Episode 12: Arise

Flung across the throne room with no teleportation stone, no mana, and no strength left for skills, Jinwoo fights endless knights with his bare, bloodied hands. Jeering voices of former teammates, Kim Sangshik and Park Beom-Shik, echo around him, then Song Chi-Yul and Lee Joohee appear urging him to give up, and worst of all his own past self materializes, sneering that he will only ever be an E-Rank dreamer who has reached his limit. At the Hunters Association, chairman Go Gunhee speaks with Woo Jinchul about the trauma the third Jeju raid left on every survivor and the need to overcome it or face ruin.

As a knight prepares the killing blow, the deja vu of the Cartenon Temple grips Jinwoo, and the System intervenes once more: with his expired Daily Quest, he is whisked to the Penalty Zone, a blazing desert. There he buys mana potions to dump his fatigue, learns health potions cannot mend his serious wounds, and faces six giant desert centipedes that no longer frighten him at his level. Embracing the pain as fuel, he slaughters dozens, levels up, and restores himself fully. Back home, his sister Jinah stirs from an uneasy dream, notices his untouched dinner, and wishes he will make it back for her school's guardian-teacher meeting.

Jinwoo purchases the armor-piercing dagger Knight Killer and redeems Ruler's Hand, a telekinetic ability, then is sent back to the throne hall, where the knight count has swelled tenfold. Realizing the knights are merely summons and the mages the true threat, he hunts the mages with Dagger Toss, collapsing their summoned knights, dismantles a massive golem, and ends the wave. After four and a half hours, the quest completes.

Jinwoo's failure to complete his Daily Quest banishes him to the Penalty Zone, where he conquers the desert centipedes. He buys Knight Killer, obtains Ruler's Hand, and finishes the quest by exterminating the mages and a golem. The System assigns him the hidden necromancer class for his solo fighting style, which he reluctantly accepts after recognizing the value of no longer fighting alone. Because he endured the final stage so long and defeated everything, the class is upgraded to Shadow Monarch.

With the command word Arise, Jinwoo raises thirty shadow soldiers, the current maximum. He turns to Igris the Bloodred, failing two of three extraction attempts before an impassioned plea, asking the knight to fight for someone rather than guard an empty throne, succeeds. He names him simply Igris, and the shadow army kneels. As Go Gunhee watches the dawn and speaks of dreaming a new hunter will rise to guide humanity, Choi Jong-In's helicopter lands on Jeju Island, where he gasps at the giant ants from three years ago, now grown wings.

This twelfth and Season 1 finale adapts webtoon chapters 41 through 45 within the Job Change Arc. Noboru Kimura wrote it and Shunsuke Nakashige directed for A-1 Pictures, airing in Japan on March 30th, 2024, with the LEveL opening and krage's request ending.

One notable change softens the past self's warning: where the anime has him jeer that Jinwoo is still not good enough, the manhwa version foretells a future of more killing, painful sacrifices, and the abandonment of loved ones, paired with horrific images of Jinho, Jinah, and his mother dead.