Guardian (1)

As Rosine and Jill fly on, the apostle teases the girl about crushing on Guts and reassures her that adult guardians shield the Misty Valley's residents from any who would harm them. Meanwhile Guts reaches the valley's mouth, a wood of dead trees drowned in fog. Though no apostle is visible, his Brand bleeds, and deeper in he finds a huge mass of what look like human corpses, from whose center several figures rise.

They are the bandits who once seized Jill and fled the possessed tree, now stripped bare and caked in blood save for stray pieces of armor. They tell Guts that no grown man may pass, and when he refuses to retreat they spring at him on all fours. Guts hurls throwing knives and brings up his repeater crossbow, cranking it with his right hand while it rides his prosthetic left, landing precise shots in their eyes and mouths. The bandits seem slain, yet stir back to life and warp into insectine monsters. When Guts chops down at one, an earwig-scorpion hybrid catches the Dragon Slayer in its pincers and holds it fast.

Flanked by a centipede-man while seemingly disarmed, Guts uses raw power to sweep the sword sideways, halving the centipede even with the scorpion clinging to the blade, then splits the scorpion top to bottom. The bandit leader attacks next, changing into a giant beetle and rushing to shear him in half, but Guts backs against a tree so the pincers cannot close, raising the Dragon Slayer so the beast impales itself as it charges. Even dying, the beetle inches its pincers shut, driving their horns toward his neck, until Guts fires his crossbow point-blank through its unseen face and kills it. A tick-man then descends from the tree above while he remains pinned. His dagger chips against the pincers, so he braces his legs on the trunk and shoves off, working the horns loose from the wood despite them cutting deeper. Freed at last, the momentum sends him into a front flip that cleaves the tick in two before he lands. Bleeding from his neck and barely upright, Guts looks up to see dozens more of the bug-men perched in the fog-shrouded branches.

Guts enters the Misty Valley and is confronted by the bandits who abducted Jill, now transformed into insect guardians who forbid adults. He kills the scorpion, centipede, beetle leader, and tick monsters using his throwing knives, repeater crossbow, and Dragon Slayer. Badly wounded and losing blood, he discovers dozens more bug-men waiting overhead. Rosine, flying with Jill, boasts that the valley's guardians keep out anyone who might threaten it.

This 21-page Conviction Arc chapter ran in Young Animal issue 17, dated August 1997. It stages an extended solo battle that showcases Guts' repeater crossbow and prosthetic arm against the valley's pseudo-apostle guards. Deg, the bandit leader, is named among the chapter's cast.