Ant King

Shaped like a muscular humanoid ant, the Ant King wore a black armored exoskeleton over his frame. Red light blazed in his eyes, his claws were sharp, two small pincers reached outward from the abdomen, and a quartet of transparent wings rose from his back.

Driven by arrogance and bloodlust, what he craved above all was a fight worth having. Time and again he ordered the Korean and Japanese hunters to bring out their king. Taking pride in his standing as an apex predator, he was truly stunned to learn that creatures mightier than himself walked the world. Unlike the rest of his colony, he possessed a human's level of intellect, fighting with strategy and striking at an enemy's weak points. That intelligence also let him recognize a hopeless fight: once he saw he could not overcome Jinwoo, he turned to flee.

The fourth Jeju Island Raid saw him single out the Japanese contingent at the outset. With one strike each he cut down Akari, then Kenzo, Tatsumi, Kei, and Ippei in turn. A dying cry from the queen drew him back to the nest, where Korean hunters had slain his mother. In his fury he crushed them, then ate the head of the healer Min Byung-Gyu, taking the man's language and healing through his Gluttony ability. Next he flew out against Goto, the island's strongest, who outlasted the others by only a single hit, before he felt Jinwoo's arrival and returned to the chamber a second time.

He found Jinwoo nursing the wounded Koreans and led with a punch to the face, only to reel in shock when the man came away with nothing more than a split lip. His worthy opponent had arrived at last. The Ant King threw everything he had at Jinwoo, namely poison, speed, raw power, and even his swarm, and every bit of it was turned aside. As the shadow army mowed down his kin, he understood the fight was lost and tried to escape, but Jinwoo slammed him downward into the earth with Ruler's Authority and ended him using the Mutilation skill. With the raid finished and the survivors gone, Jinwoo brought the creature back as a shadow soldier and named him Beru.

His power left a deep mark. Being the queen's strongest child and the gate's concealed boss, the Ant King ranked among the deadliest magic beasts humanity had ever met, all the more dangerous for his human-level mind, and Jinwoo judged him about even with the Baran clone of the Demon Castle. His raw strength was immense, enough to drop Cha Hae-In with one blow, slay Goto in two hits, and bloody Jinwoo's mouth. He matched Jinwoo's speed during their clash and absorbed his blows for a long while. Through Gluttony he claimed the skills and knowledge of whatever he devoured: a consumed cone snail gave him a paralysis poison far worse than the original, Min Byung-Gyu's head granted master-tier healing along with fluent Korean and Japanese, and a piece of Kei's body produced ice magic, that last power exclusive to the anime. He could also take flight at high speed and reshape his size, swapping agility for force or the reverse.