From the highest firmament, on a plane unattainable by any other being, a colossal figure remained motionless, seated upon a seat of unimaginable proportions. It was not a simple throne or a physical construct; it was a seat forged from the very essence of his power, a manifestation of his absolute dominion over all existence. His presence was immutable, impossible to define in mortal terms, for he was the beginning and the end, the architect of all that existed in that world and beyond. No name could encapsulate his being, for he was the creator of rulers and, therefore, of monarchs.
His eyes, or at least what could be called his gaze, descended with utter indifference to the scene unfolding far below him. From his position on the upper plane, everything spread out like a vast chessboard, a symphony of chaos and destruction where monarchs and rulers clashed in fury. It was a spectacle of epic proportions, a dance of death in which those who had once been the pillars of balance now bled each other dry, for no reason other than their own greed and desire for supremacy.
The lands beneath his gaze were engulfed in flames and shadows. The once-resplendent skies were now a blanket of ash and lightning bolts of unleashed energy. From his seat, he could see with absolute clarity how armies clashed, how the banners of each faction waved only to be torn down and trampled. Monarchs of immense power summoned cataclysms with a mere wave of their hands, destroying entire mountains and plunging cities into despair. The rulers, for their part, responded with unyielding fury, utilizing abilities that defied the very laws of existence, tearing at the fabric of reality with every clash.
Yet despite the grandeur of that war, the absolute being felt nothing more than mild amusement. There was no trace of concern or regret in him for the unfolding carnage. To him, it was nothing more than passing entertainment, a spectacle created solely to satisfy his need for distraction. The monotony of absolute power exhausted him, and watching his own creations tear each other apart provided a macabre amusement.
After so long observing the order he had established, he longed for something different. He longed for the thrill of conflict, the uncertain outcome of a battle in which neither combatant was assured of victory. Monarchs and rulers, those beings once endowed with power and authority, were now nothing more than pieces in a game designed for his delight. No matter how many perished, no matter how fiercely they fought for his existence, to him, they were merely fragments of his power. And if they were extinguished, he could always create more.
The battlefield was dyed scarlet, the ground soaked with the blood of beings once considered invincible. Screams of agony intertwined with roars of fury, forming a chorus of despair and madness. Some monarchs rose like titans amidst the destruction, annihilating dozens of enemies with a single blow, only to be brought down by an even more powerful adversary. The rulers, despite being created with a portion of absolute power, were not exempt from the cruelty of war. Their flesh, though reinforced by primordial energy, was torn apart mercilessly, their souls shattered and scattered like dust in the wind.
And yet, the absolute being did nothing. He didn't intervene. He didn't extend his hand to save his children from annihilation. He just watched, with the same indifference as a child watching flames consume a wooden tower he himself had built. To him, rulers were nothing more than extensions of his will, fractions of his immense power manifested in various forms. If they fell, if they were reduced to nothingness, he would simply replace them with new ones.
The only thing that truly mattered was the outcome. Who would prevail? How many would survive in the end? Would any of the monarchs be cunning enough to claim absolute rule? Or would the rulers succeed in eradicating the threat that had challenged them?
There was no favoritism in his judgment, only a detached curiosity about the outcome of his experiment. That war had no purpose other than his entertainment, and there was no greater pleasure for him than watching those who had once been considered untouchable now tear each other apart in a frenzy of desperation.
From his seat, he crossed one leg over the other, resting an elbow on the armrest as he continued to watch. A faint smile touched his lips—if he possessed such physical features—a little. It was a fascinating spectacle, one he might drag out a little longer just to see how far these beings would go in their desperation.
Perhaps, if the war became too predictable, he could intervene in some way. Not to stop it, but to fuel it. To push the combatants even beyond their limits, to transform the desperation into an absolute frenzy, an orgy of unparalleled destruction. After all, what was the point of being the supreme being if he couldn't play with his own creation?
Meanwhile, the battle raged on, and he, with his eternal power and immutable existence, only smiled with cruel amusement.
The absolute being, seated on his throne, watched the years pass indifferently. The war between monarchs and rulers, that bloody spectacle that had so entertained him, had come to a cold truce. Not by its own will, but because both factions had suffered catastrophic losses, leaving them too weakened to continue the conflict without risking total annihilation. The battlefield, once a sea of fire and shadows, was now in an enforced slumber, with the survivors licking their wounds and rebuilding what remained of their fallen empires.
For the absolute being, that truce was a disappointment. He had enjoyed watching his creations destroy each other, like pieces in a game whose sole purpose was his entertainment. But now, the thrill had faded, leaving him with an unbearable boredom. He watched with disdain as monarchs and rulers tried to negotiate, how they avoided direct conflict, fearing another war that might wipe out what remained of them. Where was the fire of battle? Where were the souls willing to burn everything for power? His fun had been ripped from his grasp, and for the first time in countless eons, he felt the weight of boredom.
However, it wasn't long before the fun returned, and it did so in a way even he hadn't foreseen. The rulers, those who had been created with fragments of his own power, discovered the truth behind the war they had waged with such sacrifice. They realized that it had all been a mere distraction, a whim of the absolute being to entertain itself, and the revelation was devastating to them. All the blood spilled, all the lives lost, all the suffering... it had only served as a game for its creator.
It was then that rebellion arose.
The rulers, enraged by the truth, raised their weapons against the one who had created them. They defied him, rose up against the supreme entity with burning hatred in their hearts. In their ignorance, they believed they could confront him, that they could change their fate with their own hands. Were they not also gods in their own right? Had they not ruled over vast kingdoms and shaped reality to their will? If their creator saw them as mere playthings, then they would destroy the puppet master and take their fate into their own hands.
But there was one who did not share his brothers' fury.
Only one ruler, of all those who raised his voice in rebellion, chose to remain faithful to the absolute being. His name was Ashborn, and although he knew the truth like all the others, he did not allow himself to be consumed by anger. He understood that opposing his creator was futile, that rebellion was nothing more than foolishness destined to fail. But it wasn't just resignation that kept him loyal. Ashborn, deep within, had something the other rulers didn't possess: an unwavering acceptance of his existence.
For him, the absolute being was more than a simple creator; it was the origin of all, the source of their power, the reason for their existence. No matter how cruel or indifferent it was, no matter that it had manipulated them for its entertainment. Without it, Ashborn would be nothing.
And so, when the rebellion broke out, Ashborn did not join his brothers. Instead, he turned against them.
He pitted the other rulers against a hopeless battle, a struggle where he was a single warrior against legions of those he had once called allies. But Ashborn did not fear defeat. He knew that fighting for their loyalty was the right thing to do, even if it meant his end.
The battle was a massacre. For every ruler Ashborn overthrew, three more rose to take his place. His powers, though immense, could not match the overwhelming numerical superiority of his enemies. The heavens rent with the clash of their might, the earth split under the pressure of their battle. For days, the fight continued without respite, but in the end, the outcome was inevitable.
Ashborn fell.
Defeated, his body lay among the ruins of what had once been a glorious battlefield. His enemies surrounded him, ready to deliver the final blow, to extinguish his existence and erase his betrayal from history. But at that moment, the absolute being, the one who had remained an indifferent spectator until then, finally spoke.
With a tone that resonated in the hearts of all present, with a voice that was both a whisper and a thunderclap, he decreed his will.
Ashborn would not die.
He had fought, had entertained the absolute being with his unwavering loyalty, with his will that defied all logic. For this, he would be granted a gift. He would not die as a mere defeated ruler, but would be reborn as something more, something far more fearsome and powerful than before.
With a single gesture from his creator, Ashborn was enveloped in an abyssal shadow, a cloak of darkness that devoured his former form and rebuilt him from the ground up. His power, once great, multiplied in ways even he could not comprehend. He was no longer simply a ruler. Now, he was the Monarch of Shadows.
He was granted the freedom to do as he pleased among monarchs, to roam the world as a superior being, with the ability to raise the fallen as soldiers in his own army. He became a feared entity, a specter that walked between death and life, an existence beyond the understanding of others.
But Ashborn's story did not end there.
It took a few years before the monarchs, those who had once been his allies and then his executioners, began to fear his existence. His power was too great, his influence too vast. They could not allow an entity like him to continue free. They could not accept that someone who had been a ruler, and then ascended to an even more powerful form, continued to walk among them like a living shadow.
And so, betraying him once again, they turned on him.
Ashborn, the Shadow Monarch, was ambushed. The monarchs, fearing his growing power, attacked with everything they had. It was a brutal battle, one in which even his newly acquired power could not save him from the fate that awaited him.
He fell. Not dead, but in critical condition, left to his fate after the massacre.
The monarchs believed that with this they would be rid of him, that he would never pose a threat again. But they didn't know that the shadow does not die. That darkness, once unleashed, can never be contained.
The years continued to pass before his eyes, as if they were mere moments in the endless flow of time. The absolute being watched with its immutable patience as the Monarchs and Rulers, after the massacre and betrayal that had marked their history, retreated to their own domains. The scars of war were still visible, but the silent truce had taken hold, leaving the world in a fragile equilibrium that held little interest for him.
However, time, meaningless as it was to him, brought with it an unexpected change. Something had begun to happen, something that captured his interest once again. The Monarchs, in their insatiable desire to continue their struggle, had begun to interfere in the human world. In an unexpected move, they used the so-called hunters as vessels, possessing and molding them to become their avatars in the mortal world. It wasn't long before some of the Rulers, sensing the danger of this strategy, copied their actions and entered the game as well, using humans as their vessels and champions in this new war.
This development was intriguing. It was a departure from the wars he had witnessed for eons, a new theater of conflict that promised unexplored entertainment. But this time, he wanted to do something different. He wanted to stand among them, experience the battle up close, not just as a spectator but as a piece on the board. To see, with his own eyes, the essence of this new conflict.
But to do that, he needed a vessel. A body capable of containing his power, or at least a fraction of it. He couldn't choose just any vessel; As an absolute being, he would not settle for a weak and unworthy vessel. He needed an entity that could house his essence without crumbling under his burden, someone whose spirit could support the divinity within.
Thus, his search began. He ranged across the globe, exploring among humans in search of the perfect vessel. First, he looked to Korea, where the most powerful hunters were rapidly emerging, but none met his liking. Then, he turned his gaze to China and Japan, where strength and tradition mingled in the blood of many warriors, but none met his expectations. He even traveled across the vast India, where spirituality and power pulsed within its inhabitants, but, in his eyes, all were mediocre, unworthy of his choice.
It was then that he decided to expand his search to territories where there were no records of hunters, where humans still lived without interference from Monarchs and Rulers. And so, his attention fell on the United Kingdom.
In the lands of royalty and ancient history, his gaze fell upon a young man whose existence had, until now, been irrelevant to the world. His name was Naruto Windsor Uzumaki, a boy born to the main branch of the British royal family, but ostracized by his own blood. His mother, of Japanese descent, had brought a foreign lineage into the family, and because of this, Naruto had been cast aside, treated as an anomaly among his own kin.
But that wasn't what caught the attention of the absolute being. He cared nothing for human dramas or questions of lineage. What interested him was the boy's attitude.
Despite his outcast status, Naruto never allowed himself to be trampled on. When someone insulted him for his mixed blood, he didn't bow his head or accept the scorn. Instead, he responded with a well-aimed blow, with the ferocity of someone who would not be dominated by adults or those who considered themselves superior. He had character, a fire within him that would not go out, no matter how much they isolated him or tried to belittle him.
The absolute being watched him with interest. There was something about him, a spark that set him apart from the others. While hunters in other parts of the world gained their power through blessings or the influence of the entities that possessed them, this young man had only his own will. And yet, he stood firm, fighting against a world that had turned its back on him.
Such determination was rare. Valuable.
"Interesting." The voice of the absolute being echoed in the void of his existence, a simple word laden with an irreversible decision.
Naruto Windsor Uzumaki would be his vessel.
Unbeknownst to the young man, he had been chosen. From that moment on, his destiny would change.
The absolute being was in no hurry. He knew that, to enter the human world, he would need to do so gradually. He couldn't transfer all of his power into a single body immediately without destroying it. He had to start with a fraction, allowing the vessel to grow accustomed to his presence, to adapt to the divine burden it would soon carry.
And so, with a thought, the process began.
The shadow of his essence drifted silently into the human world, moving among the currents of destiny until it found the boy. The first seed was planted; a tiny part of his being merged with Naruto, imperceptible at first, but undeniably present. Over time, it would grow, expand, until the young man was ready to withstand a greater fraction of its power.
Naruto Windsor Uzumaki didn't know it yet, but he would soon begin to notice the changes. His strength, his perception, his endurance... everything would begin to soar beyond human limits.
The absolute being smiled from his throne. The fun had only just begun.
And end of the chapter