Dark Lord

Dark Lord (Jin)
Title	Dark Lord Thief Instructor
Hometown	Kerning City
Current Residence	Thieves' Hideout
Gender	Male
Race	Human
Affiliations	Explorers Maple Alliance
Enemies	Lady Syl (formerly)
Status	Alive
Name (Other Servers)
KoreaMS	다크로드 (Dark Lord) 진 (Jin)
JapanMS	ダークロード (Dark Lord)
ChinaMS	达克鲁 (Dark Lord) 阵 (Jin)
TaiwanMS	達克魯 (Dark Lord)
MapleSEA	Dark Lord Jin

World Archive

“This is the King of Thieves in Kerning City as well as the Thief job instructor. He can be found at the thieves' hideout, the Jazz Bar.
The title of Dark Lord is proudly handed down from one worthy thief to the next, most recently to the eighth Jin. The latest Dark Lord's core strength is so legendary that he regularly hangs around upside down doing crunches just because he can.
He and Lady Syl, the head of the Secret Garden Training Grounds, have a murky history built on resentment and contrition. One must always demonstrate respect for his devotion by greeting him with the phrase, 'Now I understand your resolve.'.”

― Chronicler Harper

The Dark Lord, whose true name is Jin, is the 8th Dark Lord - the master of all thieves in Kerning City - and the Thief Instructor for Explorers.

Story

Dark Lord's Apprentice

Jin was the apprentice of the 7th Dark Lord, Sung, and the lover of Sung's adopted daughter, Syl. After Sung learned that a mysterious threat was destroying records of key events in Maple World, he - alongside Jin and the great warriors Tristan and Mu Young - took it upon themselves to find the threat and stop it. Under the guise of hunting Balrog, the four tracked down the threat below the Cursed Temple. Knowing that it had the power of possession, they shielded their minds to keep the enemy from possessing them. However, what they hadn't anticipated was that Syl had secretly followed them. Their target, who was the spirit of Lotus, took over Syl's body and attacked them. Unwilling to strike her down, both Sung and Tristan allowed themselves to be killed by Syl before Jin wrested her sword out of her hands. After Lotus released her, she was horrified to see the bodies of her father and Tristan, as well as a bloody sword in Jin's hands. With no memory of her time being possessed, she concluded that Jin had killed Tristan and her father, and so she swore revenge against him. Jin became the 8th Dark Lord, while Syl took to the shadows, adopting the title of Lady Syl and founding a rogue group of thieves called the Dual Blades, whose purpose was to overthrow the Dark Lord and seize control of Kerning City.

Shadow War in Kerning City

As the new master of thieves, the Dark Lord began training new Explorers in Kerning City, while Lady Syl and her forces drew new Explorers into their ranks before they could become thieves under the Dark Lord. One Explorer hoping to become a thief was recruited by a man named Ryden, who instead convinced the Explorer to follow Lady Syl, rather than the Dark Lord. Ryden brought the Explorer before Lady Syl, who told them about her feud with the Dark Lord. She explained that the title of ‘Dark Lord' was handed down from generation to generation, each serving to guide the thieves through the darkness. As the daughter of the former Dark Lord, she had watched her father lead both the Dual Blades and the other thieves. She explained that her father, Sung, was a Dual Blade, and that he would have likely picked another Dual Blade as his successor. Because of this, his apprentice, Jin, had murdered him and had stolen his position as Dark Lord, with the rest of the Dual Blades going into hiding after the incident. She told the Explorer that she hoped to get her vengeance by building up the Dual Blades' strength and driving Jin out of Kerning City.

However, as Jin was quite popular with the citizens of Kerning City, she feared that the people would defend him if the Dual Blades were to attack. As harming innocents was something that she wanted to avoid, Lady Syl told the Explorer that she needed a spy to infiltrate Kerning City and serve under the Dark Lord in order to undermine him. After the Explorer accepted her mission, Syl sent them to train under Ryden. After completing their training, the Explorer became a Dual Blade and began investigating the Dark Lord's activities in Kerning City. As the Dual Blade grew stronger, they continued their investigation of the Dark Lord and discovered from Jeppi - a historian whom the Dark Lord had sent to Ellinia for his safety - that Jeppi had helped Jin and his old master in finding a hidden threat erasing the history of Maple World. After the Dual Blade learned the full truth and reported it back to the Dual Blades, Ryden confronted the Dark Lord and demanded to know why he had kept the truth from Syl, even while knowing that she was planning to kill him. He asked the Dark Lord whether he had intended to tell her the truth at the last possible moment when she would come to fight him, adding that he would make her look like a fool by doing so.

The Dark Lord was hesitant upon hearing Ryden's words, though he asked whether Syl would have benefited by knowing the truth that her father had only died because she had been taken hostage. He explained that though Syl was now strong, she had once been overwhelmed by the pain of losing her father, adding that he had hoped to avoid making her feel worse by telling her the truth. Ryden retorted that nevertheless, the Dark Lord had no right to keep the truth from her. The Dark Lord apologized, noting that he should have told her sooner. However, he added that he had only wanted to keep her from feeling any more pain than she already had. Ryden noted that though Syl needed to be told the truth, he feared that it would make her nightmares even worse. He then asked the Dual Blade to deliver his report to her, believing that it would be better coming from them. Just as Ryden had suspected, Lady Syl's face grew pale as she read the report. Nevertheless, she thanked the Dual Blade for their work and asked them to leave her to collect her thoughts.

Reconciling with the Dual Blades

Soon after, Lady Syl told the Dual Blade that she had decide to unite the thieves and the Dual Blades, believing that they would be stronger as one group. However, she admitted to them in private that the decision had been quite difficult, as she had grappled with the revelation that her worst enemy was actually the one who had saved her, which had wounded her pride greatly. She explained that all her plans, schemes, and emotions had been based on a lie, for which she couldn't forgive Jin, who had made a fool of her. However, she added that she knew that she couldn't let her feelings sway her, as she needed to do what was best for her people. Before they could move forward, however, she told them that she couldn't abide knowing that Jin had kept the truth from her because he had believed her to be weak. She then asked them to defeat the Dark Lord in order to prove the Dual Blades' strength, which would satisfy her need for revenge. The Dual Blade confronted the Dark Lord and told them about Lady Syl's decision. Jin noted in satisfaction that Syl had matured for her to look past her anger and unite together. He then invited them to face him and summoned a weaker clone of himself. After the Dual Blade defeated the clone, the Dark Lord admitted that the Dual Blades and Syl were stronger, after which officially welcomed the Dual Blades back into the fold of thieves.

Aurora's Augury

As Luminous began gathering the Auguries to master his inner darkness, he sought out the Dark Lord after learning that Aurora had entrusted him with it long ago. The Dark Lord gave Luminous the Augury and revealed that it was not he himself who had been entrusted with it, but a previous Dark Lord, who had prophesied that it would one day be reclaimed.

Feather Plants

After the Resistance discovered that Vita's special medicine was actually poison, Claudine asked the Resistance member to speak with the Dark Lord, as she had been told that he had a stash of the Feather Plants that she needed to create an antidote. In Kerning City, the Resistance member met with the Dark Lord, who told them that Feather Plants were extremely rare and were often saved for antidotes. He explained that many were needed to make even a single antidote and offered to give all the Feather Plants that he had, as he would rather that someone in need of them take them before they went to waste. The Dark Lord gave them a pouch containing about half the Feather Plants that the Resistance needed before mentioning that Ereve had stashes of Feather Plants, and that they might be able to get the rest from there.

NPC

Kerning City

Dark Lord
Function	Thief Instructor
Quests involved	[Explorer] Path of the Thief [Explorer] The Truth Cannot Be Hidden [Theme Dungeon] Ellinel Fairy Academy [Explorer Thief] Orange Brick Delivery Swamp Monsters, Sprouted The Unknown Cause [Resistance] In Search of an Antidote [Resistance] Feather Plant [Luminous] The King of Thieves [Explorer] Chiefs of El Nath [Explorer] A Difficult Decision [Explorer] Empress's Might
Location	Thieves' Hideout Thief Hideout Thief Hideout

Maple Island

Dark Lord
Function	Thief Job Instructor
Location	Split Road of Destiny

Conference Room of the Alliance

Dark Lord
Location	Conference Room of the Alliance

Gallery

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  Dark Lord's original NPC Sprite
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  NPC Sprite of Dark Lord (Anniversary: Victoria Cup Event)
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  NPC Sprite of Dark Lord (Anniversary: Victoria Cup Event)
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  NPC Portrait of Dark Lord
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  Artwork of Dark Lord (MapleStory M)
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  Artwork of Dark Lord (Night Troupe in Omega Sector Event, D Tier)
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  Artwork of Dark Lord (Anniversary: Victoria Cup Event; Non-KMS servers only)
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  Dark Lord Card Chair (Anniversary: Victoria Cup Event; Non-KMS servers only)
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  Dark Lord's Clone
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  Dark Lord's Clone Familiar
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  World Archive Illustration of Dark Lord and Lady Syl