In an alternate timeline.
The void was silent. Except for the ragged breaths of the Dragon Monarch, Antares, who had finally fallen.
The battle that seemed neverending had finally come to a stop, with the Dragon King left helplessly on his knees, in front of the Shadow Monarch, Sung Jinwoo. Wings tattered, scales broken, and all hope crushed, Antares no longer resisted as Jinwoo reached for his throat, raising him up.
"Do it." Antares muttered, hair fallen over his face. "End it all, here and now."
The purple glow in Jinwoo's eyes never faltered, under his stoic calm. His shadow army behind him, postures rendering nothing but loyalty to their king as a few discarded the dragons of Antares, to form a path for their Lord.
"What are you waiting for?" Antares spoke again, voice weak and lower than the first, like a dying ember.
Jinwoo tossed him back on the floor and turned to his army. Glancing over his shoulder at the pathetic state of the Dragon King. "Live. Be a ghost. Go to there far ends, where your existence isn't even considered." Jinwoo replied.
Antares couldn't help but feel a pang of embarrassment and humiliation. This pained more than death as he watched the Shadow Monarch and his army disappear into the shadows.
"What a shame. Tsk tsk." A curt elderly voice came from the shadows.
He turned to see the Frost Monarch, Monarch of the Beginning, Monarch of Plagues and the rest of the Monarchs. They surrounded him.
"You're no king." Queresha, the Monarch of Plagues spat at his arm, a green fluid eating off him like acid. He didn't have the strength to retaliate, nor did he have enough to even groan in pain. "Just a disappointment." She added.
"So at the end, you still fell in the hands of that foolish Shadow Monarch? How pitiful." Added Tarnak, the Monarch of Iron Body.
"At least one of you is off the radar." the Frost Monarch, Siliad, chuckled darkly.
Antares gritted his teeth, trying to muster up as much strength as he could to face these traitors.
"No, no, no." Rakkan, the Beast Monarch grinned, stomping on his arm.
"It has come to an end for you." Siliad mused.
Before Antares could even register what was happening, his eyes dimmed. His body had been dismantled. Stabs, slashes, poison creeping into his very being. From below, a spike of ice went through his chest, holding up his body.
Siliad drew out his core, an orb of crimson energy inside it, that held an immense, nearly unending mana pool. The orb floated and the monarchs absorbed its power. Their aura became more immense and devastating, pure unfiltered power surging within them. They could now face the Shadow Monarch each, maybe not with a victory, but not the one-sided battle it would've been with their main powers.
As Antares's eyes closed, his orb shattered and became tiny dusts of deep crimson, dispersing in the air. They thought they had brought an end to this cycle, avoiding rebirth through a successor by absorbing his core. Unbeknownst to them, he had an inner core inside the main one. The dust none of them had noticed. It flied through dimensions, looking for a worthy vessel but failing in every attempt. It finally made its stop on earth, in Korea, where it morphed itself into a dungeon.