A devout Seonhwa scholar who entered the crypts to find the source of a worsening corruption, was struck by it when he reached for a pillar fragment, and became the boss now known as Gloth.
Who Han-Gyeol was
Han-Gyeol was a devout follower of the five spirits and a member of great influence in the Seonhwa. He was the first person to note that Maggi tends to form more strongly around areas of great emotional disturbance, loss, or sadness. That observation fits what the world holds true of Maggi more broadly: it is not strictly geographic but a meta-emotional force, showing up more often where there is grief or suffering (graveyards, dangerous roads where people die). His insight carries weight because of who made it, a scholar trusted enough in Seonhwa to train recruits personally.
What he found in the crypts
Through his studies, Han-Gyeol learned of a great corruption forming deep in the crypts. The crypts had always been dangerous and teeming with corrupted life, but never before had so many recruits been lost to their depths. After losing a promising recruit he had personally trained, he went down himself to seek out the cause and remove its blight.
In the depths he found a pillar fragment. Believing it was sent by the spirits to aid him, he reached out to take it. Instead he was struck by the very source of the corruption within the crypts, and was transformed into the creature now known as Gloth.
Canonical source. The Gloth / Han-Gyeol origin is defined here. It is also restated in The Crypts, The Gloth Arc, Han-Gyeol (Restored). Keep them in sync.
Those of the Seonhwa can only wonder what knowledge was lost with him, and what knowledge or power could be gained by his corruption.
The boss fight
Gloth is the target of a kill-quest given once a player reaches a certain level and quest chain. Each path leader, when first asked about him, tells the player the same thing in their own words: you are not strong enough yet to know more or do anything about Gloth.
When the player finally reaches the designated room, they are placed in an instanced room with their group. Gloth is present first as an NPC, then despawns and the mob is spawned for the fight. (The exact staging here is noted in the storyline as a mechanical question rather than settled detail.) Defeating him is not the end. The player realizes the artifact must be cleansed, and they are forced to leave as Gloth slowly reforms from the Maggi. As with all those fully corrupted by the Maggi, he never truly dies; he is held in its grasp, his body turned against his mind.
The restoration to Han-Gyeol
The path back runs through a ritual designed by High Cleric Eun-Ae, the Ssitgim-gut, the cleansing ritual. Players run a quest chain to gather the items the ritual needs, in order to purify the fragment and, with it, Gloth.
Once the ritual is ready, they confront Gloth again, defeat him, and perform the rite. Han-Gyeol is restored. He can then be found in a room players can access after the quest chain, where he writes down everything he learned to help the Seonhwa in the days to come.
See also. The restored, non-boss persona has its own entry: Han-Gyeol (Restored).
Killing a corrupted creature is framed as a mercy rather than the slaying of something purely evil. Gloth is the clearest case of that grey zone: a corrupted being who was a person first, and who can, with the right ritual, be a person again.
Connections
- Earlier in the same arc, the player kills the respawning mini-boss Bae-Gumeong in the rat area of the crypt and recovers a piece of a relic. The tutor recognizes it as a piece of a relic held by a man named Han-Gyeol, and declines to explain, saying the player’s chosen path leader will tell them more.
- The pillar fragment Han-Gyeol reached for ties his fall to the same fractured pillars that players later draw on at Transcendence. Where the Cheonmugwan and a transcending player take in a shard to gain power, Han-Gyeol reached for one believing it a gift and was struck down by the corruption instead.
See also
- Bae-Gumeong
- The Gloth Arc
- High Cleric Eun-Ae
- Maggi
- The Crypts
- The Celestial Pillars and the Gyunhyeong
- The Fracturing (Cheonha Bunhae)
- Transcendence (Beyond Level 99)
- Soulsenders (Songhondan)
- Bestiary Overview
Source: ETK Lore Bible, Boss Lore (Gloth), Overall Storyline (A New Beginning; The Ssitgim-gut), General Lore Considerations (Maggi; Enemy Respawns; Transcendence); foundation doc for world and pillar context.