PowerRankings

One cited deathSolo Leveling
Does this death move the ranking?

Off the scale

One of these two was never ranked, so this cannot move a ranking it is not in.

Ashborn vs Baran

The killerAshbornSolo Leveling · off the scale
The victimBaranSolo Leveling · rank 6

Baran sits sixth and his killer sits nowhere, so the pairing has no ladder to move — the estate had already changed hands before the System began reporting numbers at all. What it shows instead is durability. The cup that returned every other Monarch reaches back ten years; this death sits eons behind that line, and held. Kandiaru had to manufacture a replacement from scratch for the hundredth floor of the Demon Castle, which is the plainest measure of a kill there is.

The connecting record

shownSolo Leveling

Ashborn killed Baran in Solo Leveling.

Killed 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.

What each of them is ranked on

The killer · Ashborn · off the scale

The Shadow Monarch before this one

Web novelWebtoonnovelcomic

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.

Ashborn on the Solo Leveling ladder

The victim · Baran · rank 6

King of Demons, Monarch of White Flames

Web novelWebtoonnovelcomic

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.

Baran on the Solo Leveling ladder

What this does not settle

One death in one work. It is the only place the record puts these two in the same room, and it is evidence about that meeting and nothing wider — not a general matchup, not a rematch, and not a ranking of its own.

The ladder above it is argued from everything either of them has been shown doing; this page is argued from one citation.

Where the two disagree, the disagreement is the point, and it stays visible rather than being resolved by whichever of them happens to be on this page.