The Monarch lifted his sword high above his head, azure smoke swirling around the blade as he gathered his power. Arterius could immediately feel that the strike would leave him in a critical state if it landed, but no matter how much he willed himself, his body would not move.
Pleasure glinted in the Monarch’s eyes as he watched Arterius struggling to escape, his sword whistling as he brought it down with relish. A crescent-shaped blade of compressed smoke shot out of the Monarch’s blade as he swung, flying towards Arterius with breakneck speed.
But, before the blade could connect with Arterius’ body, a knight-like figure made of water appeared in its path, raising its water longsword to deflect the Monarch’s attack.
The crescent blade hit the blade and diverted away from its target, hitting the ground hundreds of meters away from Arterius. It hit the dirt like a bomb, throwing up an explosion of dust and debris as it left behind a giant crater.
The water knight didn’t stop there. It flew up to where the Monarch floated, raising its blade to attack. But the attack was pathetically weak. The Monarch parried the blow with a single hand, looking at the knight in contempt, not realizing his mistake.
When he did realize, though, it was too late for him. The Cloud Saint had already appeared above him, with a long wooden pole in his hands that he swung down onto the Monarch’s head.
The crash of the pole on his head sent the Monarch spiralling down to the ground, only for the water knight under him to sink its fist into his gut. The force sent the man back upwards, where the Saint waited with his pole, ready to knock him back down.
But instead of letting the two bounce him around like a ping pong ball, the Monarch forcefully regained control of his body as he flew and pushed upward faster than the Cloud Saint expected.
Before the Cloud Saint could react, the Monarch had already rushed up to him and clasped his hand around his neck, trapping him with a vice-like grip.
As the two flew upward, the Monarch stared into the eyes of the Cloud Saint with blue eyes that sparkled with pure liquid insanity. “You dare…” he said, his voice quiet, shaking with rage. “You dare toy with me?!”
The Saint grimaced as the fingers around his neck constricted the blood flow to his head. At his level, breathing wouldn’t be much of an issue for a while, but the trapped blood in his head was an immediate danger to his life.
Still, despite the disorienting pain, the man managed to cast two Artes as they flew. The first of the golden circles formed below them, releasing chains that glowed golden and shackled the two together, trapping them in place.
The second circle formed above them, sending down a torrent of flames that doused the both of them in bright orange.
While the fire was only strong enough to wear away at the protective Flux that coated their bodies, it still hurt the both of them quite a bit. Enough for the Monarch to loosen his grip on the Saint for a second, just long enough for him to escape.
He appeared a few hundred meters away, robes tattered and breathing hard. But before he could even catch his breath, a quiet voice whispered into his ear.
“Think you can get away that easily, do you?” it asked, dripping with malicious insanity.
And then an intense pain bloomed as the Monarch swung his sword, cutting a bloody gash along the Cloud Saint’s back. The Saint fell like a bird with its wings clipped, leaving the Monarch floating alone as he stared down at the falling, almost unconscious man. The dark sword in his hands dripped with blood.
But the Monarch knew better than to leave it at that. The Cloud Saint may have been an entire realm lower than him and the Archbishop, but even a Saint’s vitality could not be underestimated.
Angling his sword down, the Monarch launched himself after the falling man, like a falcon swooping down on its prey. The tip of his blade gleamed as it barreled down on the Cloud Saint’s back, but before it could bite down on its target, an old woman appeared in its path.
Aya cast a fierce gaze at the Monarch as he continually sped up towards her, a crazy gleam in his eyes.
“So, yet another flea wishes to join the fun, eh?” he said, his sword plunging towards Aya’s heart.
But it never got to reach its target. Without so much as a flinch, Aya met the Monarch’s insane eyes with unwavering steel right up until the tip of the sword stopped just inches away from her nose. A small droplet of the Saint’s blood ran down the edge as the Monarch came to a sudden stop, dropping onto Aya’s face.
Golden chains gripped all of the Monarch’s limbs, holding him in place. The mad smile on his face didn’t fade in the least as the chains groaned against the pressure.
“You are revolting,” Aya said as she stared into the eyes of the Monarch, not finding even the slightest hint of humanity left within them. Without waiting for a response, she waved her hand and the chains restraining the Monarch immediately ignited, burning with a scorching blue flame.
The Monarch writhed in agony as the flaming chains held him captive, his open mouth drooling as he reared his head back in pain. But strangely enough, not a sound escaped his lips, even as the flames burnt away more and more of his protective Flux, the pain growing in intensity every second.
The flames danced in Aya’s eyes as she watched with an emotionless gaze. She did not take pleasure in the pain of the Monarch, nor in the fact that a person who had inflicted so much pain on others was now suffering instead, at last. She only found it pitiful: the pointless, endless cycle of suffering that seemed the universe’s favourite pastime.
Then, just as Aya was sure that the Monarch was done, he suddenly stopped thrashing. He stilled himself, chest heaving as he breathed hard, and forced himself to face Aya, a broken smile splitting his face.
“Did you think I would give up so easily?” he asked, his voice light. “After all this? After I’ve come this far? Did you really think this was the end? Do you think someone can get to my level, can pull off the things I have pulled off, can create the legends I have created, and lack the will to resist a little pain?” He laughed a ridiculing laugh. And as he did, his body seemingly began to shift from within, as the very bones of his torso had begun to rearrange themselves.
The skin of his back began to rise in two different directions until wings fully sprouted, ripping through his skin with an awful tearing sound.
The wings were transparent, like a wasp’s, and the instant they grew, the Monarch’s very aura began to warp. The rest of his body also transformed, with mandibles extending from the corners of his lips, antennae growing out from his head, and four spindly legs sprouting from both his sides.
Soon, he looked less human and more like some twisted fusion of insect and man. He hissed like a madman at Aya as a dangerous pressure pressed down on her shoulders. With ease, the Monarch flexed his limbs and shattered the chains around him, like they were made of ice.
Aya instantly knew that the strength of the Monarch had far surpassed the limits of her offensive capabilities, but she could also feel the growing aura at her back, one that matched the Monarch’s new strength.
The Monarch, now freed, lunged towards her, arm outstretched as he closed in on her neck. But, before his fingers could reach her, a small rune appeared under Aya’s feet, and a blink of an eye later, she suddenly appeared back on the ground. The Cloud Saint’s body lay a few feet from her, his chest rising and falling still, but barely.
Up in the sky, right where she had stood, now stood Arterius. The Monarch, keeping his momentum, wrapped his fingers around Arterius’ neck instead, but Arterius didn’t budge an inch. Like a statue, he stood unmoving as the Monarch’s weight crashed into him.
He met the Monarch’s maddened gaze with his own glare, the anger within him alive and burning. Before the Monarch could react, Arterius had landed a full-powered fist onto the Monarch’s face, striking him his face warped around his fist.
The Monarch blew backwards like a cannonball launched, flying for hundreds of meters before finally coming to a stop. He looked up to the heavens as he sucked in a few deep breaths, before bringing his gaze back down to meet Arterius’. He smiled, his lips stretching into a revolting and twisted imitation of a smile broken by the elongated mandibles at the edges of his mouth.
Arterius readied his sword, preparing to rush the Monarch, but before he could move, the Monarch vanished. Immediately, Arterius whipped around and swung his sword without even looking. The Monarch, who had just appeared there, was caught completely off guard. But still, before Arterius’ blade could reach him, he vanished again, appearing instead at Arterius’ side. Before Arterius could react, the Monarch hit his face from the side like a sledgehammer, sending Arterius careening off into the distance.
The Monarch vanished once again, moving with speed so quick it seemed like teleportation. He appeared behind Arterius, who was still uncontrollably flying, and pointed his blade at Arterius’ approaching back.
Just before the blade pierced Arterius’ back, the Monarch was suddenly stuck hard in the side by a wooden pole.
Sent sideways a few meters, the Monarch was disoriented for a second, just long enough for the Cloud Saint to finish casting his most powerful Arte.
A two-meter-wide golden circle appeared before him, and from it came forth a wyrm made entirely of water. Its massive jaws opened as it burst through the circle, its scales the glimmering blue of ocean shores.
Within the second, the maw of the water dragon was already upon the Monarch, its rows of shimmering blue teeth clamping down on him. But the Monarch was quick, much quicker now, thanks to his wings. He threw himself to the side as fast as he could, but he was still a little too late.
He managed to get his body out of the way, but his arm wasn’t so lucky. The jaws bit down hard on the Monarch’s shoulder, piercing through the skin and drawing blood.
The wyrm kept going, dragging the Monarch along with it as it flew. With his arm trapped inside its mouth, the wyrm violently shook its head as it bit down as hard as it could, trying to detach the rest of the body.
The Monarch knew right away that the wyrm was a very powerful Arte, one that wouldn’t simply vanish on its own. And, coupled with Arterius and the Cloud Saint, its existence posed quite a threat to him.
So, the Monarch took the best course of action he could think of.
Drawing a rune on his left palm, he slapped it onto his right shoulder, the part right outside of the wyrm’s mouth. And then, condensing some blue smoke around his hand in the shape of a blade, he swiped at his shoulder, freeing himself from the clutches of the wyrm with one clean cut.
Dropping into a freefall, with blood trailing him as the stump of his right shoulder leaked scarlet, the Monarch looked up at the wyrm with a maddened glint in his eyes. The entire time, not a sound had escaped his lips, despite the intense pain on his shoulder.
And then, a few seconds later, the giant wyrm exploded. Starting from the head, a chain reaction of explosions ran along the entire two-kilometre-long body of the wyrm, utterly decimating it.
Although the wyrm was a very powerful Arte, the detonation of any body part of any Monarch was not to be underestimated. The entire thing burst into a fine mist, coalescing into massive, dark clouds before coming down as a torrential downpour.
The bleeding on the Monarch’s stump quickly stemmed as he forcefully stopped the flow to his shoulder. With a blade in his other hand, the man found the Cloud Saint and Arterius, who still floated up in the sky, fixing them with a hateful glare.
Moving like lightning, his body blurred before vanishing as he flew towards the pair.
The two immediately readied themselves for battle, but the Monarch had already appeared behind them, his sword swinging at Arterius’ back.
Arterius, without even looking, brought his sword over his shoulder and deflected the sword.
Almost in the same second, the Cloud Saint appeared behind the Monarch, his wooden pole covered in blade-shaped Flux as he stabbed at the man’s back.
The tip of the smoke blade landed, but even with the full strength of a Saint behind it, it could not pierce the Monarch’s skin. Still, it distracted the man long enough for Arterius to whip around and land a clean swipe of his sword on the Monarch’s head.
The sharp and heavy blade caught the top of the Monarch’s head, sending him bowling over, dropping dozens of meters down. A second later, however, the man simply vanished in front of their eyes.
He reappeared the next moment, right in front of the Cloud Saint, half his face painted in scarlet streaming down from his forehead, giving him the look of a true demon.
Appearing in between the Cloud Saint and Arterius, the Monarch cast an Arte at his back, a giant red rune that created a gust of wind so powerful it knocked Arterius far away.
In the same second, the Monarch speared his dark sword straight through the abdomen of the Cloud Saint, ripping a hole through the man’s body that dyed his robes red.
Despite the urge to savour the pain on the Saint’s face, the Monarch knew he had limited time and quickly pulled the sword out, launching a lightning-quick swipe that aimed to decapitate the man.
But before his sword could reach its target, golden chains once again appeared from three small circles, trapping the Monarch in place.
The Cloud Saint brought his gaze up from his wound, looking into the Monarch’s eyes with a grin as the hole in his gut visibly closed itself. Then, with all the strength he could muster, he sank a fist into the man’s face.
The Monarch was sent flying backwards, right into the path of the returning Arterius. The man swung his sword like a bat, the arc of his sword perfectly intercepting the Monarch’s flight.
Sent flying in a completely different direction, the Monarch spun round and round in dizzying flips through the air. When he finally regained control of himself, he righted his body before looking at the pair of Grand Order mages with the dimming eyes of a man realizing his fate.
This was a losing fight, the four legends present all knew. The Monarch was faced with two of the most competent warriors in the Grand Order – both legendary figures in their own right – while entirely on his own. But even then, with his ruthless skill and body transformation, he would have still stood a chance. But, unfortunately for him, his opponents were supported by someone who sat comfortably within the ranks of the top healers in the universe, and that fact, above all else, was what spelled his certain defeat.
If his plan had succeeded, everything would have gone his way. The Grand Order, with the forces they had brought, would have been nothing, less than ants in his way. But even the best plans, plans that had been carefully constructed and painstakingly laid out over a hundred years, were not safe from the whims of fate. No one could have predicted, certainly not the Monarch, that the one life he had spared, out of sheer hubris and the tiniest, tiniest morsel of sympathy, would have been the one to ruin everything for him.
But he was the Insect Monarch after all. He had not lived his life as he had to bow down at the end, even to the wills of fate. No odds, no enemy, not even Astros itself in all its might would make him kneel without resistance.
Fate may have won, at the end of it all, but he would not deserve his title if he didn’t fight it to his last breath.
The Monarch lifted his sword high above his head, azure smoke swirling around the blade as he gathered his power. Arterius could immediately feel that the strike would leave him in a critical state if it landed, but no matter how much he willed himself, his body would not move.
Pleasure glinted in the Monarch’s eyes as he watched Arterius struggling to escape, his sword whistling as he brought it down with relish. A crescent-shaped blade of compressed smoke shot out of the Monarch’s blade as he swung, flying towards Arterius with breakneck speed.
But, before the blade could connect with Arterius’ body, a knight-like figure made of water appeared in its path, raising its water longsword to deflect the Monarch’s attack.
The crescent blade hit the blade and diverted away from its target, hitting the ground hundreds of meters away from Arterius. It hit the dirt like a bomb, throwing up an explosion of dust and debris as it left behind a giant crater.
The water knight didn’t stop there. It flew up to where the Monarch floated, raising its blade to attack. But the attack was pathetically weak. The Monarch parried the blow with a single hand, looking at the knight in contempt, not realizing his mistake.
When he did realize, though, it was too late for him. The Cloud Saint had already appeared above him, with a long wooden pole in his hands that he swung down onto the Monarch’s head.
The crash of the pole on his head sent the Monarch spiralling down to the ground, only for the water knight under him to sink its fist into his gut. The force sent the man back upwards, where the Saint waited with his pole, ready to knock him back down.
But instead of letting the two bounce him around like a ping pong ball, the Monarch forcefully regained control of his body as he flew and pushed upward faster than the Cloud Saint expected.
Before the Cloud Saint could react, the Monarch had already rushed up to him and clasped his hand around his neck, trapping him with a vice-like grip.
As the two flew upward, the Monarch stared into the eyes of the Cloud Saint with blue eyes that sparkled with pure liquid insanity. “You dare…” he said, his voice quiet, shaking with rage. “You dare toy with me?!”
The Saint grimaced as the fingers around his neck constricted the blood flow to his head. At his level, breathing wouldn’t be much of an issue for a while, but the trapped blood in his head was an immediate danger to his life.
Still, despite the disorienting pain, the man managed to cast two Artes as they flew. The first of the golden circles formed below them, releasing chains that glowed golden and shackled the two together, trapping them in place.
The second circle formed above them, sending down a torrent of flames that doused the both of them in bright orange.
While the fire was only strong enough to wear away at the protective Flux that coated their bodies, it still hurt the both of them quite a bit. Enough for the Monarch to loosen his grip on the Saint for a second, just long enough for him to escape.
He appeared a few hundred meters away, robes tattered and breathing hard. But before he could even catch his breath, a quiet voice whispered into his ear.
“Think you can get away that easily, do you?” it asked, dripping with malicious insanity.
And then an intense pain bloomed as the Monarch swung his sword, cutting a bloody gash along the Cloud Saint’s back. The Saint fell like a bird with its wings clipped, leaving the Monarch floating alone as he stared down at the falling, almost unconscious man. The dark sword in his hands dripped with blood.
But the Monarch knew better than to leave it at that. The Cloud Saint may have been an entire realm lower than him and the Archbishop, but even a Saint’s vitality could not be underestimated.
Angling his sword down, the Monarch launched himself after the falling man, like a falcon swooping down on its prey. The tip of his blade gleamed as it barreled down on the Cloud Saint’s back, but before it could bite down on its target, an old woman appeared in its path.
Aya cast a fierce gaze at the Monarch as he continually sped up towards her, a crazy gleam in his eyes.
“So, yet another flea wishes to join the fun, eh?” he said, his sword plunging towards Aya’s heart.
But it never got to reach its target. Without so much as a flinch, Aya met the Monarch’s insane eyes with unwavering steel right up until the tip of the sword stopped just inches away from her nose. A small droplet of the Saint’s blood ran down the edge as the Monarch came to a sudden stop, dropping onto Aya’s face.
Golden chains gripped all of the Monarch’s limbs, holding him in place. The mad smile on his face didn’t fade in the least as the chains groaned against the pressure.
“You are revolting,” Aya said as she stared into the eyes of the Monarch, not finding even the slightest hint of humanity left within them. Without waiting for a response, she waved her hand and the chains restraining the Monarch immediately ignited, burning with a scorching blue flame.
The Monarch writhed in agony as the flaming chains held him captive, his open mouth drooling as he reared his head back in pain. But strangely enough, not a sound escaped his lips, even as the flames burnt away more and more of his protective Flux, the pain growing in intensity every second.
The flames danced in Aya’s eyes as she watched with an emotionless gaze. She did not take pleasure in the pain of the Monarch, nor in the fact that a person who had inflicted so much pain on others was now suffering instead, at last. She only found it pitiful: the pointless, endless cycle of suffering that seemed the universe’s favourite pastime.
Then, just as Aya was sure that the Monarch was done, he suddenly stopped thrashing. He stilled himself, chest heaving as he breathed hard, and forced himself to face Aya, a broken smile splitting his face.
“Did you think I would give up so easily?” he asked, his voice light. “After all this? After I’ve come this far? Did you really think this was the end? Do you think someone can get to my level, can pull off the things I have pulled off, can create the legends I have created, and lack the will to resist a little pain?” He laughed a ridiculing laugh. And as he did, his body seemingly began to shift from within, as the very bones of his torso had begun to rearrange themselves.
The skin of his back began to rise in two different directions until wings fully sprouted, ripping through his skin with an awful tearing sound.
The wings were transparent, like a wasp’s, and the instant they grew, the Monarch’s very aura began to warp. The rest of his body also transformed, with mandibles extending from the corners of his lips, antennae growing out from his head, and four spindly legs sprouting from both his sides.
Soon, he looked less human and more like some twisted fusion of insect and man. He hissed like a madman at Aya as a dangerous pressure pressed down on her shoulders. With ease, the Monarch flexed his limbs and shattered the chains around him, like they were made of ice.
Aya instantly knew that the strength of the Monarch had far surpassed the limits of her offensive capabilities, but she could also feel the growing aura at her back, one that matched the Monarch’s new strength.
The Monarch, now freed, lunged towards her, arm outstretched as he closed in on her neck. But, before his fingers could reach her, a small rune appeared under Aya’s feet, and a blink of an eye later, she suddenly appeared back on the ground. The Cloud Saint’s body lay a few feet from her, his chest rising and falling still, but barely.
Up in the sky, right where she had stood, now stood Arterius. The Monarch, keeping his momentum, wrapped his fingers around Arterius’ neck instead, but Arterius didn’t budge an inch. Like a statue, he stood unmoving as the Monarch’s weight crashed into him.
He met the Monarch’s maddened gaze with his own glare, the anger within him alive and burning. Before the Monarch could react, Arterius had landed a full-powered fist onto the Monarch’s face, striking him his face warped around his fist.
The Monarch blew backwards like a cannonball launched, flying for hundreds of meters before finally coming to a stop. He looked up to the heavens as he sucked in a few deep breaths, before bringing his gaze back down to meet Arterius’. He smiled, his lips stretching into a revolting and twisted imitation of a smile broken by the elongated mandibles at the edges of his mouth.
Arterius readied his sword, preparing to rush the Monarch, but before he could move, the Monarch vanished. Immediately, Arterius whipped around and swung his sword without even looking. The Monarch, who had just appeared there, was caught completely off guard. But still, before Arterius’ blade could reach him, he vanished again, appearing instead at Arterius’ side. Before Arterius could react, the Monarch hit his face from the side like a sledgehammer, sending Arterius careening off into the distance.
The Monarch vanished once again, moving with speed so quick it seemed like teleportation. He appeared behind Arterius, who was still uncontrollably flying, and pointed his blade at Arterius’ approaching back.
Just before the blade pierced Arterius’ back, the Monarch was suddenly stuck hard in the side by a wooden pole.
Sent sideways a few meters, the Monarch was disoriented for a second, just long enough for the Cloud Saint to finish casting his most powerful Arte.
A two-meter-wide golden circle appeared before him, and from it came forth a wyrm made entirely of water. Its massive jaws opened as it burst through the circle, its scales the glimmering blue of ocean shores.
Within the second, the maw of the water dragon was already upon the Monarch, its rows of shimmering blue teeth clamping down on him. But the Monarch was quick, much quicker now, thanks to his wings. He threw himself to the side as fast as he could, but he was still a little too late.
He managed to get his body out of the way, but his arm wasn’t so lucky. The jaws bit down hard on the Monarch’s shoulder, piercing through the skin and drawing blood.
The wyrm kept going, dragging the Monarch along with it as it flew. With his arm trapped inside its mouth, the wyrm violently shook its head as it bit down as hard as it could, trying to detach the rest of the body.
The Monarch knew right away that the wyrm was a very powerful Arte, one that wouldn’t simply vanish on its own. And, coupled with Arterius and the Cloud Saint, its existence posed quite a threat to him.
So, the Monarch took the best course of action he could think of.
Drawing a rune on his left palm, he slapped it onto his right shoulder, the part right outside of the wyrm’s mouth. And then, condensing some blue smoke around his hand in the shape of a blade, he swiped at his shoulder, freeing himself from the clutches of the wyrm with one clean cut.
Dropping into a freefall, with blood trailing him as the stump of his right shoulder leaked scarlet, the Monarch looked up at the wyrm with a maddened glint in his eyes. The entire time, not a sound had escaped his lips, despite the intense pain on his shoulder.
And then, a few seconds later, the giant wyrm exploded. Starting from the head, a chain reaction of explosions ran along the entire two-kilometre-long body of the wyrm, utterly decimating it.
Although the wyrm was a very powerful Arte, the detonation of any body part of any Monarch was not to be underestimated. The entire thing burst into a fine mist, coalescing into massive, dark clouds before coming down as a torrential downpour.
The bleeding on the Monarch’s stump quickly stemmed as he forcefully stopped the flow to his shoulder. With a blade in his other hand, the man found the Cloud Saint and Arterius, who still floated up in the sky, fixing them with a hateful glare.
Moving like lightning, his body blurred before vanishing as he flew towards the pair.
The two immediately readied themselves for battle, but the Monarch had already appeared behind them, his sword swinging at Arterius’ back.
Arterius, without even looking, brought his sword over his shoulder and deflected the sword.
Almost in the same second, the Cloud Saint appeared behind the Monarch, his wooden pole covered in blade-shaped Flux as he stabbed at the man’s back.
The tip of the smoke blade landed, but even with the full strength of a Saint behind it, it could not pierce the Monarch’s skin. Still, it distracted the man long enough for Arterius to whip around and land a clean swipe of his sword on the Monarch’s head.
The sharp and heavy blade caught the top of the Monarch’s head, sending him bowling over, dropping dozens of meters down. A second later, however, the man simply vanished in front of their eyes.
He reappeared the next moment, right in front of the Cloud Saint, half his face painted in scarlet streaming down from his forehead, giving him the look of a true demon.
Appearing in between the Cloud Saint and Arterius, the Monarch cast an Arte at his back, a giant red rune that created a gust of wind so powerful it knocked Arterius far away.
In the same second, the Monarch speared his dark sword straight through the abdomen of the Cloud Saint, ripping a hole through the man’s body that dyed his robes red.
Despite the urge to savour the pain on the Saint’s face, the Monarch knew he had limited time and quickly pulled the sword out, launching a lightning-quick swipe that aimed to decapitate the man.
But before his sword could reach its target, golden chains once again appeared from three small circles, trapping the Monarch in place.
The Cloud Saint brought his gaze up from his wound, looking into the Monarch’s eyes with a grin as the hole in his gut visibly closed itself. Then, with all the strength he could muster, he sank a fist into the man’s face.
The Monarch was sent flying backwards, right into the path of the returning Arterius. The man swung his sword like a bat, the arc of his sword perfectly intercepting the Monarch’s flight.
Sent flying in a completely different direction, the Monarch spun round and round in dizzying flips through the air. When he finally regained control of himself, he righted his body before looking at the pair of Grand Order mages with the dimming eyes of a man realizing his fate.
This was a losing fight, the four legends present all knew. The Monarch was faced with two of the most competent warriors in the Grand Order – both legendary figures in their own right – while entirely on his own. But even then, with his ruthless skill and body transformation, he would have still stood a chance. But, unfortunately for him, his opponents were supported by someone who sat comfortably within the ranks of the top healers in the universe, and that fact, above all else, was what spelled his certain defeat.
If his plan had succeeded, everything would have gone his way. The Grand Order, with the forces they had brought, would have been nothing, less than ants in his way. But even the best plans, plans that had been carefully constructed and painstakingly laid out over a hundred years, were not safe from the whims of fate. No one could have predicted, certainly not the Monarch, that the one life he had spared, out of sheer hubris and the tiniest, tiniest morsel of sympathy, would have been the one to ruin everything for him.
But he was the Insect Monarch after all. He had not lived his life as he had to bow down at the end, even to the wills of fate. No odds, no enemy, not even Astros itself in all its might would make him kneel without resistance.
Fate may have won, at the end of it all, but he would not deserve his title if he didn’t fight it to his last breath.
