Title: Solo Leveling Vol. 7
Author: Dubu (Redice Studio), Chugong (Original Story)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Publication Date: August 22, 2023
The Story
Volume seven of Solo Leveling sees the Jeju Island raid continue. Most of the hunters in the raid are exterminating the ants without hesitation. Victory is within grasp when the Queen is cornered. The Queen goes down and celebration rings out until… a super-powerful ant comes and starts ripping through all of the S-Rank hunters as if they were nothing! This ant calls himself The King and lets out a roar, summoning all of the remaining ants back to the hive!
With their hopes dashed, here enters Jinwoo to save the day. The King Ant wants to seek out the human king. When he asks Jinwoo if he’s the King, he responds with terrifying power that actually damages the ant’s exoskeleton. The ant resorts to speed but Jinwoo matches and exceeds it. When the ant summons the remaining soldiers, Jinwoo breaks out his shadows. The King Ant becomes so terrified, he tries to flee but Jinwoo compromises him to a permanent end… that is… until he cases Arise and makes the King Ant his new minion and gives him the name of Beru.
After this, shockwaves are sent through the world as they can’t believe that Jinwoo solo-cleared an S-Rank dungeon. If he wasn’t wanted before… he’s wanted now… especially by the United States. They tempt him into joining their association by bringing him in front of a person that claims she can raise a hunter’s limit with a forced reawakening. In the end, Jinwoo says he’ll think about it. On the way back, a B-Rank gate opens. President Go asks Jinwoo to take care of it. After he enters, it transforms into a Red Gate!
Characters
Oddly enough, most of the development here was placed on Beru… the King Ant. We learned that if it ate its victims, it acquired their memories and their abilities. Through this, it learned to talk. When he was risen by Jinwoo, he could still talk making him the first shadow minion to be able to converse with Jinwoo. It also has a new rank called General. An absolutely terrifying enemy and an even more terrifying minion. With Beru alone, Jinwoo has become an unstoppable powerhouse.
We do get some development with Jinwoo through Ms. Norma Sellner. She is the one who claims that she can increase a hunter’s limits. When she peers into Jinwoo’s soul, she sees only darkness… a darkness that stared back at her. For the first time ever, she freaks out and is nearly mentally broken by what she sees within Jinwoo. After Jinwoo apologizes (because he has no idea what happened), and takes his leave, Ms. Sellner admits that Jinwoo has no limits! This just makes me wonder how much more powerful Jinwoo will become.
We also got a bit of a glimpse of Jinwoo’s father who arrived on Jeju Island. He has someone with him that was able to put the scouting parties there to sleep instantly. President Go even asked Jinwoo if he put up a barrier but Jinwoo denies that. An interesting little tidbit.
Final Thoughts
More great action was had here but there was so much death and sacrifice…. A couple of the deaths actually surprised me but I’ll leave you to figure out who they were. Jinwoo continues to become more and more unstoppable and the thing is… he still yearns for more strength. There is now talk of him just being given the National Hunter rank but some are still hesitant to do so because they feel he’s not experienced enough! If only they knew…
Everyone still wants a piece of Jinwoo… or more specifically, they want him all to themselves. Right now, Jinwoo equals power… as in politics. Any guild or association that can lock him down will instantly become the top association in the world; however, I’m not getting the sense that Jinwoo is interested in that sort of thing. The only contradiction is that he was almost tempted by Ms. Sellner’s ability but after her freak out, he went right back to having doubts. The series is called SOLO Leveling for a reason. Jinwoo doesn’t really need anyone and a guild at this point would just be for resource purposes and nothing else.
Now that Jinwoo is trapped in a Red Gate, we’ll probably see him clear that in the next volume. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. I’m more interested in seeing if he finds anything useful from the gate!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press.
