• Bloody Murder: Jigwi has the power to control blood. She first uses it on-screen manipulate the bodies of living hunters like puppets, make them explode into gallons of blood, and then use that blood to stab the Beom nearby.
• Bounty Hunter: Beom hunters work like this, as the private Yisal group awards 50 million won for every Beom head. Unfortunately, this also leads to corrupt hunters who will go against other hunters to claim the reward for themselves, like the Tiger Butterfly.
• Breather Episode: Episode 25 comes right after the Beom prison raid arc is resolved, no battles or on-screen deaths happen beyond 2 random low-grade Beom who are quickly taken out by the protagonists, and there's a generally much more humorous and relaxed tone. Even with the revelations about Tabae possibly not being the all-good hero we thought he was, these come through the introduction of the character of Pyori, a relatively humourous character himself.
• Bullet Catch: In his introductory scene, Bulti stops a really powerful gun blast from Dogeon this way, displaying the difference in power between mid-grade and high-grade Beom.
• Bullet Holes and Revelations: After Seongjin shoots at the Chakho in episode 23, they start asking the others if they are alright. Cut to blood dripping on the floor, as Zeha is only just realizing it's dripping from his stomach and starts losing consciousness.
• Catastrophic Countdown: starting from Episode 18, the prison that the CHAKHO broke into begins to collapse.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: While the Chakho are fighting Bulti in the Beom prison, the people escaping alert the Tiger Butterfly, and Seongjin makes a big deal of this being his chance to improve his reputation. When they arrive to the scene, the fight is already over, with the Chakho the clear saviors of the people in the building. This makes Seongjin snap.
• Censored Child Death: While we see plenty of blood, limbs and dead bodies throughout the story, all we see of Hwan's sister is her bloody dress lying on top of a pile of discarded clothes of dead humans.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Haru asks how long Dogeon plans to stick around with him and Zeha:
  Dogeon: You see, the Beom I'm after just won't show up. I'll cooperate with you until I find him.
  Zeha: Are you sure you're not just lonely?
  (Beat)
  Dogeon: Have you heard about what happened in District 6?
  Zeha: (thinking) He changed the subject!
• Chain Pain: Hosu's weapon, as seen in the Prologue.
• Cliffhanger: Given it's a Webtoon, it's no surprise to see one an episode.
  • Episode 19 has everyone in the group but Hwan and Dogeon seemingly out of the battle. At the end, as the two prepare for an attack, Bulti appears behind Dogeon and gives him a full-on punch to the stomach.
  • Episode 20 ends with a heavily wounded Bulti crawling to the cells in search of meat and stumbling into Zahu's corpse, while Hosu, Zahu's blood in his mouth and driven mad by hunger, appears behind him.
  • At the end of Episode 21, the main group finally being all together causes a giant beam of light to engulf them, with what appears to be vision of their past ancestor wielding the Sword of Death. Meanwhile, in the basement of the building, the Meat Moss in the walls is shown to give birth to new Beom - or some sort of Beom-human hybrid.
  • Episode 23 ends with Zeha explaining the truth about his lineage and his role in the Beom invasion, and a very awake, very angry Hosu appearing to call him out for what the Beom did to him.
  • Episode 30. A wounded Hupo and an enraged Zeha meet again at last.
• Color Motifs: The protagonists have purple details in their design (sometimes addedas they join the group), since it's a meaningful color for BTS and their fandom. Haru, who convinces Zeha to hunt Beom in the first place, is entirely dressed in purple; Zeha has the strap for his sword; there's purple in the details of Dogeon's coat and guns and Hwan's uniform; Jooan has it in his belts. Since Episode 25, Cein adds a purple tied belt to his outfit, while Hosu starts wearing a coat with a purple interior.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: A variation in that the rescued character is definitely not the hero of the story nor an ally to his rescuer, but has gotten enough character focus in the episode (displaying his more sympathetic character traits) to be the protagonist of the chapter, and he's rescued from a bigger threat: Zeha attacks one of Hwanwoong's children from behind just as she was about to kill Hupo, with Haru doing the same when she tries to attack a Gom family out of desperation.
• Creator Provincialism: The story contains several key elements that are references to Korean culture and history, to the point that these give hints to several key plot points, as seen in Meaningful Name below and Genius Bonus in the YMMV page.
• Creepy Child: In Episode 28, Hwanwoong's "children" have developed humanoid forms, looking like innocent 10-to-14 year olds who happily chomp on human bodies.
• Dark Is Evil: The speech bubbles for the Beom (unless they're in more human forms) are black with red text.
• Darker and Edgier: Very much, this series shows gore onscreen aplenty, a corrupt world overrun with crime, and an ancient vendetta humanity has with a tribe of powerful man-eating monsters.
• Dead Person Impersonation: The reveal in Episode 35. The Tabae we saw using the Sword of Death to slay the Beom was actually an impostor, a monster who betrayed Tabae by impersonating him, making him invisible to everyone else, and murdering him.
• Death by Origin Story: Zeha's parents were killed by Hupo when he was a child. Dogeon's friends were slaughtered by Beom in the present day before he met Zeha. Jooan's girlfriend was murdered by Bulti before we meet him as well.
• Debut Queue: Without counting the Prologue, we first meet Zeha and Haru in episode 1, Dogeon in Episode 4 (though he first meets the others in Episode 6, and joins in Episode 9), Hwan in Episode 8 (joins in Episode 14), Jooan in Episode 11, and Hosu and Cein in Episode 13 (Cein joins in Episode 14, while Hosu is semi-conscious until Episode 21, and the others meet him in Episode 22).
• Defends Against Their Own Kind: Zeha, who's both a Beom hunter and the son of a Beom. Narae was a Beom who died defending a human against Bulti.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In Dogeon's backstory, he manages to cradle a mortally wounded Gahyeon moments before she gives her dying breath.
• Dies Wide Open: Several characters are shown to die this way.
  • Adding to the horror of the slaughter of Dogeon's friends, the young and naive Kyungsoo and Gahyeon die like this.
  • Several minor Beom die with their eyes open. Notably, a scene where a Beom taunts Jooan does a Smash Cut to that same Beom lying dead, eyes wide.
  • This is how Zahu dies. To drive the point home, there's a fly on his eye when Bulti finds his body.
• Divide and Conquer: Hwanwoong's preferred strategy is doing things that seem (or even are) helpful, but ultimately result in this. His Hunter app effectively reduces human casualties, but sows discord between hunters and civilians when people from both sides start to become entitled, leading to hunters who charge civilians more and civilians who badmouth hunters and misuse the service through prank calls. This is not the first time he's done this. The fact that the reward in money he's in charge of created a competitive system where hunters like Seongjin are unscrupulous in their jobs for money and reputation might as well have been intentional.
  Humans... They never learn, and they never change. Do you not think it's funny how just a little push is enough to make them bite each other?
• *Drool* Hello: In episode 3, a young woman walking alone decides the news about Beom are making her too jumpy. Then drools falls on her head from above...
• Eaten Alive: Cein was eaten whole by a Beom in his backstory— and lived to tell the tale.
• Emotional Powers: The power that allows the CHAKHO to kill Beom seems to be powered by emotion.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • In their first scene, the Tiger Butterfly steal Zeha's kill, take the head with them to claim the reward, and beat up Zeha for his troubles.
  • In Bulti and Maro's first scene, they crash into a confrontation between Dogeon and a (now wounded) mid-grade Beom. Bulti mocks the wounded Beom for struggling against a human, and effortlessly deals with a particularly powerful gun blast to the face from Dogeon by simply catching the bullet with his teeth and crushing it while chuckling about how he loves to mess with humans. When he starts launching an explosive attack lethal to all but high-grade Beom, he responds to the mid-grade Beom's protests with a mocking "You're a Beom. Just dodge it." Maro, meanwhile, remains stoic throughout, only telling Bulti to stop messing around and get on with it already.
• Extremely Short Timespan: While it's unclear when the first Beom prison scenes take place (since it's first shown to be night-time), it's safe to say that the entirety of episodes 11 to the first half of 23 (including everything involving Zahu and Hosu) takes place either within a few days, within a couple of days, or within a single day. Seongjin is badmouthing Zeha at the same time the latter's about to have snacks with Dogeon and Haru, minutes before the pre-school Beom attack where they encounter Jooan, who they take to weapons shopping right after; they meet Cein while trying to buy a new spear for Jooan ^note (this being the only part where there could have been a bigger time skip beforehand, depending on how much time they took to find that specific spear); and Hwan arrives immediately afterwards to recruit them to the Beom prison raid that same day.
• Eyeless Face: Some of Hwanwoong's children have these. Some gain one or two creepy eyes, but others remain like this with no apparent effect on their fighting skills.
• Eye Scream:
  • In Episode 17, Cein uses his power to cut through a Beom's eye.
  • During the group's Heroic Second Wind in the Beom prison, Bulti doesn't even bother to dodge Dogeon's bullets, which usually prove useless against him. Unfortunately for him, Dogeon's bullets have become more powerful, with one of them piercing his hand and eye.
• The Faceless: Hwan and Hosu before they are revealed at the end of their respective introductory chapters. Narae is also shown like this in several flashbacks.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Revealed to be Tabae's undoing in Episode 35. Tabae took care of a small, white, red-eyed monster as a pet, dealing with its need to feed on human blood by giving him his own. Eventually, this creature (heavily implied to be Hwanwoong or an ancestor) repaid his kindness by tying him to the Shindansu Tree, making him invisible to everyone else, and adopting his form to impersonate him, forcing him to watch as it goaded his people into war before murdering him. The Tabae we saw swearing to slay the Beom with the Sword of Death? It was the fake one.
• Foreshadowing: It's easy to see something's up with Jooan when we first meet him. He's the only one other than Zeha that (as Dogeon points out) smells like a Beom; while he appears calm in general, he never expresses confusion or bewilderment to Dogeon accusing him of being a Beom, but he does show nervousness and visible sweating.
• Forgiveness: Discussed in Episode 34. Hwan confesses to Cein that he feels confused, as both options, hating the Beom and trying to understand and forgive them, make him feel guilty. Cein, who brought up the possibility of a peaceful solution with the Beom in the previous chapter, is of the opinion that "revenge leads to more revenge" is not necessarily true, that forgiving won't bring back what was already lost, and that there are things in this world that simply can't be forgiven, but that "I can hate the Beom while still being your friend"^note A literal translation shows it as "I will/can hate you as a friend too".
• Funny Background Event: Episode 15 has a cool moment where an elevator door to a Beom hideout opens to reveal the now-almost-fully-formed Chakho team, weapons prepared for ass-kicking. Cein, however, who has no combat experience and essentially got dragged there, is standing on the back while awkwardly holding his daggers and visibly sweating.
  • In Episode 26, we are introduced to Hosu's combat style when he kills a Beom who was carrying a civilian over the shoulder, making him let go of the human with his chains. While Haru and Zeha are commenting on how cool Hosu is, Dogeon is hurriedly running to catch the civilian (who went flying) in the background.
• The Gadfly: Haru enjoys teasing other people, Zeha included.
• Game Changer: The existence of Hwanwoong's children and Hwanwoong's non-human nature in general recontextualizes was was simply an invasion by beasts over a thousand-year-old grudge, as there's now a mysterious force playing both sides behind the scenes that neither humans or Beom were aware of.
• Genocide Dilemma: In episode 33, the events from previous chapters (with Jooan and Dogeon meeting Beom who did not kill them even after defeating them) and Cein's questions about Tabae's story lead to a discussion among the Chakho about whether a peaceful solution with the Beom could be possible. Due to differences between the members about whether there could even be non-murderous Beom, with Hosu reacting with outright hostility to the idea (nevermind that Jooan and Zeha are right there), the discussion doesn't get a satisfactory conclusion, and gets interrupted by Haru.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: What at first is a conflict between humanity and the Beom, turns into a conflict between the Gom (good, at least on our protagonists' side), the Beom (bad, in that they're still definitely invading and killing humans, but get increasingly sympathetic traits and backstories), and Hwanwoong and his children (evil, in that they deliberately incite conflict and discord while killing both humans and Beom).
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Bulti has a scar over his left eye.
• Glory Hound: Seongjin, from the Tiger Butterfly, is in for the fight not so much for saving lives as he is for building his reputation, which makes him develop an irrational hatred for Zeha and company.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The irises of Beom glow in a beast-like manner.
  • When one of the main characters have particularly intense emotions that make them unstoppable in combat, his eyes will visibly glow in a specific color, sometimes leaving a fiery trail.
  • After being fed Beom blood, Hosu fluctuates between this and Blank White Eyes in a sudden hunger-induced frenzy in which he kills Zahu and heavily wounds Bulti.
• Green-Eyed Monster: While already capable of cruelty and petty acts, Seongjin develops an irrational hatred towards the Chakho (Zeha, Haru and Dogeon in particular) as they not only foil his chance at greater success in the museum (foiling his murder attempt on then and destroying his gun in the process), but receive increasingly positive attention as Beom hunters over time, with even his boss wanting them to join their organization. When his latest chance appears to be the Beom prison only to arrive at the building in ruins, the Beom dead and the Chakho climbing out of it, he ends up shooting Zeha in front of everyone in an angry outburst.
• Guns Are Worthless: Zig Zagged. Due to Beom's enhanced durability and healing abilities, regular bullets can only really wound lower-grade Beom, and even then Zeha only manages to do so by shooting a ton of bullets and tricking the Beom into getting shot at close range. Higher-grade Beom like Bulti can even tank bullets that pierce armored cars. Their higher speed and agility can also make them really difficult to aim at with a gun, especially in close quarters. At the same time, there are guns with bullets especially-made to kill Beom (with Seongjin being seen with guns as well as arrows), and Dogeon exclusively uses guns and grenades to take down Beom. That said, Dogeon is a monster at using guns and his bullets capable to hurt even high-grade Beom... in certain circumstances.
  Bulti: (seeing Dogeon shooting at him) There he goes with his useless gimmick...
  Later...
  Bulti: How could a human weapon work on me? What did you put in it?
• The Gunslinger: Dogeon.
• Healing Factor: Beom are able to regenerate, especially the more they eat. It can also be transferred to someone else. This is how Zeha (whose father was a Beom) and Jooan (whose girlfriend gave him the power) are able to survive mortal wounds like stabbing, and how the former's Beom lineage gets found out by the latter.
• Heal It with Blood: Zahu accidentally heals a thirsty, barely-alive Hosu by feeding him his blood, which causes him to regenerate.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Though he starts out with a gun, Zeha (the character we follow from the start)'s main weapon is a magic sword.
  • This sword was also used by Tabae, the hero that fought the Beom in acient times. This is eventually subverted: not only was the war much more morally troubling than what was initially presented, it's eventually revealed that the guy holding the sword wasn't even the real Tabae, but an impostor who murdered the real one to wage war.
• Heroic Second Wind: In Episode 20, Dogeon, Jooan, Cein and Haru have been taken out by Bulti and Zeha is busy tending to Haru's injuries, with Hwan falling into guilt and despair. When he's about to give up and let Bulti deliver the final blow, Zeha blocks it and tells him not to give up, followed by every single one of the others rejoining the fight one by one and finally causing significant damage to the Beom.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: The Beom have an entire prison to hold humans as livestock hidden in the basement of a crowded department store building.
• Human-Demon Hybrid: Zeha is this.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: While many Beom are certainly shown to be monstruous, there's a running theme of Beom having increasingly sympathetic moments and even showing kindness towards humans, while humans (such as the Tiger Butterfly) are equally capable of monstruous acts and of having far pettier motivations. Hwanwoong's speech in Episode 22 exemplifies this:
  A monster? That's a bit harsh. They're human, too. Rather, aren't you more of a monster? Not only are you humans insolent, but you're also selfish and hypocritical. We, however, don't have those digusting emotions in us. I think we're closer to the ideal human qualities you all like to speak of.
  • This is weaponized by Hwanwoong, exploiting human greed to sow discord and entitlement among humans.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: In Dogeon's introductory chapter, his friends go rob a truck as a One Last Job against his wishes to pay him back for taking care of them, and are promptly slaughtered by the Beom. Dogeon muses that had he lived a "clean life" and not introduced his friends to a life of crime in the first place, this would not have happened.
• Immortality Field: It's heavily implied that the Beom were able to live in the World of Shadows for thousands of years because that world allowed them to. When Zahu refuses to eat humans, he's warned that, unlike in the World of Shadows, he'll die if he starves in the human world.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Sword of the Ancient Age (aka the Sword of Death), which Jungkook steals in Episode 7, is the strongest one we know about. It taps into his Beom powers and reveals an ancient memory of when it may have been last used. Its original wielder was Tabae, who defeated the Beom using the sword and banished them from the land, though he may have used them against other tribes, judging by Pyori's fear of the blade.
• Internal Reveal: In episode 23, Zeha is forced to explain to the others his Beom lineage and his role in the start of the Beom invasion. Hosu, uh, doesn't take it kindly.
• Internet Jerk: After Hwanwoong's app gets open to the public, we see how it seeds discord between hunters and civilians through a scene in which an anonymous chatroom has civilians badmouth the former and troll another anonymous user who is posing as most definitely not a hunter after he speaks defensively.
• Interspecies Romance: Zeha's parents were a Beom and a human shaman.
  • Jooan's deceased girlfriend was a Beom who gave him Beom powers.
• In the Hood: At the end of Episode 10, the Beom make a deal with a mysterious hooded figure, which is later revealed to be Hwanwoong.
  • Pyori wears a hood at all times, hiding his nature as a member of the Duduri tribe.
• It's All My Fault: There's a moment during the battle against Bulti in the Beom prison where Hwan, burdened by the recent death of his sister and now seemingly alone in the fight, falls into guilt and despair for being the one to bring the others here, who are all either unconscious or tending to the others' wounds. Zeha and the others quickly break him out of it.
  • In Episode 24, Zeha blames himself for causing the start of the war. Reversing their roles from the previous example, Hwan reassures him that Hupo and the Beom are to blame.
• It's Personal:
  • Zeha's parents were killed by Hupo, who then tricked him into releasing the Beom.
  • Dogeon's friends/protegees and Jooan's girlfriend were murdered by the Beom. Hwan's sister was kidnapped. They are specifically searching for Bulti, a high-grade Beom responsible for all three.
  • Hosu was kidnapped by the Beom, imprisoned, tortured, starved, and forced to watch other people die.
• Jerkass: The Tiger Butterfly team is powerful and ruthlessly corrupt. They take everyone else's Beom heads and attack anyone who isn't okay with it.
• Just in Time: As shown in Big Damn Heroes above, the heroes have a habit of rescuing people right as Beom or the Tiger Butterfly were about to kill them.
• Kick Them While They Are Down:
  • Hupo tries to fatally wound Zeha while the latter, due to being mind-controlled, is unable to move or control his actions.
  • The Tiger Butterfly beat the living daylights out of a heavily wounded Zeha (with Seongjin sticking his hand directly into Zeha's wound while another member has Haru at knife point to prevent him from intervening) after he protests the team stealing his first Beom kill.
• Kill Steal: Non-video game example. The Tiger Butterfly's first appearance has Zeha managing to heavily wound a Beom, only for the team to swoop in, deal the killing blow and take the head with them to claim the reward.
• Knows the Ropes: Haru's signature weapon is a golden rope, which can sometimes even form a humanoid puppet made out of them!
• Laser-Guided Karma: Seongjin leads the team that steals Zeha's kill, sticks his hand in Zeha's wound when the latter protests, and has the others beat him up; he also tries to murder Zeha (and Haru and Hwan) in the museum so that the Tiger Butterfly can take credit for all the Beom kills. The former gives Zeha the resolve to train with Haru and become stronger, and the latter results in Dogeon appearing, shattering Seongjin's gun, and joining Zeha's group, which goes on to gather enough positive attention that Seongjin's boss wants them to join.
  • He later lies about his boss' orders and falsely accuses Zeha and company of being thieves to a fellow team leader. He also jumps at the chance to hunt in the prison, not out of desire to save people, but to gain glory and reputation for himself. He arrives at the scene after the battle is already over, Zeha's group emerging among the ruins and recognized as the ones who killed the Beom inside. Seongjin shoots Zeha in a fit of rage, which not only fails to kill Zeha, but (since he did so in front of everyone) damages the reputation of the Tiger Butterfly and gets him kicked out of the organization and arrested by the authorities.
• Light Is Not Good: Hwanwoong wears hanboks of light colors, particularly a light purple one reminiscent of Haru's. His children, who are non-humans who eat people provided by him, are also mostly white all over, including skin and hair.
• Malicious Slander: Even though his boss explicitly asks him to make the Chakho join the Tiger Butterfly, Seongjin tells a fellow team leader that the Chakho are wanted by the boss as thieves.
• Meaningful Background Event: Episode 13. Look at the human behind Narae in the flashback. Looks pretty familiar, doesn't he?
• Meaningful Name: "Chakho" comes from "chakhogapsa", a real group of professional tiger hunters formed by King Sejong in 1421 after the large population of tigers in the Joseon Kingdom had become a real danger to the people.
  • "Beom" is Korean for "tiger", while "Gom" is Korean for "bear".
• Meat Moss: Parts of the prison where Beom hold humans as livestock have this on the walls.
• MegaCorp: Yisal Group has immense power and influence over the city, to the point that its chairman is the one who places the 50 million won reward for every Beom head. Too bad the chairman isn't human or precisely on humanity's side...
• The Mentor: Haru is the one to train Zeha in Beom hunting.
• Monstrosity Equals Weakness: Played with. While most Beom look like tigers of various degrees of anthropomorphism, only high-grade Beom look human enough to blend in the human world. At the same time, high-grade Beom can shapeshift into stronger forms that become less and less humanoid at their most powerful.
  • Similarly, Hwanwoong's children have monstruous forms, but after developing enough (and eating enough flesh) they get very humanoid appearances - and they can transform back into their monstruous forms in certain circumstances. The oldest and most human-looking child is Jigwi, and she has a leader position among her siblings.
• Neck Lift: Hupo does this to Zeha just after the gate to the Beom world is opened. Hupo promptly attempts to kill him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job breaking the seal, Zeha. The plot is kickstarted when, intrigued by what Hupo told him, he goes to Inwang Mountain in search for answers about his parents' death. This turns out to be a trap for Hupo to manipulate and mind-control him into letting the Beom enter and invade the human world.
• Noble Demon: Hupo will only kill humans for vengeance, nothing more, nothing less, in contrast to his sadistic partner Bulti.
  • As the story progresses, we meet Beom who (unlike Zahu and Narae) believe in their people's cause, but (unlike Bulti) retain several sympathetic virtues such as a sense of honor (particularly Hara and Heoseo) and genuine loyalty and respect for his peers and superiors (such as Ogyeop).
• Non-Action Guy: Played with. Cein has absolutely zero experience fighting, survived his first encounter with Beom through lucky circumstances, and while he demonstrates his Guile Hero skills, he ends up tagging along with the group due to accidentally making the others think he's an actual hunter. However, when he's faced with a Beom who's about to kill innocent people, some sort of innate fighting skills manifest involuntarily, much to his surprise.
  • Pyori has a vast knowledge of weapons, and can carry ridiculous amounts of them on his backpack while barely breaking a sweat, but his body cannot really handle using weapons, leaving him defenseless against Beom.
• No One Could Survive That!: Several of the Chakho have suffered attacks or wounds from the Beom that would have been fatal to any other human, with the Beom themselves uttering a variation of the trope and leaving them for dead. This includes Hupo slashing Zeha's chest after opening the Gate, Hosu enduring extended torture and starvation, Dogeon surviving an explosive attack by Bulti in their first encounter (one that only high-grade Beom would be able to survive), and Bulti stabbing Jooan in the chest.
• No-Sell: In episode 18, Bulti easily tanks a simultaneous opening attack by Hwan, Haru and Dogeon. In episode 19, he's unaffected by bullets (even ones that could pierce an armored car) and grenades. Hwan's arrows do take out one of his hands.
  • Heoseo takes it a step further, being able to block Dogeon's most powerful bullets and even Zeha's sword with his arm.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In Episode 16, Hosu's mental narration as he goes into a sudden hunger frenzy and devours Zahu:

  A question crossed my mind. Who's the bigger beast? The Beom who insists on not eating a human, even while dying of hunger... Or me, who's fixated on eating the Beom when he dies? The answer was obvious.

• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Dogeon fires a powerful blast at Bulti's face in the latter's introductory scene, only for the Beom to catch the bullet with his fangs.
• Ocular Gushers: Zeha comically does this in one shot in Episode 24.
• Once More, with Clarity: The flashback where the original wielder of the Sword of Death announces he'll use it to slay the Beom reappears every now and then with more context:
  • First we learn through Cein that he was a man of mixed race who made good of his word, though he appeared conflicted.
  • Later he tells the full version he knows: he was the guardian of the land long ago along with Hupo, forced to fight the Beom after the latter waged war.
  • Then in Episode 35, after previous chapters revealed he not only may have betrayed the Beom first, but he later drove out every clan except the Gom, we get the flashback again, but it's turned on its head: Tabae was being impersonated by a creature heavily implied to be of Hwanwoong's species (or Hwanwoong himself), the real one trapped and forced to watch as the impostor waged war on the Beom. The real Tabae was killed not long after, only wishing for his soul to protect Sin-si and for him and Hupo to become friends in their next life.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Some of Hwanwoong's children resemble dragons. The very first one we see looks like an eyeless dragon with dragonfly wings.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: This is how Beom like Maro and Bulti see the war, with the latter gleefully inflicting painful deaths to humans while justifying it as doing the same the Gom clan did to the Beom. Hupo, however, downplays this, admonishing Bulti for finding joy in killing and wanting their methods to be different from the humans' by killing painlessly.
• People Farms: Bulti and Maro's unit captures a large bunch of humans at the end of Episode 12 to keep in cells for food.
• Price on Their Head: The Yisal group rewards large amounts of money to whoever kills a Beom.
• Properly Paranoid: Downplayed. Dogeon's instant reaction to Zeha and Jooan the first time he meets each is pointing a gun at them because they smell like a Beom, which is quickly diffused by Haru with the excuse that the the smell probably comes from Beom hunting. He's completely right about something being off about Zeha, as his father was a Beom, but Zeha is completely on the humans' side. He's also semi-right about Jooan, whose Beom girlfriend gave him her power, but Jooan's not a threat either.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Most Beom are black with red parts and eyes. Similarly, all Beom have black speech bubbles with red outlines and text.
  • Following the theme of Humans Are the Real Monsters, Seongjin's internal dialogue boxes before shooting Zeha and Hosu's speech bubbles during his furious rant against Zeha in Episode 23 gradually and visibly transition from black text and white backgrounds to red text and black backgrounds.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Beom often display red eyes, or yellow eyes with a red glow.
  • During his rampage and transformation, Hosu's eyes turn red.
  • The eyes Hwanwoong's children (when they have them) are constantly red.
• Redshirt Army: If unnamed Tiger Butterfly hunters appear, chances are they're going to be slaughtered horribly to display just how powerful and/or cruel certain Beom or Hwanwoong's children are.
• The Resenter: Seongjin hates Zeha, Haru and Dogeon for foiling his attempts at greater success, destroying his gun, and damaging his reputation. But above all, he hates them for getting more positive attention from the public and even from his boss. When he sees that the Chakho alone saved the people from the Beom prison, he snaps and shoots Zeha.
• The Reveal: In episode 22. Hwanwoong, chairman of Yisal Group and the one who finances the rewards to Beom hunters, is not human, and lets a beast (that is not a Beom, and is immune to Beom-specialized bullets) kill and murder a commissioner general for finding out. He's the hooded figure who made a deal with Bulti and Maro, and he entrusted them the department store hideout to use it as his "hatching place" - aka. where these new creatures seen at the end of the previous episode were coming from.
  • Im episode 23, Jooan reveals that his deceased girlfriend was a Beom (specifically, the one Zahu knew), and that she gave him the power of the Beom, which was how he survived being stabbed by Bulti.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: A specific panel has a hungry, frenzied Hosu towering over a heavily wounded Bulti, with the lighting behind his back giving him this effect.
  • One of Hupo's flashbacks shows a Beom crying in pain as he's stabbed by a group of Gom, whose cruel, grinning faces are shadowed with glowing eyes.
• Shout-Out: One of the names suggested for the team is... "Hunter and Hunter".
• Sins of Our Fathers: Hupo, Bulti and the other Beoms in charge are adamant that all humans are to blame for what happened in the past, while Zahu vehemently disagrees.
• Sole Survivor: Zeha is the only one left alive in Inwang Mountain the night the Beom are unleashed into Sin-Si. Dogeon is the only survivor of the Beom attack that killed all humans and Beom alike in a bridge. Notably, in both cases they did receive a usually-lethal attack specifically aimed at them, only to leave them injured.
• Spikes of Villainy: Several of the creatures of the species Hwanwoong belongs to have spikes on their backs.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: The standard color of Beom eyes, sometimes combined with black sclera in their beastly-er forms. The eyes of Zeha, who is half Beom, shine a gold color when his powers activate. Interestingly, Seongjin's eyes get a similar golden shine when he's the most consumed by rage, greed or envy - indicating how, despite being a human, he (and by extension humanity) is a lot more similar to the beasts he hunts than he probably likes to think.
• Taking the Fight Outside: When Hara sees that Dogeon is having trouble attacking her at full force because there's a civilian in his line of fire, she proposes they take their fight to an empty area. She's that confident in her power.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: In a cyberpunk setting where all kinds of modern weapons like guns and grenades exist, Hwan uses arrows. This is because of his background as a champion in archery competitions.
• Technicolor Eyes: As seen in the prologue, each member has a distinct eye color that glows when their powers are used: Zeha- Yellow, Haru- Blue, Jooan- Green, Hosu- Red, Cein- Yellow, and Dogeon- Purple. It tends to vary sometimes.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Hwan sports this when he describes Bulti to Zeha's group.
• To Serve Man: The humanoid yet beast-like Beom kill and eat humans. They may not have to do this, but they insist on doing so. They don't have to in the World of Shadows.
  • So does the species that the hooded figure (aka. Hwanwoong) belongs to, with humans being secretly but systematically killed for their blood to be provided to their eggs and their flesh to their children.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The Instagram character profiles spoiled that Jooan's girlfriend was a Beom a week before the episode that first hinted at this came out. It also spoiled how they came to be in a relationship months before the episode explaining this was released for free.
  • Trailers for the series when it came back from hiatus also showed Hwanwoong's true form front and center, even in thumbnails. His small role prior to the reveal helps in making him less recognizable, at least.
• Treants: Pyori the weapons merchant is one of the Duduri tribe, who also happened to be banished with all the other tribes except for the Gom. They all look like humans with tree bark for skin, have their own World of Shadows, and were likely alive for the original war.
• Ungrateful Bastard: The Tiger Butterfly, especially Seongjin and his squad. When Zeha risks his life heavily wounding his first Beom, they claim it as their kill and beat up Zeha when he protests. After Zeha and company save their butts at the museum, the Tiger Butterfly try to claim the kills (despite contributing nothing) and try to kill Zeha. When the leader of the Tiger Butterfly orders Seongjin to find a way to make Zeha and company join them, Seongjin instead tells another squad member that the Chakho are wanted for being thieves.
  • Some civilians grow into this after Yisal's Hunter app makes contacting hunters easier, partly because some hunters themselves become entitled and start charging money for the service; the app suffers misuse through prank calls as a result. When Dogeon and Jooan arrive to the rescue in one occasion, the civilian being held on a chokehold angrily complains "So slow..." This was intentional on Hwanwoong's part.
  • According to the flashback in episode 35, Tabae's pet repaid him for feeding it and taking care of it by impersonating him, goading his people into war, and murdering him with no one else realizing it.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: While it's understandable that people would be more used to see unusual stuff coming from Beom, barely anyone seems to comment on the whimsical little guy in a hanbok moving ropes with magic, especially compared to the accusations Zeha and Jooan have received of sharing Axe with the enemy.
• Unwitting Pawn: Zeha is manipulated and then brainwashed by Hupo into unleashing the Beom into the human world, kickstarting the plot.
• Villain Episode: Episodes 29 and 30 are this for Hupo, as we see him and Ogyeop face off against Hwanwoong's children and we get more insight on his motivations and sympathetic traits (such as his loyalty to his people) along the way.
• Villain Has a Point: When the humans in Zahu's prison cell ask him to eat Hosu instead, a guard Beom remarks on how eagerly selfish humans are to sell each other out.
  Guard Beom: I knew your tribe was nothing but scum. Just look at how you conveniently sell one of your kind for your sake. I'm glad you're all the same as ever. There's no need for me to feel guilty eating you up.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Played with when it comes to the Beom. Low- and mid-grade ones remain in a more tiger-like, but still relatively humanoid appearance, while high-grade ones like Bulti are more human-like with some tiger-like features such as stripes and cat ears, and able to shift between this and a more beast-like appearance.
• Wham Episode:
  • Espisode 22. It reveals the existence of a different species that feeds on humans, one of them being none other than Hwanwoong, who is also the mysterious man who provided Bulti and Maro with the prison in the first place.
  • Episode 24. It reveals the reason behind the Beom war, at least partially. Cein tells the rest of the team that all of them used to be Tabae, a single guardian of a world where Beom and Gom lived in peace, working alongside Hupo. But one day, the Beom began to commit murders and the Gom had to fight back, sealing the Beom in the Realm of Shadows and likely running to another world.
• Wham Shot: The end of Episode 13, in which we see (from Cein's point of view) that Zeha, Haru, Dogeon and Jooan all share the same past life, a caped figure very similar to the original wielder of the Sword of Death.
  • In the same episode, there's another one if you pay attention. The human lying unconscious behind Narae in the flashback looks familiar...
  • Episode 16 ends with Hwan finding his sister's bloodstained blue dress lying on top of a pile of discarded human clothing.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Averted by Haru towards Zeha. While he does point out that Zeha broke the seal (and unlocks his memories so he knows exactly what happened), he's also sympathetic to him for how he was manipulated into it and comforts him, using this to convince him to hunt Beom.
  • Played for Laughs in Episode 11. Zeha, Dogeon and Haru discuss how the Beom are attacking the districts one by one in order. Dogeon comments that he doesn't like how the Beom are treating this like a game or conquest. Haru...
    Haru: In other words, we are safe here in District 10 at the moment.
    Zeha: Haru!
    Haru: I'm just expressing my thoughts.
    Dogeon: (eating) Yuor prity dun-to-earth en colhearded fo sohmwon wid suh kin apphearance.^note "You're pretty down-to-earth and cold-hearted for someone with such a kind appearance." (slurp)
    Zeha: Don't talk with your mouth full...
  • After Zeha reveals his role in the start of the Beom invasion, Hosu calls him out for indirectly causing Hosu's kidnapping and torture at the hands of the Beom, as well as the deaths he had to witness.
• White and Red and Eerie All Over: The species of Hwanwoong's "children" is mostly white with red eyes.
• The Worf Barrage: In episodes 25 and 26, Heoseo and Hara are resistant to bullets and smoke bombs (respectively) that could seriously injure Bulti, of all people. In episode 31, the former easily blocks Zeha's sword with his arm.
• The Worf Effect:
  • In episode 10, the mysterious figure that appears at the end introduces himself by quickly incapacitating Bulti and Maro.
  • In episode 18, we get a taste of just how powerful Bulti is when he effortlessly takes out Haru with his first attack.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Beom intend to kill all the descendants of the Gom clan, and have no qualms with attacking pre-schools or kidnapping and killing children.
• You Are Too Late: Hwan tracks down the place where Beom keep people imprisoned, including his sister, but while he and the others manage to free the living hostages, he only finds his sister's bloody dress on a pile of discarded human clothing.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The moment the seal is broken and the Beom are free, Hupo drops the "old family friend" façade and tries to kill Zeha, since the kid has the ability to close the gate again. Luckily for Zeha, his abilities allow him to survive his wounds.
• You Killed My Father: Zeha becomes a Beom hunter after (among other things) finding out Hupo was the one who killed his parents.
  • Following him is Dogeon seeking to avenge his siblings and Jooan wanting to avenge his girlfriend Narae.

---