The Monster Monarch System-Chapter 213: Breaking The News

"Someone killed him. He didn’t die at the hands of a Monster." Cole’s voice was steady, almost mechanical, as he cleared up the immediate confusion.

The thought that her father had been killed by something monstrous seemed to be the only thing that had been keeping Cecilia’s rage in check. But as soon as the truth of his death settled in, that rage flared again — this time, without any hesitation.

Cecilia’s fists tightened at her sides. The words ’someone killed him’ echoed in her mind, but the next question was unavoidable.

’Who?’ She needed to know. She had to know who had taken the life of the man she had once respected, even if the relationship between them had always been strained.

"Who did it?" Her voice trembled, betraying the rawness of her emotions. The anger was there, but the fear and confusion — those were worse.

"It’s Rem," Cole replied, his tone flat, emotionless.

It was a name she hadn’t expected, not in a million years.

The room seemed to freeze, the air thick with the weight of those two syllables. Tension coiled tight between them, suffocating. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

"No." Cecilia’s hands shot up in front of her, her soul energy flaring uncontrollably as she stood.

The power surged outward like a wave, crackling in the air.

She bared her teeth, her vision blurring with the heat of her fury. She wanted to lunge at him, to strike him, to somehow deny what he’d just said.

But Cole didn’t move.

He stood there as unmoving as a statue, his expression unwavering.

There was no hint of humor in his eyes, no sign of a joke. His face was set, almost distant, as if he had delivered a simple fact, something as ordinary as the weather.

"Liar!" she screamed, the force of her voice carrying the weight of all her disbelief.

Her soul energy whipped through the room, a visible extension of her shock and anger, wrapping around her in a tempest.

She wanted to fight. She needed to. But the look in Cole’s eyes stopped her in her tracks.

He wasn’t joking.

Her breath came in sharp gasps, and slowly, her soul energy began to die down. The storm within her faded as her body slumped back, exhausted, and her voice softened to a broken whisper. "Tell me it’s not true."

Cole’s gaze didn’t waver. "Unfortunately, it is," he said, his voice unyielding but lacking any hint of pleasure in delivering such devastating news. "I was there when it happened."

For a moment, Cecilia didn’t move. Her mind was racing, trying to make sense of everything, trying to piece it together in some way that made sense.

Rem? The person she cared so much about — his calm, calculated demeanor, his almost unsettling presence. He was the one who had killed her father?

She wanted to scream again. She wanted to lash out, to destroy something — anything that she could get her hands on — because this couldn’t be real... it had to be a lie.

"Then why didn’t you—!" Her voice cracked as she demanded to know why Cole hadn’t intervened, why he hadn’t stopped it. Why had he let Rem kill him?

"He was fucking crazed!" Cole’s voice snapped, the calmness he had held onto breaking, just for a moment.

His expression wavered — just a flash of something that hinted at the pain beneath. "I don’t know why, and I don’t know how... Rem is usually calm. He was always calm, whether we were sparring or talking. He was always clear-headed, strong..."

Cole’s fists clenched at his sides, and for a split second, Cecilia could see the way the memory of that day still haunted him. A different Cole, one she had never seen before, a person who had been forced to witness something that shook him to his core.

"He... he was screaming. Laughing. I’ve never seen him like that before," Cole continued, his voice quieter now, almost like he was speaking to himself. "He — he was out of control. I didn’t know what had gotten into him. I didn’t know why he was acting like that. He just snapped."

Cecilia could see the look in his eyes — something had broken inside him that day. There was a rawness there, a grief that she hadn’t expected.

For the first time, she saw Rem not just as a friend or rival to Cole, but as something more — a person, fragile in his own way, capable of unimaginable violence.

Her stomach twisted with the thought of what Rem had become in that moment. The man she had once thought of as an ideal — cool, calm, controlled — had been lost. And it wasn’t just her father’s death; it was something deeper, something that only Rem could understand.

Cecilia took a slow breath, steadying herself, trying to push back the storm of emotions churning inside her. She needed to understand. There had to be a reason. Why? Why had Rem done this?

"Why?" she managed to say, her voice barely above a whisper, but the question hung heavily in the air.

Cole’s gaze softened, just a little. "During the battle... Rem was screaming about how the Captain had killed his father."

Cecilia froze. Her heart stuttered in her chest, and for a long, painful moment, nothing moved.

Her mind clicked, the puzzle pieces falling into place all at once.

She thought back to everything she had learned about Rem’s past, about the tragedy that had shaped him into the person he had become.

Her father... Her father was the one who had ruined Rem’s family.

Suddenly, everything made sense. All the whispers, the half-finished stories, the secrets that had been buried deep beneath the surface — her father’s reckless gambling had destroyed Rem’s life, and it was that betrayal, that final injustice, that had driven him to murder.

Her breath hitched, and the realization hit her like a physical blow. He was the reason Rem became an orphan.

She closed her eyes, a wave of conflicting emotions threatening to drown her. Anger. Guilt. Confusion. It was too much to process all at once.

Her head throbbed with the weight of it. She raised a hand to her temple, trying to fight the dizziness. "I... I need to think," she said, her voice distant.

Cole nodded, stepping back toward the door. "I’ll leave you to it," he said quietly, before closing the door softly behind him.

Cecilia let out a shaky breath as she sank back onto the bed, her body heavy, her mind swirling.

’I need to find Rem,’ she thought, the need for answers gnawing at her. ’I need to hear his side of this. I need to understand why.’

But in that moment, she wasn’t sure what hurt more — the death of her father or the truth about the man who had killed him.

Her heart felt like it was breaking in two.

Cole stood outside the door, his palms pressed against his face as he groaned in frustration.

The weight of the moment was heavy, his heart aching in a way that he couldn’t shake.

He had worked so hard to keep his emotions in check, to maintain the cold, emotionless poker face he was known for.

But now, with the words he’d just spoken still echoing in his mind, that facade wavered. He could feel the cracks forming, and the ache in his chest deepened.

A slow exhale escaped his lips as he straightened up. The last thing he wanted to do was stay and feast.

His appetite had evaporated the moment the news left his mouth. What mattered now — what had always mattered — was finding Rem.

The search had to resume, no matter how complicated, no matter how painful.

But as he turned to leave, Cecilia’s face flashed in his mind. The devastation in her eyes when he’d delivered the news was something he couldn’t easily forget.

His chest tightened, guilt stirring in him. He had always been the one to carry the burden of decisions like this, the one to make the hard calls.

But that didn’t make it easier. He understood the pain Cecilia felt; if the roles were reversed, he knew he’d be torn apart too.

She had lost someone she cared about, and there was no way to ease that grief. But Cole could only focus on one thing now — he had to keep going.

He pushed the thoughts of her aside and set his jaw. Rem — he had to find Rem.

With each passing day, the boy he’d once known seemed further and further out of reach.

How much had he changed? Would he even recognize him anymore?

A bitter laugh escaped Cole’s lips as he began walking away from the town.

Rem had made his choice, and that choice had pushed them all into a corner. But what else could he have done? Given the same circumstances, Cole knew he would have done the same thing.

He would have taken the Captain’s life, no hesitation. He would have done whatever it took to survive.

But it was the other lives lost along the way — the innocents — those that weighed on him now.

As he moved through the shadows, torching anything or anyone who got in his way, he couldn’t escape the guilt.

The Cavaliers and Magus that had fallen under his flames were casualties in a war that seemed never-ending. Their deaths added to the bounty on Rem’s head, yes, but also to the tangled mess of regret that Cole couldn’t escape.

If only Rem had taken out just the Captain, if only he had spared the rest...

’Would it have made a difference?’ Cole asked himself.

But there was no time for what-ifs. There was only the mission. His heart still throbbed with the lingering ache of Cecilia’s sorrow, but Cole knew that to find Rem — really find him — he would have to push that pain down, just like he always had.

For now, all that mattered was the search. He would find Rem, and when he did, he would understand just how much the boy he knew had grown.

And he would make sure he was ready.