Shadow of Idea (2)

Mozgus and his two surviving disciples wheel toward the spirit horde, aiming to draw it off or break it apart while the refugees raise a stake for Casca's execution. Sharing that protective instinct, Azan marshals the Holy Iron Chain Knights into the fight against the possessed as well.

Isidro, hurled earlier into the Tower's wreckage, has come through it more irritated than hurt and dangles from the lip of Albion's outer wall. The din beneath him swells, and a glance down shows him Casca, now conscious, being shoved through the mob toward her pyre. From his perch at the Tower's summit, Guts sees the same abuse but has no swift route down to her.

Directly ahead of him, formless clumps of spirits the size of men well up out of the rubble. Fully shaped though they are, they make no move against Guts as he readies the Dragon Slayer. He wheels at the sound of more rising behind him, but these behave differently, fusing into four separate bodies that mold themselves into recognizable outlines. The image of the four archangels surfaces in his memory, and he places them: Void, Conrad, Ubik, and Slan of the God Hand. Rage carries his blade down onto Void's skull, yet the figure, being only gathered spirits, simply knits itself back together unharmed.

The Skull Knight's caution from the days before Albion returns to him, and Guts understands that these apparitions are not the genuine article. They are empty shells, unable to manifest in the waking world, and Femto is absent from their ranks. With that certainty fixed and the crowd's screaming rising, he settles on a single priority: Casca. As she is lashed to the towering stake, he drives forward through the shapeless spirits around him.

Mozgus, his disciples, and Azan's knights engage the spirit masses while refugees prepare Casca's execution. Guts confronts hollow apparitions of Void, Conrad, Ubik, and Slan, learns from a strike on Void that they cannot be harmed, and remembers the Skull Knight's warning that the God Hand cannot take physical form. Noting Femto's absence, he abandons the phantoms and charges to rescue Casca.

The middle chapter of the Shadow of Idea trilogy debuted in Young Animal issue 14 on July 14, 2000, spanning twenty-two pages. It pays off the Skull Knight's earlier counsel by confirming that the God Hand seen at Albion are incorporeal echoes rather than the true entities, a distinction that lets Guts refocus entirely on saving Casca.