Summary
Solo Levelinghas been a cultural phenomenon with fans left and right in love with the story, but most especially the protagonist, Sung Jinwoo. As an overpowered main character, every battle he faced, he ultimately won, sometimes even too easily. Due to Jinwoo’s overwhelming ability, it is easy to overlook howhorrible a worldSolo Leveling is set in and how terrifying the monsters are.
There were several monsters over the course of the story, with many of them strong enough to defeat 90% of hunters and terrifying enough to sap every bit of joy and hope from their opponents.
Rank
NA
The Poisoned-Toothed Giant Desert Centipedes were the monsters that Jinwoo encountered when he was sent to the penalty zone for failing to keep up with his daily exercise routine. He essentially needed to outrun the monster for a full four hours.
The appearance of the centipedes makes them really scary, and the fact that when Sung Jinwoo ran from them, it was in the midst of a vast unending desert, which can be a very fearful situation with no help in sight and no buffs available. It is also unknown just how strong they are, and it’s hard to put them in a level or tier, but they are definitely strong.
B
When Sung Jinwoo joined a strike team with Kim Chul to clear a dungeon which turned out to be a red gate, one of the monster types they came in contact with were the ice bears, who weremassive white bearswith overwhelming power. To Jinwoo, they weren’t the strongest, but if he wasn’t in the party, the team could pretty much have been wiped out by the bears.
What made them really scary was how they hunted in packs — when one bear can’t do the job, several will. Normally, bears are solitary creatures, and facing off against one powerful bear is bad enough, but when they come in packs, what hope is there?
There are few things more terrifying than a monster with intellect. The Ice Elves were alsocreatures of the Red Gate, and they were the ones basically responsible for the death of Kim Chul and his strike team that abandoned Sung Jinwoo and the others.
They are intelligent, strong, and worse still, they are sadistic, often taking pleasure in killing their prey slowly. The fact that they could also act in stealth made them formidable. Their leader, Baruka, was one of the most formidable opponents Sung Jinwoo faced in both the manhwa and anime.
A
The Green Orcs And High Orcs are placed together as they are of the same race, and while the latter are stronger than the former, they are equally terrifying. The Green Orcs had the ability to smell their prey from great distances and could even ascertain the number of people through smell alone.
The high orcs encountered the team ofrenowned A-Rank hunter, Son Kihoon, and had them completely dead to rights if not for the intervention of Sung Jinwoo. One of them was enough to break Kihoon’s shield, and with their master, Kargalgan, being such a powerful mage, they were an almost unstoppable force.
Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of Hades, has appeared in various media and has always been a menace wherever it appears. In Solo Leveling, Cerberus was the guard dog for the demon castle, and it was the opponent that opened Jinwoo’s eyes to how difficult conquering the demon castle would be.
Cerberus fought Jinwoo to a standstill, and it took a lot out of the fairly naive Jinwoo at the time. His design as a monster with multiple heads also made for a frightening visage and was not a monster to be taken lightly. Jinwoo won the battle, but he knew to stay away from the demon castle for a while longer.
Nagas came around later in the story and were creatures that were part humanoid and part serpent, which gave them a level of mobility that not too many monsters had. They were in an A-rank dungeon and represented a means to show how much Jinwoo had grown.
Woo Jinchul, who followed Sung Jinwoo into the dungeon where the Nagas resided, noted that they were A-rank monsters and would have given even the most experienced hunters a difficult time. Nagas weren’t given the respect they deserved since they came about when Jinwoo was already close to his peak.
S
The Statues were one of the first monsters that readers and watchers first encountered when Sung Jinwoo and his team first wandered into the double dungeon where the architect resided to scout who would wield Ashborn’s powers.
The silent statues typically worked according to the rules that surrounded the statue of god, a mammoth structure and the pride of the architect. The sheer size of the statue of god, along with the destructive power of the other statues — especially when paired against the mostly helpless team of mostly D-class hunters who were with Jinwoo in theinitial dungeon foray— made for a really frightening situation.
The Arch Liches are monsters that usually reside in S-rank gates and are notorious after they wiped out a major Chinese guild, Gold Dragon, and caused a dungeon break. They are able to control the undead, who are very difficult to put down.
When faced with the Arch Liches, the Knights guild was about to be finished off before Beru, Jinwoo’s powerful Ant King shadow, showed up to defeat the Arch Lich. The Knights guild would have been unable to survive due to the Arch Lich’s power and the constant reawakening of the undead.
The Supergiant was the massive giant creature that heralded the dungeon break that affected the Tokyo area. The monster would be a huge fear for people with megalophobia as he stood, hulking and menacing, at the entrance of the dungeon.
He was capable of breaking Yuri Orloff’s barrier, which was said to be the strongest of all the hunters. The rest of the giants were also menacing and were more than a match for theS-rank huntersthey encountered and defeated.
Kamish would have been a crown jewel in Jinwoo’s shadow army. The dragon Kamish was the first S-rank gate dungeon boss and was the dragon that more or less set Thomas Andre on the path of being a top national level hunter.
The dragon was so terrifying, it brought down the entire West Coast area of the United States and killed a large number of the S-rank hunters that came up against him. Only five made it out alive. Even when resurrected in shadow form, he was still a fearsome monster.
