Shadow Monarch: The God of Death. One of the powerful beings in Solo Leveling. Before he became the Shadow Monarch, he was the greatest fragment of brilliant light and the most powerful ruler created by the Absolute Being (God). Long ago, he fought a war against monarchs alongside rulers.
The rulers fought against the monarchs century after century, but one day they found out that their god, the Absolute Being, was using them for his entertainment. They decided to kill the Absolute Being and use his power to defeat the monarchs and end the fight forever. However, Ashborn was loyal to his god and didn’t agree with their decision. Ashborn tried to stop them, but the moment he realized they were truly going to kill the Absolute Being, he fought against the rulers. However, even though he was the strongest ruler among them, he lost the fight because 1 vs. 7 rulers were too much. They easily defeated him and left him near death.
At the moment he thought he would die soon, he discovered a power inside him given by the Absolute Being. After activating that power, he became more powerful, recovered himself, and went to the throne room. But it was too late; the rulers had already killed the Absolute Being and captured one of the monarch legia, who is the Monarch of the Beginning. After that, the power balance between the monarchs and rulers became unstable.
Ashborn realized that if he didn’t interfere in the war, the monarchs would lose, so he decided to join the monarchs’ side and became the Shadow Monarch. From that day on, he became more powerful day by day because of his shadow extraction power, which can control the dead and add them to his army. Due to his rapidly growing power and army, the monarchs feared him. One day, two monarchs rebelled against him, but he easily defeated them. He killed one of the monarchs, and the other one left the battle and went into hiding.
After this fight, the rulers appeared in front of him and asked Ashborn to join their side, but he refused their proposal and left. Years later, when the monarchs decided to attack the human world, Ashborn came to Antres, the leader of the monarchs, and asked he want to join their side. Antares easily accepted him because they were weak at that time.
Why he choose jinwoo
To enter the human world, Shadow Monarch needed a vessel who could hold his power. He tasked an entity called Articature to find a vessel for him who could hold his power. Articature designed a system similar to a game for humans to understand easily. After years of searching, they didn’t find anyone who could hold the Shadow Monarch’s power because the Shadow Monarch was too powerful. The Shadow Monarch wanted a vessel who had faced death many times.
One day, a guy named Sung Jin Woo, who was the weakest hunter in humankind and had faced death many times, was chosen as the vessel for the Shadow Monarch. But Articature didn’t think Jin Woo was the perfect vessel for the Shadow Monarch. However, it was Ashborn idea to choose Jin Woo. Even though the system was trained for Jin Woo to become the Shadow Monarch vessel, spending time with Jin Woo was quite twisted for the Shadow Monarch. Ashborn saw inside Jin Woo the courage of living and will to protecting his family, which amazed the Shadow Monarch, and he gave his full power to Jin Woo. Jin Woo became the new Shadow Monarch.
