The Rulers and Monarchs are two races of cosmic beings created by the Absolute Being to fight each other in an eternal war. The Rulers were born from light and exist to protect the world. The Monarchs were born from darkness and exist to destroy it. Their conflict is the engine behind everything that happens in Solo Leveling — the gates, the dungeons, the hunters, and Sung Jin-woo’s entire journey all trace back to this war.
Who Created the Rulers and Monarchs?
The Absolute Being created both races from scratch — the Rulers from fragments of light and the Monarchs from fragments of darkness.
The Absolute Being was not interested in balance or peace. He engineered the two sides to be equal in overall power so neither could ever fully win. The war was designed to be permanent entertainment, not a conflict with a resolution. Both races fought for thousands of years without either side coming close to ending it.
When the Rulers finally approached the Absolute Being and asked for additional power to end the war permanently, he refused. That refusal revealed the truth: the Absolute Being had no intention of letting either side win. He needed the war to continue. The Rulers chose to kill him rather than keep fighting for a creator who was using them as toys.
The Monarchs never made the same discovery — or at least never acted on it the same way. That difference in response is the clearest illustration of what separates the two races philosophically.
What Are the Rulers?
The Rulers are beings of light who exist to protect the world from the Monarchs and prevent humanity from being destroyed.
After killing the Absolute Being, the Rulers took fragments of his power for themselves. They divided that power among seven beings, each one becoming a vessel of immense force. Rather than inhabiting the world directly, the Rulers work through human hosts — hunters chosen for exceptional ability and willpower. A Ruler enters a human body as a partner, not a possessor. The human host retains their own consciousness and awareness throughout.
The table below lists all seven named Rulers and their confirmed human vessels.
| Ruler | Title | Human Vessel |
|---|---|---|
| Haetae | Greatest Fragment of Brilliant Light (Ashborn, pre-Monarch) | — (Ashborn became a Monarch) |
| Rakan’s opposite | Fragment of Destruction’s Light | Unknown vessel |
| Legia’s opposite | Fragment of the Beginning’s Light | Unknown vessel |
| Fragment 4 | Fragment of Brilliant Light | Unknown vessel |
| Fragment 5 | Fragment of Brilliant Light | Unknown vessel |
| Fragment 6 | Fragment of Brilliant Light | Go Gun-hee — Chairman of the Korean Hunter’s Association |
| Fragment 7 | Fragment of Brilliant Light | Thomas Andre — Number one ranked hunter in the world |
Go Gun-hee and Thomas Andre are the two Ruler vessels confirmed by name in the manhwa. Both were chosen because their physical and mental capacity was judged capable of handling Ruler-level energy without immediate physical breakdown — though sustained use still caused serious damage over time.
What Are the Monarchs?
The Monarchs are beings of darkness who command armies of monsters and exist to destroy all life, starting with humanity.
There are eight Monarchs in total. Each one holds a specific title and commands a specific type of army. Unlike the Rulers, Monarchs do not partner with their human vessels — they erase the host’s consciousness entirely and take full control of the body. The host effectively ceases to exist the moment a Monarch possesses them.
The only exception to this rule across the entire series is Ashborn and Sung Jin-woo — a transfer of power rather than a possession, which made Ashborn unique among all eight Monarchs.
The table below lists all eight Monarchs, their titles, and their army type.
| Monarch | Title | Army Type |
|---|---|---|
| Antares | King of Dragons / Monarch of Destruction | Dragon-class monsters |
| Ashborn | King of the Dead / Shadow Monarch | Shadow soldiers raised from the dead |
| Rakan | Beast Monarch / King of Beasts | Beast and animal-type monsters |
| Sillad | Frost Monarch / King of Snow Folk | Ice and frost-type entities |
| Querehsha | Monarch of Plagues / Queen of Insects | Insect and parasite-type monsters |
| Legia | Monarch of the Beginning / King of Giants | Giant-class monsters |
| Tarnak | Monarch of Iron Body | Stone and iron-type monsters |
| Baran | Monarch of White Flame | Demon-class monsters (deceased before the main story) |
Baran was killed by Ashborn before the main story begins. His death weakened the Monarchs significantly and ultimately contributed to their loss in the first war against the Rulers. Antares is the most powerful Monarch and the final villain of the manhwa. Ashborn defected from the Monarchs’ cause entirely, which is why Jin-woo inherits a Monarch’s power while fighting on humanity’s side.
How Do Rulers and Monarchs Enter the Human World?
Both races are spiritual beings without permanent physical forms. They need human bodies to operate in the material world.
The key difference is how they use those bodies. Rulers enter a host with that person’s knowledge and keep the host’s consciousness intact. The host can feel the Ruler’s presence, communicate with it, and in some cases channel its power deliberately. Go Gun-hee could access a controlled level of Ruler power while remaining himself. Thomas Andre could unleash far more but at serious physical cost.
Monarchs take full possession. The host’s mind is suppressed or erased completely, leaving the Monarch in full control of a human body with no internal resistance. This gives Monarchs significantly more direct power output through a vessel than Rulers can achieve — but it also means the Monarch is limited to what that one body can physically sustain. When the vessel is destroyed, the Monarch is forced back out of the physical world.
Destroying a vessel does not kill a Monarch permanently. It removes them from the human world temporarily, but the Monarch itself survives. To permanently eliminate a Monarch, the being itself must be destroyed — which is what Jin-woo does during the Monarchs War arc.
What Did Each Side Actually Want?
The Monarchs wanted to destroy humanity and use the resulting energy to rebuild their forces after their losses to the Rulers. The Rulers wanted to protect humanity and maintain the world as a buffer against Monarch destruction.
Neither side’s goal was entirely noble. The Rulers protected humanity because they needed it intact, not out of pure altruism. They used the world’s strongest hunters as vessels without fully explaining the cost — Sung Il-hwan, Jin-woo’s father, was killed by the physical strain of channelling Ruler power beyond his body’s limit. Go Gun-hee suffered significant damage over years of sustained Ruler energy exposure.
The Monarchs were more straightforward. They had no interest in humanity beyond its strategic value as a resource. Several Monarchs, including Rakan and Querehsha, viewed humans as entirely disposable. Antares went further — he considered the destruction of humanity a prerequisite for rebuilding Monarch forces at full capacity.
Ashborn was the only being on either side who made decisions based on something other than the war’s outcome. His choice to find a human successor rather than continue the destruction is what ultimately ended a conflict that had been running for millennia.
Read the Monarchs War arc from the beginning at Chapter 150 at readsololevelingmanga.us.
How Did the War End?
Jin-woo ended the war by defeating every surviving Monarch personally, starting with Legia in Japan and finishing with Antares in the Final Battle Arc.
Before Jin-woo’s involvement, the Rulers had attempted to reset the timeline three times using the Cup of Reincarnation to undo catastrophic Monarch victories. Each reset restored humanity but failed to end the war permanently, because neither the Rulers nor the Monarchs could produce a decisive winner.
Jin-woo’s existence as the Shadow Monarch changed the equation entirely. He carried the power of both darkness and light — Ashborn’s Monarch authority combined with the Ruler’s Authority he inherited as part of the Shadow Monarch’s unique origin. No pure Ruler or pure Monarch could match that combination. After defeating Antares, Jin-woo used the Cup of Reincarnation one final time to create a new timeline where the war had never happened, and everyone who died in it was restored.
For the full breakdown of how the Shadow Monarch fits into this conflict, the Shadow Monarch article covers his origin and role in full detail.
