PowerRankings

One cited deathSolo Leveling
Does this death move the ranking?

Confirms the ladder

The higher-ranked entity killed the lower-ranked one. Record and ladder agree.

Sung Jinwoo vs Kang Taeshik

The killerSung JinwooSolo Leveling · rank 1
33 places
The victimKang TaeshikSolo Leveling · rank 34

Order of events matters far more here than the ranks do. At the time, the register still filed the killer at its lowest grade, and shadow extraction was not yet available to him, so the body yielded nothing and joined no army. An inspector on the Surveillance Team had taken three billion won to clear out probational prisoners, and had already spent it on two of them and a witness. He died for that. All the pairing bequeaths is his remark about the road Sung Jinwoo had started down.

The connecting record

shownSolo Leveling

Sung Jinwoo killed Kang Taeshik in Solo Leveling.

An Association inspector taking contract work on the side, killed nine chapters after the rogue crew and a dozen before the skill that keeps a body. Nothing came out of this one, and the register still had him at the bottom grade it issues when he did it.

What each of them is ranked on

The killer · Sung Jinwoo · rank 1

The second Shadow Monarch

Web novelWebtoonnovelcomicanimation

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.

Sung Jinwoo on the Solo Leveling ladder

The victim · Kang Taeshik · rank 34

Web novelWebtoonnovelcomicanimation
  • 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.

Kang Taeshik 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.