Snake Lord

In his human guise the Snake Lord takes the field clad in heavy battle armor, wielding an axe from horseback. When pressed, he casts that shape aside for his released apostle form, a monstrous serpentine body that dwarfs his armored self and lends him the strength to lift a grown man one-handed. Reduced to a torso in defeat, that towering menace collapses into a pitiful, begging wreck.

Calm, domineering, and openly sadistic, the Snake Lord feeds on the terror he wrings from others and takes pride in it. He holds humanity in deep contempt, viewing people as mere food for apostlekind and dreaming of watching them flee through flames while their bones snap beneath charging hooves. In battle he glorifies himself as untouchable and routinely underestimates his foes, his arrogance swelling further once he sheds his human form. That bravado curdles the instant Guts overpowers him, and the tyrant is left whimpering for mercy.

The Snake Lord is among the many apostles who journey to attend the fifth Eclipse and take part in it. In the years before that, he lords over Koka, demanding tribute of gold and human cattle from the town mayor under threat of turning his malice on every resident.

Word reaches him that a black-clad swordsman has entered Koka and cut down his henchmen in a tavern. When the mayor arrives offering fresh tribute and news of the intruder's imprisonment, the Snake Lord scorns him, admitting he cares nothing for gold or captives and would rather see the town consumed by fire. Donning his armor, he rides out to raze Koka. Guts breaks free and halts the massacre, shooting the apostle from his horse and into a building. The Snake Lord assumes his true form and overpowers the swordsman, but while gloating he is struck by the cannon arm and split apart by the Dragon Slayer. Left as a helpless torso, he recognizes Guts as an Eclipse survivor by the Brand of Sacrifice, pleads uselessly for his life, and is buried alive beneath Koka's burning wreckage.