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Harding
Aliases
  • Old Harding 1
Affiliation
  • Spirit Medium Association 1
  • Spirit Medium Association elite 6
  • Retired from the Association 11
Age Early fifties (early forties at Ch640, ten years on at Ch667) 111
Status Alive 12
First appearance Ch6401

Harding is a semi-retired office worker of the Spirit Medium Association with nearly twenty years' service, who carries the Storm Eye, a Strange sealed beneath his badge.14 With Dirk he traces the improved gene drugs to Jie Ming's used bookstore and offers him incorporation or cooperation, and he leads field teams against the Shadow Thief, the Ghost Ship and the Step.37810 Ten years on, the first Strange separation surgery removes the Storm Eye and leaves him an ordinary man who still delivers the Association's quarterly data by hand.11

Relationships

  • Dirk: Field partner; Harding stays to suppress Dirk's backlash rather than chase, and later passes on his envelope.2511
  • Jie Ming: The bookstore owner he recruits; later his seal-maintainer and surgeon.711
  • Victor Raine: Recognized on the conference-room screen.10
  • The President: Orders him to deliver the quarterly research data in person.11

Background

Harding is in his early forties at the start, an Association office worker semi-retired to paperwork after nearly twenty years' service, and fully retired a decade later with hair gone white.111 He judges the five-percent gene drug rumor coolly: wait a month, and if no complaints come, it is real and worth investigating.1

Abilities

Ability Acquired Notes
Storm Eye Ch646-6484 Strange sealed beneath his badge; its aura alone repels the Shadow Thief, released it fills a factory with storm, and its second layer brings black clouds and fist-sized hail.4 At full power it covers hundreds of meters of sky with lightning clouds and carries him and Dirk kilometers in seconds.9 Jie Ming's improved seal cuts its erosion of his soul to a fifth; the first Strange separation surgery removes it entirely.11
Soul stability Ch66711 Three points higher than before retirement thanks to Jie Ming's maintenance.11

Timeline

  • Ch640-643: Assesses the gene drug rumor; removes the robbers after the auction with Dirk as "after-sales service."12
  • Ch645-648: Leads the Shadow Thief operation at the abandoned shipyard with three elite teams; concludes an insider planned the attack.35
  • Ch657-658: Traces the drugs to the used bookstore and makes Jie Ming an offer.7
  • Ch660-662: Fights the Ghost Ship at Pier 3; identifies Victor Raine; holds the Step entrance with the third team.810
  • Ch667: Ten years later, retired and Strange-free, delivers the quarterly data and Dirk's envelope.11
  • Ch669: Phones Jie Ming when the sky changes and arrives to find him gone.12

  1. Chapter 640: Watching the Shop and the Spirit Medium Association ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Chapters 642-643 ↩↩

  3. Chapter 645: Shadow Thief ↩↩

  4. Chapters 646-648 ↩↩↩

  5. Chapter 648: Monster and Escape ↩↩

  6. Chapter 657: Conjectures on Fusion and the Visitors ↩

  7. Chapters 657-658 ↩↩↩

  8. Chapters 660-661 ↩↩

  9. Chapter 660: Assault of the Ghost Ship ↩

  10. Chapters 661-662 ↩↩↩

  11. Chapter 667: Ten Years ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  12. Chapter 669: The Final Task and Farewell ↩↩