Golden Age Arc

The second arc of Kentarou Miura's Berserk and its most widely adapted, the Golden Age Arc has been retold as both a 1997 anime series and a film trilogy. It recounts how Guts rises within Griffith's mercenary company, the bond and rivalry that grow between them, and the catastrophe that leaves Guts a maimed hunter of demons.

The Kingdom of Midland and the Tudor Empire have bled each other for roughly a century. During the Sword Wind chapter, the wandering swordsman Guts catches the eye of the mercenary leader Griffith after felling the champion Bazuso, and Griffith wins him into the Band of the Falcon through a decisive duel. Over three years Guts becomes captain of the raiders as the band's victories earn the trust of the King of Midland, who commits them to the Hundred-Year War. During a siege they clash with the seemingly immortal Zodd, surviving only because the apostle spots Griffith's Crimson Beherit and withdraws.

In the Battle to Capture Doldrey, Griffith pledges to retake the border fortress that sparked the war, and his mere five thousand riders overcome Tudor's thirty thousand, ending the century of conflict. At the height of the band's fame, however, Guts grows dissatisfied with living for Griffith's dream and leaves to find his own path. Losing his most valued warrior throws Griffith into turmoil, and he rashly beds Princess Charlotte. Caught the next morning, he is imprisoned for treason and subjected to a year of torture while the band is branded an enemy of the crown.

A year later, Guts rejoins Casca and the scattered band, shares a night with her, and helps free a ravaged Griffith from beneath the Tower of Rebirth. The furious king dispatches the Bakiraka assassins and then the Black Dog Knights under the apostle Wyald, whom Guts defeats before Zodd tears the monster apart and foretells the beherit's return.

Reduced to a crippled husk by his torturer, Griffith activates the Crimson Beherit in despair and invokes the Eclipse. Reasoning that abandoning his dream would waste every past sacrifice, he offers up his own comrades and is reborn as Femto, the fifth member of the God Hand. Ravenous apostles feast on the branded mercenaries; Guts loses his left arm and right eye while Casca's mind collapses after Femto violates her, and only the Skull Knight's intervention spares the two of them. Vowing revenge, Guts arms himself with the Dragon Slayer and a cannon-arm prosthetic and takes up his black armor to wage war on the apostles as the Black Swordsman. The arc leads into the Black Swordsman Arc within the story and the Conviction Arc in publication order, and its total page count reaches 2,379.