Spider's Thread

Casca hangs senseless within the blood as the Demon Child materializes between her arms. Enraged, Mozgus welcomes the crimson mass as a trial of his faith, only for the egg-shaped being to lash a tentacle through his body, foam spilling from his mouth as his disciples are impaled in turn. Lost inside the tower, Jerome's party finds itself hemmed in by walls of faces closing from ahead and from behind.

Jerome notices the blood above him glowing and turning translucent and hurls his companions flat just as a jet of fire erupts from the stairwell, annihilating both masses; the Demon Child steers the flames clear of Casca before dissolving. The unconscious woman drops into the arms of Mozgus, whose mouth now breathes fire and whose hat brim ignites. Declaring the power a divine miracle meant to crush heresy, he sets a transforming disciple loose on Jerome's group.

The disciple, growths straining at its shoulders, swings its claw with such force that pillars topple and a wall bursts open to the night air. The weakened floor gives way beneath Luca, though Jerome and Nina haul her back before she plunges from the tower. On the rooftop the deformed being turns to find the Skull Knight looming behind it, while Guts, Puck, and Farnese race up the spiral stairs toward the summit.

Belonging to the Conviction Arc, the chapter ran in Young Animal issue 3 on January 28, 2000. It stages Mozgus' emergence as a fire-breathing pseudo-Apostle and the Skull Knight's first confrontation with the Egg of the Perfect World. Guts, Casca, the Demon Child, Puck, Mozgus, Farnese, Luca, Jerome, Isidro, and Nina all appear.