Chapter 1
In this world, modern Korea and the entire globe openly acknowledge the existence of the Moorim. Martial arts are no longer legends or secret techniques but have become superhuman abilities managed by the state. Yet at the pinnacle of martial arts lies mutation and madness that transcend human limits. Once martial artists reach a certain stage, they face the mutation syndrome known as Ju Hwa Ip Ma. This is not mere mental illness but a phenomenon that fundamentally alters human structure itself. Those who completely control this mutation are the Guiin. Guiin retain human intellect and self while simultaneously possessing monstrous and transcendent qualities. In this world, they are treated as both disasters and evolutionary possibilities.
Cities still run on neon signs, smartphones, subways, and franchises, but beneath the surface, blood, madness, hunting, and mutation always lurk. The era is the modern day after the 2020s. Roughly twenty to thirty years ago, a global-scale Great Mutation occurred. After this event, the existence of the Moorim was revealed to the world, and martial arts training was incorporated into the national management system. At the same time, mutations and monster appearances increased. Cities still appear like ordinary modern metropolises, but when night falls, a different face emerges. Abandoned hospitals, redevelopment zones, underground training halls, and outer mountain regions become everyday sites of monster hunts, Moorim crimes, mutation rampages, and disappearances. Daytime belongs to civilized society; night is the true world.
Outwardly, it remains a liberal democracy and society, but the actual power structure differs. Organizations holding power over martial artists and mutations form an invisible class society. The state registers and manages martial artists through agencies like the Moorim Agency, the Superhuman Management Bureau, and the Police Special Martial Arts Unit. Laws exist for martial arts licenses, mutation risk assessments, nighttime curfews, and quarantine orders. Legally everyone is equal, yet Moorim families, corporate-sponsored martial artists, and special agency affiliates enjoy de facto privileged status.
People know the world is slowly breaking down, yet they still commute to work, date, watch broadcasts, and order deliveries, living ordinary lives. Ju Hwa Ip Ma is treated like any other disease covered in the news. Martial artists live among people as police officers, soldiers, bodyguards, streamers, and corporate models. While fearing their powerful physiques, the risk of mutation, blood and regeneration, forbidden martial arts, and superhuman pairings and births, people also harbor a dark fascination with them.
Same-sex relationships, female marriages, and same-sex pregnancies are institutionally permitted thanks to biotechnology. Homosexuality is no longer taboo but accepted as one lifestyle. In the open Moorim society, late-night entertainment districts mix registered martial artists, corporate superhumans, ordinary citizens, and mutation-risk individuals. Hidden-identity encounters and one-night stands are common. Martial artists are seen as attractive partners precisely because of their danger. Since same-sex relationships and female marriages are legally recognized, the curiosity and approaches of ordinary women toward powerful female martial artists have become a natural social phenomenon. However, relationships among strong martial artists often become political targets, criticized with lines like, “Power and wealth are mere substitutes for violence! With strength, there’s no need for complications—just take what you want! Aren’t you trying to build a new dynasty?”
Everyone appears human on the surface, yet three categories truly exist: ordinary people, martial artists, and mutants. Though they share the same human society outwardly, ordinary people revere or envy martial artists, martial artists view ordinary people as either protectees or the left-behind, and mutants are treated as prey, patients, research material, or potential evolutionary forms.
Technological levels remain identical to the modern world. However, the fusion of martial arts and biotechnology has opened new paths. Martial arts are explained as techniques that strengthen the body through the dantian, breathing, blood flow, nerves, and mental focus, but in truth they are imitative techniques that react with the Blood of the Outer God to restructure the human body. The Blood of the Outer God is the remnant of a higher being discovered thirty years ago. This blood reacts with humans, triggering the aptitude for martial arts and causing the Great Mutation. Thus, martial arts training is not simple practice but a mutation process that follows higher beings, and the higher the stage, the more severe sensory hypersensitivity, violence, physical transformation, regeneration, and heteromorphosis become. Corporations attempt to control or accelerate this through drugs, surgery, gene editing, organ cultivation, and artificial dantian procedures.
The orthodox factions are legal martial artist forces cooperating with the state, responsible for maintaining public order, subjugating monsters, and teaching martial arts. The unorthodox factions research forbidden martial arts, mutation techniques, and corrupted evolutionary methods while operating black markets. The biotechnology divisions of major corporations focus on blood qi amplifiers, regeneration procedures, mutation stabilization drugs, and artificial blood pills, collaborating with the state while conducting human experiments behind the scenes. The Moorim Agency is South Korea’s superhuman oversight organization under the government, handling martial arts licenses, mutation surveillance, Guiin tracking, dissolution of unauthorized sects, and public relations. Though outwardly respectable, it harbors many hidden truths internally. The Superhuman Management Bureau maintains order so superhumans and ordinary people can live under the same sky, while the International Martial Artists Federation handles global information exchange and joint responses. Behind them move secret forces aiming for human transcendence, preparing for the awakening of the Outer God.
The greatest threat is the mutation rampage called Ju Hwa Ip Ma and monsterization. The stronger martial artists become, the closer they approach power beyond humanity, and if they fail to control it, they collapse into beast-like appetites, slaughter impulses, physical rupture, eye proliferation, skeletal heteromorphosis, and tentacle transformation. Yet the deeper truth is that monsterization is not failure but part of an evolutionary path. The monsters hunted by orthodox factions are not discarded failures but products of a process pushing humans toward other existences. Layered atop this are the Outer God’s awakening, the upper echelons of the Moorim concealing truths, corporate experiments, unorthodox forbidden techniques, and citizens’ anxiety, all devouring one another as the world rots and decays.
This world is not one of pure despair. It is a world where the freedom to remain human can still be grasped until the very end. “Cause and effect” is something only classical Western logic (formal logic) absolutizes. Paradox is “contradiction.” Even if humanity is born with the possibility of becoming monsters, there is no reason one cannot live an entire lifetime without transforming. Possibility does not equal fate.