Who are Monarchs in Solo Leveling?

April 4, 2022

Monarchs are ancient races of monsters that seek to wipe out humanity. This breed is the primary antagonist of the Manhwa Solo Leveling.

History of Monarchs

At the start of the time where only darkness and light existed. Absolute Being split the light which created the Rulers and split the darkness which created Monarchs. The rulers’ primary goal was to protect the world and monarchs were created to destroy the world. They were bound to have a devastating battle with each other in the course of time.

Centuries later when Absolute Being was unseated and murdered, the rulers used tools that had fragments of his power and used it to hunt down Monarchs. They captured Monarch Legia alive turning the tide of the war in their course. Seeing this Shadow Monarch Ashborn offered help to other Monarchs and due to no other option left the Monarchs accepted him as their new aid.

Ashborn managed to balance the war and stabilize the war because of his overwhelming power which earned him great respect but two Monarchs Beast and Baran chose to betray him by ambushing him with their armies. Here also Ashborn managed to defeat both the armies and also managed to kill Baran in the process but he also lost his shadow army.

With the intention to get revenge against Beast monarch he went into hiding to reform his army. This led to the victory of Rulers forcing the other monarchs to flee from the cracks between the worlds.

Ashborn came out of hiding and Antares who is the strongest Monarch allowed him to rejoin, other monarchs were still recovering from the last battle.

Later the monarchs started to destroy the human world in order to build their armies and rulers stood against them and fought to save the extension of the human world.

As the rulers started to fail they used a tool of absolute being known as the cup of reincarnation, it had the power to turn back time 10 years every time by using it in order to get a second chance in the battle. But by using this they only prolonged the devastation of the human world. The human world will always suffer no matter the result of the war.

Jeju Island Arc

After several days when the Jeju Island S-Rank gate was finally cleared, Beast Monarch found traces of Shadow Monarch’s power and went to make sure of it. In the process, he met Frost Monarch who also had discovered the traces of Shadow Monarch and they both agreed to start a rematch against the Rulers.

Japan Crisis Arc

After the events of the Jeju Island raid, the Rulers allowed Legia to escape by spawning an S-Rank Gate in Tokyo, but unfortunately, Legia was killed by our protagonist Sung Jinwoo. Parallelly the Monarchs started their hunt for the rulers and they also killed the strongest hunter in America, Christopher Reed, who is also among the seven Ruler vessels.

International Guild Conference Arc

The strongest hunter in Brazil and another ruler’s vessel, Jonas was abducted and murdered by the monarchs several days before the International Guild Conference.

Monarchs War Arc

Go Gunhee, the second strongest hunter of Korea, and another ruler’s vessel was also killed by the Monarchs on the last day of the conference. After realizing that the shadow monarch has found his human vessel and turned against him, the monarchs regrouped and decided on their next move. The three Monarchs Frost, Beast, and Qurehsha decided to kill Jinwoo before he can fully absorb Ashborn’s power and the other two Monarchs Iron Body and Yogumunt refused to help and decided to wait for Antares to comeback.

All the three Monarchs launched a full-blown assault on Seoul to lure Jinwoo out. They managed to almost kill Jinwoo but they failed to make sure of it and they were also unable to stop Sung II-Hwan’s intervention, who gained the true powers of the Shadow Monarch. They poorly failed in the mission and all three were butchered by Jinwoo.

Final Battle Arc

Soon after the killing of the three monarchs, Antares found out from Yogumunt that the Shadow Monarch had backstabbed them and destroyed most of their army. With an immense rage, Ashborn decided to deal with Ashborn’s vessel and ordered his leftover forces to prepare for the battle.

Days later Antares and his forces entered the human world through a giant gate in Canada and lured Jinwoo by carving a path of destruction, killing thousands in the process. But due to their smartness of Jinwoo, he already had a plan against them, he easily defeated IronBody and Yogumunt without even fighting them in person. Only Antares was the last man standing and Jinwoo took the fight to a remote island in Japan so no one else could get in between their battle.

As they arrived on the island they began to fight and Arnest gained an upper hand easily but failed to realize that Jinwoo was only buying time for his allies, the Rulers. They appeared in raw forms and charged at him with spears from all directions, killing him and ending the war with triumph.

Abilities

Immense Strength
Spiritual Body Manifestation

Weaknesses

Since the Monarchs are spiritual beings and lack organic form, they cannot descend into the human world without appropriate human vessels, a trait they share with the Rulers. The Monarchs, however, completely possess their vessels and steal their bodies from the Rulers. This technique allows them to exert their full power in the human world, however, it also makes them completely mortal, meaning they will die if their human vessels are killed in battle.