The Beast Monarch

CHAPTER 10: King

Grim had never spoken out loud.

For fifteen years he'd been a trash slime. Mute. Kicked. Appraised as F. Even after evolving to Battle Slime, he only spoke through the bond, one word at a time.

Now he had a mouth. Wobbly, made of void-black slime, but a mouth.

"I remember you, little Monarch. Do you remember me now?"

The memory hit me harder than soul burn.

Not a System screen. A real memory. I was five. Burning up with Rift Fever - the disease kids get when they live too close to the first Echo Rifts. My parents - Mom in a Tamer lab coat, Dad with a Monarch crest on his shoulder - crying over me. No healer could fix it.

Dad held an egg. Not a beast egg. A Monarch egg. Black, pulsing with void light. Stolen from Cole's vault.

"If we bond it to him, it will eat the fever," Mom whispered. "But Cole will kill us for stealing a Mythic."

"Let them," Dad said, and put the egg on my chest.

The egg cracked and poured into me - not as a beast, as a shadow that sealed itself over my heart. A slime. Grim. He ate the fever. He saved me.

Then Bureau in black dragging them away. A man in a Cole white suit stamping my file: SSS > F. Stamping Grim's file: VOID DEVOURER > SHADOW SLIME.

They didn't just erase my talent. They erased him to erase me.

I was crying. In a flooded subway tunnel, Level 10, soul-burned, with a dying dragon, a defective chick, and a slime king looking up at me.

"I remember," I whispered to Grim. "You saved me first."

Grim's two light-dot eyes brightened.

Then let me save you again. Evolve me, little Monarch. No energy needed. Just accept.

I slammed YES in my head.

[Evolution Accepted: Memory Requirement Met]

[Battle Slime > Abyss Sovereign Slime King]

[Cost: 0 Points - Paid 15 Years Ago]

Grim didn't explode with light like Jorm. He imploded.

The Battle Slime armor collapsed inward, into his shadow core, and then unfolded out. Taller. Five feet now, then six. Slime became plated void-steel, black with starlight inside it. A crown of crystallized rift energy formed around his head - not worn, grown. His face finally had features: sharp, intelligent, loyal.

When he stood, the water in the tunnel rippled away from him.

[Evolution Successful: Abyss Sovereign Slime King - 4-Star Monarch Variant]

[Potential: 7-Star - Void Devourer Path Unlocked]

[New Skills: Sovereign Pressure, Void Maw]

[Loyalty: 100% - Memory Bond - Cannot Be Broken By Contract]

Behind him, Gale sneezed.

Not from cold. From proximity. The evolution energy was too much for a 1-Star chick.

Gale burst into light too.

Grey feathers shed, replaced by storm-grey and streaks of ash-red. His crooked wing straightened with a crack of lightning. He grew - from fist-sized to hawk-sized, wingspan a meter, talons crackling.

[Evolution Successful: Storm Feather Hawk (Defective) > Storm Talon (2-Star)]

[Bloodline: 0.3% Phoenix > 5% Phoenix - Awakened]

[New Skill: Phoenix Gust]

He landed on Grim's new crown, furious and proud, and shrieked. The tunnel wind howled back.

Marcus fell on his ass. "TWO EVOLUTIONS! Back to back! Luna, are you seeing this?"

Luna, his moth, was hiding behind his head.

Zara was staring at Grim, and then at Jorm. Jorm, a 6-Star Winter Sovereign Dragon, was... bowing. His massive head lowered to Grim. Dragons don't bow to slimes.

Unless that slime is a King. Unless that slime is a Monarch.

Evelyn's scanner was smoking. "Abyss Sovereign... Liam, that's a Monarch-class beast. The Bureau declared them extinct fifteen years ago after your parents' team was executed. You're the first Monarch Tamer in fifteen years."

Before I could answer, boots splashed in the tunnel.

Not Cole. Bureau. But not the arrest squad.

A woman in Bureau grey, hair silver, A-Rank crest. Commander Reyes - Evelyn's old mentor. The one who fired her.

"Dr. Stone," Reyes said, looking at Evelyn, then at me, then at a 4-Star Slime King, a 6-Star Sovereign Dragon, and a 2-Star Phoenix chick standing in a maintenance tunnel like we owned it. "You were right. The machines are rigged."

She held up a tablet. On it, my file - no longer F. SSS. Monarch. Restored.

"City-wide scan just went crazy," Reyes said. "After that Mythic evolution above, every appraisal machine in Old Tamer District glitched. Showed true potential for ten seconds. A kid with a Rust Rat got told it could be a Steel Emperor. A girl with a Puddle Slime got told Sovereign. People are rioting at the appraisal centers."

She looked at me. "You broke the lie. Cole's Board is meeting in 72 hours to decide what to do about you. Officially, I'm supposed to contain you."

"And unofficially?" I asked.

Reyes smiled, tired. "Unofficially, I brought you this."

She tossed me a guild license. Not F. Not D. B-Rank Provisional. With my name. And underneath, in smaller letters:

**Guild Name: **__****

Marcus picked it up before I could. "Monarch Guild," he said instantly. "For rejects. For trash beasts that the machines said were worthless. For tamers they told were F-Rank."

Zara stepped forward, still dirty, still holding Jorm's reins, but her eyes were clear. "Cole froze my accounts. I'm S-Rank with no house. If you're making a guild for rejects, I'm in."

Evelyn nodded. "Lab, research division. If you're going to prove any beast can be Mythic, you need data."

I looked at Grim - my King, my first partner, who had waited fifteen years in trash form to be remembered. At Gale, who was trying to set Grim's crown on fire with his new Phoenix Gust. At Jorm, who had chosen Zara over his own father.

Trash Tier. That's what they called us.

I took the pen Reyes offered and wrote two words on the license.

MONARCH GUILD.

As the ink dried, the subway wall behind us - a wall that had been there since before the first Rift, covered in kid graffiti that said MONARCH WAS HERE - cracked.

Not a rift. A seam. A door, with a crest I knew from my parents' shoulders.

And it opened for me.