Demon Castle Arc

Ninth in the Solo Leveling sequence, this chapter carries a stake that is intensely personal. Jinwoo descends into the Demon Castle, which the System has generated as an S-Rank instant dungeon. What lifts the arc above an ordinary raid is the prize hidden somewhere in its depths. A cure exists that could halt the terminal illness wasting his mother away, and the means of making it is the Holy Water of Life. With that secret at stake, conquering the castle becomes only half the goal.

Working his way deeper, Jinwoo confronts the demon lord Vulcan and strikes him down. Vulcan's fall yields a trove of rewards: the Orb of Avarice, a fragment of the World Tree, and a pair of Demon Monarch's Earrings. Metus stands next in his path and likewise dies, leaving behind both the Demon Monarch's Necklace and the Spring Water drawn from the Forest of Echoes. Finishing the opening stage of the soul-gathering quest then grants him a Cursed Random Box, which holds a strange black key, together with the long-sought recipe of the Holy Water of Life. Beside Jinwoo, the chapter features Baek Yoonho, the A-Rank Hunter James, Sung Il-Hwan, Hwang Dongsoo, and Yoo Jinho.

Far from the castle, the larger world begins to shift. Along Japan's coastline, a mutated Ant originally from Jeju Island resurfaces, now able to take to the air. Across in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Hunters pulls Sung Il-Hwan in for questioning. Once that interrogation finishes, Hwang Dongsoo provokes him into a brawl, and the exchange leaves Dongsoo beaten. For Jinwoo, the recipe he carries away is a genuine step toward saving his mother.