Summary
TheSolo Levelingseries portrays rulers, monarchs, and humans who get involved in their war. While the war between the rulers and the monarchs is what sets the series into motion, very few fans and characters alike truly understand it. Where are the rulersand monarchs from? And why do humans have to be involved in their war?
Many similar questions have been asked by many, but upon finding out that humanity was destined to be destroyedand hunters are, in a sense, ‘the chosen’ individualswho were to be left as remnants of the race, the origin and purpose of the war inSolo Levelingbecome all the more important.
The War’s Prelude: Catalyst
Sung Jin Woo And The War
Various series explore the duality between good and evil, light and darkness, andSolo Levelingdoes the same. InSolo Leveling’s universe, the world started with light and darkness. From the light, the Absolute Being created the Emissaries of God, a set of beings who were essentially good and served him. From the darkness, the Absolute Being created the eight sovereigns, now known as the Monarchs. As their very natures opposed each other, the emissaries and the sovereigns engaged in constant wars.
The emissaries were born to maintain the world and to continually ensure that life was born and protected. Meanwhile, the sovereigns were born to destroy the world, and as their opposing natures clashed, so did they. This started the eternal war between the emissaries and the sovereigns. However, even omnipotent beings are sure to get tired of endless fighting.
The Truth, The Absolute Being, And The Emissaries
Rulers Assemble
To end the war, the emissaries confronted the Absolute Being and begged the Absolute Being to join them in their questto abolish the Monarchs, or at the very least, to grant them power to extinguish their opponents. Promising to offer the heads of the sovereigns to the Absolute Being as a tribute to the Absolute Being’s power and glory, the emissaries begged. However, the Absolute Being paid them no attention and ignored their plea. At this point, the emissaries came to a realization: to the Absolute Being, the unending war was simply a form of entertainment, and the outcome didn’t matter. It seemed like there was to be no outcome, and the war was to continue for eternity.
Grieved by this realization, the emissaries came to a decision. They would kill the Absolute Being and end the war. Whether or not they faced the Absolute Being or continued the war, the threat of death was ever-looming, and so they chose to confront and kill the Absolute Being. After rebelling against their creator, the emissaries called themselves the rulers. Among the many emissaries, one chose to stand up to the rebels; this one was Ashborn; however, his power was far from sufficient against countless rulers. Before he died, he realized that the Absolute Being kept within him a dark power, but by the time he returned to confront the rulers, the Absolute Being was already dead.
Ashborn Seizes the Limelight Amidst The Ongoing War
Monarchs vs. Rulers Continues
After Ashborn’s resurrection as a being who controlled darkness, he joined the monarchs to face the rulers. As the rulers had managed to capture the King of Giants, the power balance had already toppled, and Ashborn’s inclusion on the side of the monarchs would truly change things. And so he continued his battle as the Shadow Monarch and fought the rulers. However, his enemies and allies alike feared his strength, and two of the Monarchs betrayed him. After being betrayedby the monarchs, the rulers reached out to Ashborn and asked for his forgiveness. While they could have killed him, they decided against it. Frustrated by his limited options, Ashborn gave in and went into hiding alongside the sovereigns to restore his power. The infighting between the Monarchs and Ashborn gave the rulers an advantage, and by the time Ashborn had restored his power, the forces of the Monarchs had already been devastated, so the Monarch of Destruction made them stop fighting as they went to regrow their forces.
The Earth Assumes Its Role As The New Player In The War
Monarchs Plan The Next Course Of Action
The Monarchs then went in search of a new world to rebuild their army, and this new world was none other than Earth. After the rulers detected the movement of the sovereigns, they sent their armies to Earth, and the humans, along with their planet, were destroyed. As the rulers’ raison d’être was to maintain the world and continue the state of being, they used one of the Absolute Being’s tools, the Cup of Reincarnation. Using the Cup of Reincarnation, the rulers turned back time by 10 years; however, the weakness of the Earth remained. Humans were too weak, and with no magical energy on the Earth, the planet wouldn’t survive a war. Regardless of the outcome of the war, humans would die off and their world destroyed. To allow even a small subsection of humans to survive, hunters were created, and the rulers lent their power to certain humans who would stand above the rest. Many of these hunters areNational level huntersand fragments of brilliant light. As the rulers used their ‘envoys’ (hunters) to spread magical energy upon the world, the sovereigns also began to nurture vessels so that they could descend upon the world, prepare their plans, and stop those of the rulers from reaching fruition.
The Impact Of The War Creates Hope
Sung Jin Woo Takes Center Stage
While the war between the rulers and the sovereigns cost many lives and destroyed various worlds, it’s hard to place the blame on any particular side. The sovereigns were born to destroy, and the emissaries were born to maintain, effectively pitting them against each other for eternity. With thedefeat of Ashborn, an emissary turned monarch, the scales tipped in a way that no one expected. Moreover, rather than see the war to its conclusion himself, Ashborn givesSung Jin Woo his powersand allows him, a human, to decide the fate of his kind.
Solo Leveling
Cast
A-1 Pictures' Solo Leveling is an anime based on Chugong’s popular web novel. Set in an unforgiving fantasy world where hunters explore dungeons filled with monsters, the vulnerable Sung Jinwoo gains a significant power boost after he is picked to be a solo player by the System.
