Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Having fully absorbed the powers of the Shadow Monarch, Jinwoo prepares for his greatest challenge yet: a fight with Antares, the strongest Monarch and the King of Dragons."
The Final Battle Arc is the 20th arc in Solo Leveling, a webtoon adapted from the web novel by Chugong, with art by DUBU (REDICE STUDIO) and story by h-goon. This arc consists of chapters 167-177 of the webtoon.
The last arc left us with the final battle only starting to begin, and with a Jinwoo who is now in cheat mode having leveled up to his highest possible form where he has no limits anymore.
Let's get into the details.
PLOT
As a final battle, it was more or less on the same level as the rest of the fights in this series. That means that it was a bit hard to follow, rather short, and with an expecting outcome because this is Jinwoo we are talking about here. You know that Jinwoo is going to come out of the fight victorious, but it is how and what it costs that is the real question here.
Honestly, though, the fight did end up going by real fast. Usually, it takes a good while to get through an arc, but before I knew it, I was at the end of it. That could also be seen as a good thing too though, that I was so immersed in it that I just blew through it.
WORLD-BUILDING
With the System now gone and Jinwoo having no limits, he is now granted abilities that come pretty much out of nowhere, such as sharing his memories. I get that he is now pretty much a higher being, but to throw in new abilities with no context doesn't make much sense.
CHARACTERS
Having worked his way through the Monarchs, Jinwoo now faces who I am calling the secret boss, Antares, the King of Dragons. While we got glimpses of the other Monarchs before they properly showed up, Antares was absent because, like Ashborn, he was unable to find a suitable host that could handle him. I don't know how I feel about this really, for the final showdown to be with someone who we didn't really get to see much of.
With Jinwoo though, while I am sure it is more prominent in the book, you get to see how much of a burden this has all been on him. While he has had people on his side, he has more or less been fighting this war by himself because he was the only one who had a clue as to what was going on, and he was the only one strong enough to do something about it.
Criticism #3 from the last post is back again, as we got a grand total of like 2 panels of Zhigang fighting, which was a complete missed opportunity and waste of an interesting character.
On the positive side, to the complete joy of all the readers, at some point into the fight, Jinwoo's shirt gets torn right down the middle.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
While this was a bit of a step-down from the last arc in terms of action and shock factor, it did end with a bit of a bang.
Now, onto some spoilery thoughts. If you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading now.
WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD - PROCEED WITH CAUTION
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I hope that goat man and German guy become friends.
Not gonna lie, although he is a shadow man, Bellion is kinda cute.
Beru told Jinwoo he was going to build him a small house, but build him an entire castle because he is his king lol.
He even made a throne and labeled it 'my king'
...Why they gotta attack Canada first?
Alright there Dragon King, you're also kind of good-looking too.
Yeah...that was a great panel,
Jinwoo looking backwards, shirtless, telling Antares that Ashborn sends you his regards while flipping him off
I think we all guessed that Jinwoo was going to choose to turn back time as soon as the cup was mentioned.