Guardian Spirit Beast

A Guardian Spirit Beast (守護霊獣, Shugo reijū) is a parasitic-type Nen beast possessed by the king and princes of the Kakin Empire. Since Guardian Spirit Beasts are visible to Nen users without the aid of Gyo but invisible to everyone else, they could be created with Emission.

History
In the age of rival warlords, Kakin was a small country threatened to be absorbed by its neighboring countries. Around that time, according to ancient manuscripts, the first king of Kakin conjured the Seed Urn inspired by "worm toxin"  and had his children fight in a succession contest for the throne, which is the foundation for Kakin becoming the superpower that it is today.

The Seed Urn


The Seed Urn's facial features highly resembles the facial features of the clay dolls from the late Jōmon period of Japan.

The Seed Urn Ceremony
The Seed Urn Ceremony (壺中卵の儀, Kochuurannogi) is part of the Kakin Royal Family tradition. To prove one's inheritance to the urn, the host focuses their desire for the crown and offers a drop of their blood to the urn, then puts their hand in its mouth-like opening. At this point, a purple smoke fumes from the urn with a tiny female sprite dressed in Kakin traditional clothing holding a small egg, which she inserts into the host's mouth. The princes will thus be granted a Guardian Spirit Beast when the egg hatches.

The sprite is invisible to ordinary people, since it is made out of Nen, which caused Queen Oito to originally believe that the ceremony was only a purposeless tradition of the Royal Family.

Properties
Born from the deceased king's strong desire of perpetuation for his descendants, a Guardian Spirit Beast is a parasitic-type Nen beast that possesses a person related to the deceased, feeding on their aura as an energy source and taking a shape and an ability which are influenced by its host's character and disposition. The more unsavory the prince's characters are, the more disgusting, obscene and threatening-looking their beast is. Since the Nen beast is not a direct creation of its host, it cannot be controlled at will. It is imbued with two primary instinctual rules:
 * 1) Guardian Spirit Beasts do not fight and kill one another.
 * 2) Guardian Spirit Beasts do not attack another human whom a Guardian Spirit Beast is protecting.

A Guardian Spirit Beast will instinctually protect its host but there is no guarantee for it to be its highest priority. A Guardian Spirit Beast is free to leave the presence of its host. It is also aware of any Nen users that are able to see it and, if not actively attacking, it simply stares back at them, and some even intimidate them.

The host cannot see their own Guardian Spirit Beast or other people's even if they are a Nen user. Balsamilco surmised that there must be a limitation that prevents the ceremony participants from seeing the Nen beasts, or that there's a condition that must be fulfilled before they can do so.

The beasts also seem to react to their respective host's emotion, as Camilla's own started to transform, revealing an ominous looking head after an argument with Benjamin, and Tserriednich's suddenly materialized and stared  threateningly at Theta when he expressed his cold fury on her deception regarding Nen training.

According to Kurapika, the invisibility to most of the Nen beasts makes them a low-risk ability, which the hosts compensate for with a large aura expenditure as well as the complex system of Vows and Limitations in place. This leads him to speculate that if a prince managed to pull out of the succession war, all Guardian Spirit Beasts would disappear.

Nasubi Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


King Nasubi's Guardian Spirit Beast is a huge creature composed of two lateral sections with five limbs in each, which are long insect arms ending in human hands. It has a head in the central part of its body that resembles a human which has an elongated shape, long hair and two enormous ears. Its mouth is upright starting from the height of the eyes to the chin leaving a long tongue out. However, the most notorious part of its body are the bumps that completely cover the rest, those that resemble woman's breasts.

Benjamin Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Benjamin's Guardian Spirit Beast is a humanoid creature similar to a large beetle. On its head can be distinguished a phallic shape on the top, two mouths, one much bigger with enormous teeth that seem to be grinding, and another smaller at the height of the neck, that simulates a smile; two barbed ears, and two lobes that separate the top of his head and which would apparently contain insect eyes. It has beetle wings and two clawed arms, a human trunk and abdomen, and its legs are irregularly huge and quite muscular that also end in claws.

Camilla Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Camilla's Guardian Spirit Beast has the form of an actirian or sea anemone of great size. It could also be a kind of jellyfish. It has a cylindrical shape, in which the upper part is comprised by several tentacles with sunken tips that protrude outwards, as if they were the branches of a tree. The lower part of her body extends like a great mantle and ends up forming a kind of skirt.

Zhang Lei Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit beast


Zhang Lei's Guardian Spirit Beast is shaped like a big dharmachakra (☸) with a dark flame covering its rim. It has inscription-like patterns on its inner part, and has narrow eyes and mouth. Eight crosses spread around its body in a clockwise manner and a single cross with a circle around it on its forehead.

Tserriednich Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Tserriednich's Guardian Spirit Beast resembles a horse-like woman with long fair hair, a long neck with a mane that can extend several meters, big four fingered hands, big sharp pointed nipples, a tail resembling a nine tailed whip, and it wears high heel shoes. The inside of the beasts mouth reveals another face within, with a split tongue and jagged teeth.

Tubeppa Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Tubeppa's Guardian Spirit Beast resembles a giant frog with spiked axle wheels for legs and has many pole like horns on it's back.

Tyson Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Tyson is guarded by multiple Guardian Spirit Beasts of the same appearance. They are small sized mono eyes creatures with a slender body and limbs, as well as a round caudal fin. The Nen creatures are all spawned from a currently unseen creature that hovers above Tyson.

Luzurus Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Luzurus' Guardian Spirit Beast looks big and phallic shaped with crooked jagged teeth, big wide black eyes, small wing like extensions and antennae on either side of it's head.

Salé-salé Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Salé-salé's Guardian Spirit Beast is shaped like a confetti ball with multiple mouths on its body. The mouths are seen emitting an unknown substance. Its surrounded by multiple ball like creatures with blister-like lumps, and its abilities are currently unknown.

Halkenburg Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Halkenburg's Guardian Spirit Beast resembles a giant gargoyle with one big eye, four nostrils (two on each side of its face), with a giant scowl on its face. Its body is covered in shaggy fur, while two horns are mounted just above its head. It has three claw-like fingers and toes, and what appears to be an exposed hole on its back.

Soon after awakening from his blackout, after seeing all of his bodyguards lying on the floor of his room unconscious, Halkenburg although relieved that his Royal bodyguards are fine he notices a pinion attached to his left hand. Before sending Yuhirai and Cejour to Kurapika's meeting to learn about Nen, it's inferred between Halkenburg and his royal bodyguards that the pinions attached to their hands are connected to his Guardian Spirit Beast.

Kacho Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast
Kacho's Guardian Spirit Beast is currently unknown.

Fugetsu Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast
Fugetsu's Guardian Spirit Beast is currently unknown.

Momoze Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Momozoe's Guardian Spirit Beast is shaped like a human size hamster-like creature. It has two eyes stacked on top of one another on its forehead, two circular ears, a heart-shaped symbol on its belly, and a rat tail. The mouse inquires a target of it's choice whether it's free or not and when the target responds yes, the Nen beast manipulates the target and attacks people in the surrounding area.

Marayam Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast


Marayam's Guardian Spirit Beast resembles a Chinese dragon, with three paired horns on its head, pelvic fins on each lower side of its body, and a pointy caudal fin for a tail. Hanzo and Biscuit note that its size grows at an abnormal rate. Its ability is currently unknown.

Woble Hui Guo Rou's Guardian Spirit Beast
Woble's Guardian Spirit Beast is currently unknown. It is speculated that it may have been the Nen beast that killed the bodyguards affiliated with the other queens.

Trivia

 * Kodoku (蠱毒, Worm Toxin) is a type of Japanese poisonous magic, derivative of the Chinese Gu (traditional Chinese: 蠱; pinyin: gǔ; Wade–Giles: ku) magic. To create it, several poisonous insects are closed together inside a jar, which is opened when only one of them remains. The surviving insect is said to have absorbed the poison of all the other insects. Why the Seed Urn would be inspired by this type of magic is evident: the similarities do not stop at the ritual through which the members of the Kakin Empire Royal Family obtain a Guardian Spirit Beast, but extend to the whole succession war: the siblings are in fact forced to stay on a ship journeying to the Dark Continent while they attempt to kill each other, with the only survivor becoming the legitimate heir to the throne.
 * When asked to place his hand in the mouth of the Seed Urn, Tserriednich worried it might be bitten off: this may be a reference to "La Bocca della Verità" ("The Mouth of Truth"). Starting from the Middle Ages, it was believed that if one told a lie while his hand was in the mouth of the sculpture, it would be bitten off.
 * Guardian Spirit Beasts share similarities with Qarins in Islamic faith. Qarins are unseen spirits, either a Jinn or an angel that accompanies a person and influences its host to lead an ungodly or godly life respectively. In some cases, it is possible - with the will of Allah - for a devout host to overpower his/her evil jinn qarin and converts it into a Muslim, and then the converted qarin influences its host to lead a godly life only, such in the case of Prophet Muhammad's qarin. The type of Qarin a person possesses depend on his/her piety. If a person leads an ungodly life, the Qarin such person received is a devil: If anyone withdraws himself from remembrance of (Allah) Most Gracious, We appoint for him an evil one, to be an intimate companion to him. Such (evil ones) really hinder them from the Path, but they think that they are being guided aright! At length, when (such a one) comes to Us, he says (to his evil companion): "Would that between me and thee were the distance of East and West!" Ah! evil is the companion (indeed)! - al-Quran 43:36-38. This can be seen on the royalties of Kakin of unsavory characters that have obscene, repulsive and sinister-looking guardian beasts.
 * They are also akin to hantu raya in Malay culture. In ancient times, Malay spirituality was a mix of animism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Spirit worship was common and these beliefs persisted in rural areas until the latter half of the 20th century. In the case of hantu raya, the owner is said to have formed a pact with demon or inherited it from older generations in the form known as saka or legacy which is handed on down the generations. In return for the advantages and power, the owner agrees to provide for the ghost and appoints a new owner for it before dying. According to legend, people who fail to untie their bond with the hantu will suffer especially during death. Hantu raya will resemble the look of its owner ever after death and go roaming. People seeing him will assume that the deceased has been brought back to life. It will search for food and new owner at night and goes around haunting people.

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