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We’re all excited about how the story of Solo Leveling is going to progress when it returns for season two, but those who kept up with the popular web novel already know where the world is headed. It’s a tough road ahead for Jinwoo and his friends, but at least we finally discover the truth about Jinwoo’s incredible powers and the nature of the gates that have been popping up all over the world. In the Solo Leveling ending, Jinwoo becomes the greatest hero humanity has to offer.

We’ll be giving plenty of spoilers for the ending of Solo Leveling, so if you want to preserve the anime experience now might be a good time to turn away.

What happens at the Solo Leveling ending?

As Jinwoo advances in power, we find out that Earth has been chosen as the battleground between the Rulers and the Monarchs, two groups of beings that represent Light and Darkness in the universe. Their battle would inevitably destroy humanity, so the Rulers used the Cup of Reincarnation – a powerful relic created by their master called the Absolute Being – to turn back time and try to prevent humans from dying out.

However, no matter how many times they turned time back, humanity still faced the same fate. So, they went back one more time and created the Gates in order to help humans become strong enough to defend themselves in the coming battle.

Ashborn, the Shadow Monarch who had once been a Ruler, chose Jinwoo as his vessel and gave him the ability to “level up” as a way to help his body adjust to the incredible power he was about to receive. When he eventually grows to his full power, Jinwoo prepares to fight the Monarch of Destruction and his army of 10 million dragons.

What happens in the final battle of Solo Leveling?

When Jinwoo fights Antares, the Monarch of Destruction, he teleports the pair of them to a remote island so they can end their battle without destroying more of humanity. Jinwoo injures Antares enough that the rest of the Rulers' armies arrive to finish the powerful Monarch off, but that isn’t exactly the end of the story.

Jinwoo asks the Rulers for one last gift – to use the Cup of Reincarnation one more time. He goes back, with all his memories and powers intact, to before the start of the series. After spending a bit of time enjoying peace, he goes to fight the Monarchs on his own. It takes him 27 years, but he succeeds in killing them all and preventing humanity from ever having to encounter the Gates or the monsters within.

Meanwhile, only two years have passed outside of the dimensional gap where Jinwoo fights the Monarchs, but he eventually returns and goes back to his normal life. He begins to encounter people who he knew in his previous life, this time without powers and in a safer world. Jinwoo manages to save humanity - and no one save for a handful of people even know what he did.

Fans have been divided over the ending of the Solo Leveling novels since the final chapter was published in 2021. While it is fitting that Jinwoo would choose to sacrifice himself to protect the rest of humanity, the fact that they resort to time travel to undo most of the events of the series certainly felt like a shortcut to a happy ending. 

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