Meruem

Meryem (メルエム, Meruemu) is the most powerful offspring of the chimera ant queen, and the king of the Chimera Ants. He's currently the prime antagonist in the Chimerma Ant Arc in Japanese manga series Hunter × Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi.

Background
Meryem was the last ant born from the queen, and is the king of all Chimera Ants. He was born prematurely, killing the Queen at child birth. According to Chimera Ant physiology, upon birth of the King, the Royal Guards solely follow the commands of the King, who leaves the nest to find various creatures to mate with and impregnate in order to create the next queen ant. Meryem leaves the hive and NGL with his royal guards in search of a place to start his kingdom.

Personality
Meryem for the most part has been described as very cruel, and very violent. Meryem's initial personality, when he his first shown in the story, is that of arrogance. The Queen's intention to give birth to a perfect offspring is reflected in Meryem's mentality. He considered himself superior to all other forms of life and felt no concern for his dying mother after his "birth." And refused the other Chimera Ants from treating her with medical treatment. Meryem was also merciless, instantly killing any chimera ant he considered disrespectful. Meryem was seen killing and eating other chimera ants, something no other chimera ant had ever done. But has the story progressed, Meryem starts show respect for Komugi, a seemingly dimwitted blind girl; and concern for Komugi's well being. In one instance Meryem rips his left arm off, as an apology to Komugi for asking her to bet her left arm on a game, to which she replied that she always bet her life. In another instance, after watching Komugi's nen suddenly awaken, and realizing she would grow exponentially stronger, but only in terms of Gungi, Meryem momentarily decides that his power of "violence" was the strongest type of strength, and ultimately Komugi's abilities are meaningless; Yet, moments after this decision, Meryem finds Komugi under attack by a large bird of prey, and is unable to bring himself to do anything except protect her, ultimately unable to understand his own emotions toward Komugi. This leaves Meryem in a contemplative state, wondering about the purpose for his existence in the world. Because of this turn of events, Meryem expresses a desire to remake the world so that everyone is so equal, the term "equality" would become obsolete.

He even wanted to avoid fighting Netero, so he too can be part of his plan for equatliy. Netero realizes that Meryem is caught between his Ant instincts and his humanity, and at this point, either facet of his psyche could win out. But since losing some of his memories, he seems to have started to return to his old self. He became a bit angered, when he vaguely started to remember that he could never beat Komugi in Gungi.

Appearance
Meryem appears to be rather humanoid for an ant. His appearance resembles that of another manga antagonist, written and drawn by Akira Toriyama, named Cell, from Dragon Ball Z''. ''Meryem is fairly muscular, from the chest. He has two long sideburns on his face, and one large hat. His whole body has black spots covering his arms, legs and head. Meryem is always seen being barefooted. Watch out for his tail and stinger. That's what he usually uses to kill. The only clothes he has been seen wearing is a strange looking vest.

Plot
=== Chimera Ant Arc === The chimera ant king, Meryem (メルエム, Meruemu?) is the most powerful offspring of the chimera ant queen. Shortly after his birth, Meryem leaves the hive and N.G.L. with his royal guards in search of a place to start his kingdom. He descends on the Republic of East Gorteau and takes over the country by killing its dictator, Ming Jol-ik. Meryem then uses Jol-ik's corpse as a puppet to order East Gorteau's entire population to gather simultaneously in the capital city for a national rally, in order to create a situation in which entire towns and villages could be secretly abducted for a "selection": the forcible awakening of Nen in order to create an army of super soldiers to conquer the world.[18] [19] [20] [21] The Hunters Association mobilizes an extermination team in response in order to raid the East Gorteau kingdom and assassinate Meryem, composed of Hunters Netero, Morel, Knov, Knuckle, Shoot, Palm, Killua, and Gon.

Meryem takes an interest in various board games, and gathered various champion-level players to his palace. Simply by reading the rule books, Meryem was able to master any game in under ten matches, simultaneously learning from his opponents while disrupting the "flow" of their play style. After defeating the best player for each game, Meryem proceeded to kill them, as they were of no further use to him. The final game Meryem learns is Gungi, a fictional shogi-like board game invented by East Gorteau. The world champion for the game is Komugi, a seemingly dimwitted blind girl; However, as Meryem played against her, he found himself unable to disrupt her flow, while at the same time, the challenge of playing against Meryem caused Komugi's skills to increase. Much to the shock of the royal guards, Meryem even starts show respect for Komugi and concern for Komugi's well being. In one instance Meryem rips his left arm off, as an apology to Komugi for asking her to bet her left arm on a game, to which she replied that she always bet her life. In another instance, after watching Komugi's nen suddenly awaken, and realizing she would grow exponentially stronger, but only in terms of Gungi, Meryem momentarily decides that his power of "violence" was the strongest type of strength, and ultimatel

y Komugi's abilities are meaningless; Yet, moments after this decision, Meryem finds Komugi under attack by a large bird of prey, and is unable to bring himself to do anything except protect her, ultimately unable to understand his own emotions toward Komugi. This leaves Meryem in a contemplative state, wondering about the purpose for his existence in the world. While the Hunters' assault the castle, Komugi is gravely injured by a nen ability meant to cause confusion within the palace, and Meryem orders Neferpitou to save her life. During Meryem's confrotation with Netero, Meryem reveals that he finally realizes that he should use his power to save certain humans that were worth saving, but only those special few, because of this Netero comments that the king is actually a contradiction, as he wants to save the special few who only need protection from the king himself. After Netero's deadly suicide, Meryem is horribly injured, but starts to recover after his guards offer to feed them from their own selves. With this, they gain unconditional love.

After his full recovery, he begin to display Menthuthuyoupi's abilities as well as reading the emotions of the two royal guards. He has a higher degree of skill and control over them and can use them freely, "as he had them all along". Once he return to the palace he use his "En" to find the remaining Invasion Squad members; promptly taking out Knuckle and Meleoron first because of proximity they were in was the cloest to Meryem. But Shaiapouf delayed Meryem search by making a competition on who will find the remaing intruders. Meryem accepted the engagement but on condition that if he wins, he wants to know all of Shaiapouf and Menthuthuyoupi secrets. After the death of Yupi and finding a Gungi piece, Meryem decides to find them himself. Using his "En" a second time, he finds Welfin and begins to interrogate him. He later learns of Komugi's name from Welfin (fearing for his life because he was going to be eaten by Meryem), he told Welfin to live as a human if possible and wished for him to meet with Gyro someday. He later found Palm in the Underground Hanger and presuaded her to locate Komugi for him, which he was relying on her due to the Rose Bomb poison.

Nen Ability
With each Nen user he eats, he grows in potential and their aura is added to his own increasing his power. So far no special moves of his own have been revealed. Due to his constant Gungi matches against Komugi which he could not defeat, he developed an ability akin to "Precognition" which he uses to overcame Netereo's superior speed. After merging with Shaiapouf and Menthuthuyoupi he has shown the ability to use Menthuthuyoupi's ability to transform, saying that he feels as though as he could have done it all along. He has shown growing wings to fly and used the same "Rage" beam on potclean. He can also deploy a wide range "En" in a flash then instantly go to anyone caught in it then bring it back to his original location in mere seconds on his first try. When he uses "En" for the second time, he could sense even non-living objects (i.e Yupi's corpse)or on his own words "everything" He also has Shaiapouf's Spiritual Message added to his "En" allowing him to see clearly on someone hearts just by looking at them. 梅路艾姆