Ranked at peak, and what it was built fromweb novel · webtoon · Chugong
What HeIs Made OfThe Solo Leveling power ranking
Where the other rankings here carry a kill record at all, it hangs off the ladder as evidence — a named victim, a named work, something to check a placement against. On this one the record is what the ladder is made of. Sung Jinwoo's shadow army is a roll of things he has beaten, and most of them were threats somebody had to survive before they were soldiers taking orders, so a placement near the top is partly composed of the placements underneath it. The Association grades hunters from E upward, and that scale is furniture on this page rather than evidence — it never decides a placement, and where the page argues with it at all, it is because the story attached it to the wrong person. One flag on those records needs stating rather than inferring: a kill marked as reversed is one the story took back inside the same run of events the record belongs to — a heart restarted two chapters later, a Monarch handed back by the Cup with his memory intact and then killed a second time. The rewind that swaps one timeline for another carries no flag, because the record goes on being true of the timeline it describes; flagging those would put the mark on almost every line here and leave it saying nothing at all.
The short answer
Sung Jinwoo finishes first and nobody disputes it, which on this site usually means the top of a ladder is the least interesting thing on the page. Here it is the question, because his placement is an accumulation rather than a reading. Beru killed the leader of the raid Japan sent into Jeju Island before he was a lieutenant taking orders from anyone; Igris commanded for a different master long before he stood behind this one. So the honest way to ask how strong the top entry is, is to ask what went into it — and each answer has a row of its own here. Disagreeing with this ranking means arguing that one of the components is worth more or less than it has been credited, which is a better argument than the one about whether he wins.
Continuity
Medium
Rank 21 and below carry a name, its tags and its sources, and no paragraph. Not a lower standard of evidence — every one of them still cites — but a different amount of prose, kept where the disagreement is.
EvidenceCrowdΔ
Tier 00 · off the scale
The System issued no window
One instrument prints the levels, the stat lines and the titles this fiction runs on. It has an author, it has the one party it was built to serve, and it has a faction that went the whole war without finding out it existed — and those three positions are the ones it cannot rate. Nothing here is listed for being untested: one of them puts a spear through the entity ranked second on this page, and one of them commanded an army through a war the setting has still not finished clearing up after. They are listed because the device returns nothing when it is turned on the party that wrote it, the predecessor whose estate it exists to transfer, or the enemy who did not know to look for it. The absence is a fact about the device.
Wrote the System that issues every level, quest and stat line this ranking quotes, and ran the Cartenon Temple as the trial that picked one Player out of a party its statues were killing. Everything it prints appraises whatever is standing in front of it, and the output never once turns back on its author — so the one place a figure for it could come from is the one place it was never pointed. What got taken apart on that temple floor was a statue, and the man holding the blade worked that out for himself a chapter afterwards.
shownSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 2
The statues in the Cartenon Temple animate and kill members of Sung Jinwoo's party.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 3
The temple wall carries commandments the party is told to obey to survive the room.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 10
A notification offers Sung Jinwoo the role of Player.
All 7 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
The System was created by Kandiaru to help Ashborn develop a human vessel able to absorb his powers.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
Kandiaru offered Ashborn help finding a vessel in exchange for a chance at immortality.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 130
Sung Jinwoo slices the Architect's statue to pieces on the Cartenon Temple floor.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 131
Sung Jinwoo works out afterwards that the statue was not the Architect's body, and that the Architect is alive elsewhere.
Antares◆ — also ranked here, jump to the entryRun through from every direction at once, by the party he had spent the whole war trying to reach. Then the same party spent the last of the cup putting him back, at the request of the man he had been fighting.Solo Leveling · undone
Never learned the instrument existed. It was written by one Monarch's ally for one Monarch's purpose, and word of it reached nobody on their side, which is why the faction that spent the whole war hunting vessels never thought to grow one. A fragment of their authority does reach the page in a human's hands, and Thomas Andre spends that fragment on Sung Jinwoo across an abandoned factory — at which point there is a hunter to grade, a fight to score and a result to cite. None of it attaches back to whoever lent it. What the Rulers hand out acquires a figure the moment a person carries it, and they themselves stay off a scale they were never shown.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
The Rulers and the Monarchs are described as opposed sides of a war predating humanity.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 145
Thomas Andre's power is identified as a fragment of the Rulers' authority.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Thomas Andre attacks Sung Jinwoo and the two of them fight.
All 8 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Thomas Andre asks Sung Jinwoo to let Hwang Dongsoo go, and Sung Jinwoo refuses.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
The Monarchs and the Rulers were not aware of the System's existence or its capabilities.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 166
A Ruler's fragment acts through Sung Il-Hwan.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 177
The Rulers spend the last of the Cup of Reincarnation at Sung Jinwoo's request, turning time back ten years.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Every Monarch but Baran is brought back from the dead with their memories intact.
Baran◆ — also ranked here, jump to the entryKilled for the ambush rather than beaten in it, with a hand closed round the skull. The Cup of Reincarnation reaches back ten years and no further, and this death is eons outside that window — which is why it is the one Monarch killing on this page marked as holding, and why the only Baran anyone fights afterwards is a copy somebody had to build from scratch.Solo LevelingDoes this move the ranking? — Ashborn versus Baran, argued from this citation
Commanded the shadow army through the long war against the Rulers, and when two of his own side ambushed him near the end of it he put both down and killed one for the treachery — a win that left the army all but wiped out, and cost him centuries in hiding rebuilding it. Ashborn then waits for a vessel and hands the rebuilt whole of it across to Sung Jinwoo, at which point the System starts reporting what the recipient now has. Every window that concerns Ashborn is a window about somebody else's acquisition — a figure for the estate at the moment it changes hands, and none for whoever assembled it.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 161–162
Ashborn identifies himself to Sung Jinwoo as the Shadow Monarch.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 164
Ashborn transfers his power to Sung Jinwoo.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
Ashborn says the System was built to prepare a vessel able to inherit his power.
All 4 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 168
Bellion is named as the first of Ashborn's shadow soldiers.
Tier 01 · apex
The sum, and the thing it was for
Two ends of the same arithmetic. One of these is an accumulation, and the terms of it are ranked below with their own rows and their own citations — a strength that is other strengths. The other is what the accumulation was built against, and it got no smaller while the building was going on. This tier can hold something that also appears on a kill record elsewhere on the page, because losing once does not settle what a thing was worth before it lost.
Beat the hunter the register puts first in the world half to death with bare hands in a disused factory, took a Monarch's head off with a single stroke under Tokyo, and came back from a set of claws through the chest to finish the two still on their feet. None of those three left anything he could keep — one survived, one had no body to raise, one came apart into light. The wins that built him are further down the column and mostly smaller, which is the part of the arithmetic the highlights hide.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 1
The Association's register lists Sung Jinwoo at the weakest hunter grade.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Beats Thomas Andre to the brink of death with his bare hands.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 138
Decapitates Legia with a single strike.
All 13 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Cuts Querehsha in half and then reduces her to pieces.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Rakan drives his claws through Sung Jinwoo's chest from behind.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 162
Sung Jinwoo's heart begins beating again after the wound that killed him.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
Antares' army is frozen in place where it stands.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
The skill that immobilises Antares' army is named Dragon's Fear.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 104
The Ant King is defeated by Sung Jinwoo on Jeju Island.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160–165
The three Monarchs who invaded Seoul to kill him are all killed by him instead.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Every Monarch but Baran is brought back from the dead with their memories intact after the Cup of Reincarnation is used.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 179
He spends twenty-seven years killing the returned Monarchs one at a time.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 1
Sung Jinwoo is introduced as the weakest hunter of all mankind.
Waiting in the chaos worldNo human body in the setting could hold him, so he sat out the years the others spent working.
Crossed over in his raw formArrived without a vessel, which is why nothing that happened to him afterwards was survivable by proxy.
Web novelWebtoonnovelcomiccontested
Kills
Jay MillsBurned to cinders with one breath, at the gate he had come to hold.Solo Leveling
Burned the hunter who met him at the Canadian gate to cinders and turned an army loose across the country to make the Shadow Monarch come out. Countered everything Sung Jinwoo threw on that island and offered to call the extinction off in exchange for help against the Rulers. Lost his temper instead, left an opening, and took his father's dagger nearly through the middle — then understood that the fight he had been winning was the method, its distortion of space being what let the Rulers in.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 169
Burns the Canadian S-Rank hunter Jay Mills to cinders with his breath.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 171
His army cuts a path of destruction across Canada.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 176
Sung Jinwoo's attacks bounce off his skin without effect.
All 11 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 176
Offers to withdraw his forces and spare mankind if Sung Jinwoo fights the Rulers alongside him.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 176
Sung Jinwoo slices him almost completely in half with his father's dagger.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 177
He realises Sung Jinwoo had been aiming from the start to distort space enough to let the Rulers through.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 177
The Rulers appear in their raw forms and run him through with their spears.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Sung Jinwoo kills him in his palace twenty-seven years into the timeline the Cup of Reincarnation produced.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
Antares ordered Rakan and Baran to take out Ashborn during the first war.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Antares could find no human vessel able to withstand his power.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 228
Antares is named King of Dragons and Monarch of Destruction.
Tier 02 · the sovereign side
Arrived whole, owing nobody
Monarchs, and the humans carrying something on loan from the other side of that war. Membership is a test of origin rather than of outcome: none of these got strong by taking somebody else apart. Two were handed a fragment by one side of the war rather than being born to it, which is a loan and not a body. What becomes of them afterwards is a separate question and mostly a worse one — most of these names turn up as a credited death in somebody else's column. None of them was ever fielded afterwards, though, which is the odd part: most of this tier dies somewhere on the page, and not one of those deaths produced a soldier. The placements here are argued from what they did while still their own, rather than from what they were later worth to a new owner.
The people in the Seoul streetKilled where they stood, to make one man come outside.Solo Leveling
Went through Seoul on foot killing people in the street to draw one man out, and beat Thomas Andre the moment the restraint came off. Then, with Sung Jinwoo occupied by the Frost Monarch, drove a claw-first hand through Sung Jinwoo's chest from behind and left him dead in the road, which is a result nothing else on this ladder can show.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 156
Rampages across Seoul, killing people in the street as he goes.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 157
Defeats Thomas Andre after manifesting his spiritual body.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 158
Sung Jinwoo axe-kicks him into the ground.
All 6 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Stabs Sung Jinwoo through the chest with his claws.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 129
Ashborn defeats him and Baran together, and he flees the battlefield.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 213
Rakan is named King of Beasts and Monarch of Fangs.
Found Go Gunhee in his own office and killed one of the seven vessels the Rulers had placed in the human world, then bought the seconds a portal takes by throwing a wall of ice at the man who had teleported in to stop him. Turned up again in Seoul beside Rakan, and pushed that same man to the end of what he could absorb.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 150
Kills Go Gunhee in his own office.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 151
Forces Sung Jinwoo back with a wall of ice and escapes through a portal.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 111
Sung Il-Hwan ambushes him and Yogumunt in America, and both walk away from it.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Manifests his spiritual body against Sung Jinwoo in Seoul.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Sillad pushes Sung Jinwoo to his limit.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 165
Sillad says the restored Igris is a greater threat than Beru.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 200
Sillad is named King of Snow Folk and Monarch of Frost.
Regrew an entire body in seconds after being cut in half, and then discovered that the toxin she secretes did nothing whatsoever to the man holding the blade. Had walked into Christopher Reed's house with two other Monarchs beforehand and left what was left of him for the humans. Spent her last minutes trying to call a shadow ant back to its mother.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 140
Christopher Reed is killed in his own home by Querehsha, Rakan and Tarnak together.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Regenerates her whole body seconds after Sung Jinwoo cuts her in half.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Her venom has no effect on Sung Jinwoo.
All 8 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 160
Sung Jinwoo reduces her to pieces with Mutilation.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 159
Restrains Beru with her bare hands in the middle of the fight.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 159
Querehsha calls Beru hers and tells him he is being punished for fighting back.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Querehsha can reanimate and control the dead using parasites.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 215
Querehsha is named Queen of Insects and Monarch of Plagues.
Turned on the Shadow Monarch on Antares' orders with an army at his back, lost, and had his skull closed in one hand for refusing to say who sent him. Stayed dead through the rewind that returned every other Monarch. A copy of him built centuries later for the Demon Castle's hundredth floor had the better of Sung Jinwoo on strength alone until somebody else in the room broke his attention.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 177
Antares ordered Baran and Rakan to take out Ashborn.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 129
Ashborn crushes Baran's skull in one hand.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 85
The Baran in the Demon Castle was recreated by Kandiaru as its final boss.
All 8 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 87
Gains the upper hand over Sung Jinwoo on the Demon Castle's final floor.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 87
Esil Radiru distracts him at the decisive moment of the fight.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 87
Sung Jinwoo tears off his left arm and blows his head off with a punch.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Every Monarch except Baran is returned to life by the Cup of Reincarnation.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 107
Baran is named King of Demons and Monarch of White Flames.
Sat out the attempt on the Shadow Monarch's vessel and told the others it was suicide with Antares still away, which cost him nothing at the time. Picked Thomas Andre out of the Canadian battlefield after Antares came through, and found Bellion and Beru rising at him out of that hunter's shadow with the line back to Antares already cut.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Tarnak is among the Monarchs the Cup of Reincarnation brings back from the dead.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 152
Refuses to join the attack on Sung Jinwoo, calling it suicide without Antares.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 140
Appears in front of Christopher Reed while Rakan and Querehsha come in behind him.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 172
Bellion and Beru rise out of Thomas Andre's shadow in front of him.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 172
Tusk has cut his telepathic link to Antares.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
Thomas Andre, Bellion and Beru overpower and kill him.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 182
Iron Body Reinforcement strengthens his soul against life-draining effects.
Opened enough gates at once to put a dragon army into the sky over Canada, and had every one of them locked in place by a single roar, himself included. Declined the Korean attempt on the grounds that he had no wish to end up like Baran, and outlasted every other Monarch except Antares in the timeline that came after the rewind.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 111
Sung Il-Hwan ambushes him and Sillad in America, and both walk away from it.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 152
Refuses to help kill Sung Jinwoo, saying he does not want to suffer Baran's fate.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
Creates numerous portals to summon out the rest of the dragon army.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
Is immobilised along with the rest of Antares' minions.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Sung Jinwoo kills Yogumunt in the timeline the Cup of Reincarnation produced.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 178
Every Monarch but Antares was already dead when Sung Jinwoo came for Yogumunt.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 239
Yogumunt is named King of Demonic Spectres and Monarch of Transfiguration.
Spent eons in chains that drank his mana after being taken alive, and that capture is what tipped the first war toward the Rulers. Sat at the bottom of the Tokyo gate with an essence stone in the back of his neck afterwards, and nearly walked out of it by binding Sung Jinwoo into a spell where neither of them could lie to the other.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
Legia is taken alive by the Rulers and shown in chains.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
The chains holding Legia absorb his mana.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 163
Capturing Legia turned the tide of the first war in the Rulers' favour.
All 8 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 137
Casts a spell preventing him and Sung Jinwoo from lying to each other.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 137
Tells Sung Jinwoo he cannot be raised as a shadow soldier, lacking an organic body.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 138
Sung Jinwoo finds the essence stone implanted in the back of his neck.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 138
Decapitated in one strike, and his body dissolves into shards of light.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 174
Legia is named King of Giants and Monarch of the Beginning.
Korea's early yearsAwakened before the grading scheme existed, so nothing official ever attached to him.
Carrying the Rulers' authorityHanded a power and a target on the floor of a dungeon, as the price of a way home.
Web novelWebtoonnovelcomic
Walked out of a dungeon ten years after his family buried the idea of him, swatted down the squad that took him for a monster, and left the Bureau's headquarters as rubble when the interrogation went badly. Stood over his son's body in Seoul long enough for two Monarchs to fail at reaching it, kicking Rakan through Sillad and several buildings.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 56
Swats aside a squad of hunters who attack him inside a dungeon and knocks them all out.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon)
His fight with Hwang Dongsoo demolishes the Bureau's headquarters.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 111
Attacks Sillad and Yogumunt in America and is driven back.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 162
Kicks Rakan into Sillad, sending both crashing through several buildings.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 166
The Rulers found him in a dungeon, granted him their power, and set him to kill the new Shadow Monarch.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 60
His S-Rank strength was never officially recognised, the ranking system not existing when he awakened.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 68
Sung Il-Hwan is introduced as Sung Jinwoo's missing father.
Fought Rakan level for a long stretch of a Seoul street before the Monarch stopped playing, and was one of five hunters still upright at the end of the Kamish raid — he kept the fang that bit him and had it cut down into a pair of daggers. Went all out against Sung Jinwoo in a factory, lost to bare hands, and asked afterwards why his guild was still alive.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 149
Described as the strongest hunter in America and first in the world among the National Level Hunters.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Uses Reinforcement against Sung Jinwoo and is beaten to the brink of death.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 153
Kamish's fang was too short for a longsword and was crafted into daggers instead.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 157
Trades blows with Rakan in the street until Rakan manifests his spiritual body.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 145
The Rulers granted Thomas Andre power after magic beasts were discovered.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 173
Summons Bellion and Beru out of his own shadow and helps kill Tarnak.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 125
Thomas Andre is introduced under the epithet the Goliath.
Tier 03 · the annexed
Somebody's soldiers, rated as they were
The shadow army, placed on what each of them was before it took orders rather than on where it stands in the ranks now — and one of them was never extracted from anything, having been grown rather than taken. Most held a floor, a gate or an island against people who came prepared, and for most of them the defeat that produced the shadow is the only one the story records. Obedience says nothing about a ceiling, so a lieutenant's position here is not an argument for putting it over a soldier.
Tarnak◆ — also ranked here, jump to the entryCame up out of an American hunter's shadow to do it, alongside Beru, on a battlefield his own master was not standing on.Solo Leveling · undone
Came out of the fruit of the World Tree rather than off a corpse, which makes him the one soldier in this tier that no defeat produced — the first thing Ashborn ever raised, and lieutenant to two masters without a gap between them. Arrived in Seoul through a gate the Association read as needing every S-Rank on earth, then settled the internal question by swatting Beru into the ground.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 168
Bellion was born from the fruit of the World Tree.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 168
Bellion was the first shadow soldier created from Ashborn's power.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 167
Arrives in Seoul with Ashborn's original army through a gate over the city.
All 6 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 167
The Korean Hunters Association took the gate for a threat requiring all the world's S-Rank hunters.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 167
Swats Beru's attacks aside and smashes him into the ground in a sparring match.
Tarnak◆ — also ranked here, jump to the entryFielded out of somebody else's shadow for this one, next to Bellion, against a Monarch who could no longer call for help.Solo Leveling · undone
Took the heads off five Japanese hunters with one strike each on Jeju, swallowed a healer's head and came up carrying the man's language and his healing technique both, and then killed Goto Ryuji, who lasted exactly one hit longer than the men in front of him. Asked for a name once the extraction was done, before anybody had thought to give him one.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 97
Beheads five Japanese hunters with one attack each.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 99
Devours Min Byung-Gyu's head.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 99
Gluttony takes the healer's language and healing technique along with him.
All 8 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 100
Kills Goto Ryuji, who lasts one hit longer than the hunters before him.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 85
Goto Ryuji is the strongest hunter in Japan.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 105
Sung Jinwoo extracts the Ant King's shadow.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 164
Recorded at Marshal grade after Sung Jinwoo's ascension.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 124
The name Beru is taken from the author of The Ants.
Threw an A-Rank Sung Jinwoo around a boss room like laundry and had the sword raised to finish it before a dagger went into the eye slit. Tossed that sword away when the man decided to come at him unarmed. Had been one of the two wings of Ashborn's army long before any of that, waiting in a dungeon specifically to test whoever turned up.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 39–40
Throws Sung Jinwoo around the boss room and prepares to kill him with his sword.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 40
Sung Jinwoo drives a dagger into his left eye.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 39
Tosses his sword aside once Sung Jinwoo chooses to fight bare-handed.
All 7 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 165
Named as one of the two wings of Ashborn's shadow army.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Ashborn tasked him with testing his successor in battle.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 49
The Blood-Red Commander is the boss of the Job Change Quest dungeon.
Hundreds of S-Rank hunters on the American west coastEverything the country could throw at him as he came out of the portal, until five were left standing to finish it.Solo Leveling
Emerged from the first S-Rank gate anyone had ever seen and took the American west coast apart, killing hundreds of the hunters sent at him until five of the survivors managed it between them. Eight years dead in a basement under a federal building settled nothing — the reinforced case went when he stood up, and he had a breath ready for the people watching.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 115
Devastates the American west coast after emerging from the first S-Rank gate.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 115
The last five surviving S-Rank hunters band together and kill him.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 142
Sung Jinwoo raises him from the preserved corpse at the second attempt.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 143
Attempts a breath attack on the humans standing behind Sung Jinwoo.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 143
Tells Sung Jinwoo he served Antares while he was alive.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 143
His body crumbles apart from having been dead too long.
The ant hordes on Jeju IslandCleared in blocks with area spells, on the side he ended up on.Solo Leveling
Held the castle at the far end of the Hunters Guild gate, invited a strike team in as entertainment, and worked a catalogue of hymns named for the zodiac over them until the party's equipment carrier turned out to be something else. Refused the extraction several times over before it took, dead and still declining.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 74–75
Sung Jinwoo defeats Kargalgan and extracts the shadow from his body afterwards.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 71
Kargalgan is the boss of the Hunters Guild gate.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 71
Puts his spells on Son Kihoon in front of the rest of the strike team.
All 9 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 71
Kargalgan invited the strike team into his castle for his own entertainment.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 68
Sung Jinwoo entered the gate as an equipment carrier for the raid team.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Kargalgan's hymns are named for the signs of the zodiac.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 75
The extraction fails several times before it succeeds.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Clears ant hordes on Jeju Island with area-effect spells.
A hunter-killer with a family grudge, who went through Yoo Jinho to reach the man he actually wanted, and who had already been on the losing end of a fight with Sung Il-Hwan that took the Bureau's building down. Was raised out of his own corpse where it fell, and spent his first day of service with his forehead on the floor by order.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon)
His interrogation of Sung Il-Hwan ends in a fight that destroys the Bureau's headquarters.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 143–144
Tortures Yoo Jinho.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 143
Hwang Dongsoo went after Yoo Jinho to get revenge on Sung Jinwoo for his brother's death.
All 7 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Sung Jinwoo kills him and extracts the shadow from his corpse.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 147
Ordered to bow his head to the ground on his first day as a shadow.
Led the expedition sealed inside the Red Gate, split it, took the higher-ranked half to find the boss and watched every one of them die to ice elves before running. Came back at Sung Jinwoo out of his mind and was cut down by Igris for it — then stood up again inside the same fight and drove Baruka into the ground with a battle axe.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 52
Baruka's warriors kill every member of Kim Chul's raid party except Kim Chul.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 53
Igris kills a crazed Kim Chul as he attacks Sung Jinwoo.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 54
Sung Jinwoo extracts the shadow from Kim Chul's corpse.
All 6 citations
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 54
Kills Baruka by smashing him into the ground with his battle axe.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 54
Iron can restrain Baruka and open craters in the ground.
Carried the recreation rather than the Monarch — the copy waiting at the top of the demon tower, not the King of Demons who died eons before it — and was a corpse on that floor by the time Sung Jinwoo had finished with its owner. Has been transport since — a run to a hospital ward carrying the Elixir of Life, a night over Korea that put the wyvern on social media and the Association on the back foot, and a dive at the Tokyo giant that ended with him cut out from under his rider.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 85
Baran used Kaisellin as his battle mount.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 88
Sung Jinwoo extracts the shadow from Kaisellin's corpse.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 88
Flies Sung Jinwoo to the hospital where his mother is a patient.
All 6 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 90
Photographs of the wyvern in the night sky reach social media and the public asks what the Association is doing.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 136
Cut down while carrying Sung Jinwoo into the giant at the Tokyo gate.
statedSolo Leveling (web novel) · ch. 108
Sung Jinwoo names the wyvern's shadow Kaisel.
Tier 04 · the short rows
A line in somebody's record
Where the arguing stops and the accounting carries on. Almost nothing down here is argued: the rows carry their sources and very little else, which is enough to check a placement and not enough to enjoy one. Brief is not the same as inert, though. A good number of these are attached to a kill record somewhere on the page — usually as the victim that gives a row above its evidence, occasionally as the one holding the blade. A couple were taken into the army after dying, a couple more were tried and refused it, and one of those taken was handed back on somebody's request. It runs long, and it is meant to.
A naga with a trident in each hand, a size that goes up on request, and one reported blow that put a giant down. A shadow gets stronger by winning fights, but a grade is a grant — the Shadow Monarch has to authorise the step — and this one went from Elite Knight to General with neither half of that on the page, no fight shown and no order given on-panel. Which is why it sits below the annexed tier rather than inside it. The last entry on this ranking that gets an argument, and the argument is a description.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 122
Sung Jinwoo names the shadow of the boss naga Jima.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 122
Jima carries a pair of large tridents.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Jima is described as striking down a giant in a single hit.
All 6 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Jima is described as able to grow drastically in size using mana.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon)
Shadows grow stronger by defeating opponents in battle, but moving up a grade needs the Shadow Monarch's authorisation.
Two probational prisonersKilled on a contract taken the night before the raid.Solo Leveling
Kang JeonghoEliminated as a witness to the contract killings in the tunnel.Solo Leveling
Kim SangshikCut down beside Kang Jeongho and left with breath enough for one apology — owed to Sung Jinwoo, for the double dungeon, and delivered before the wounds finished him a chapter on.Solo Leveling
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 27
An inspector on the Association's Surveillance Team, paid three billion won the night before the raid to eliminate the probational prisoners.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 29
Murders two of the prisoners and is interrupted while torturing a third.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 29
Kills Kang Jeongho as a witness and cuts Kim Sangshik down beside him.
All 7 citations
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 30
Says he plans to blame the prisoners for the hunters' deaths.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 30
Kim Sangshik dies of the wounds Kang Taeshik gave him.
shownSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 33
Falls to Sung Jinwoo's Bloodlust and is fatally stabbed in the chest.
statedSolo Leveling (webtoon) · ch. 34
Warns Sung Jinwoo that he is walking the same dark path in pursuit of strength.