Nosferatu Zodd (1)

Guts has risen to raid captain since joining the Band of the Falcon and now commands mercenaries of his own. From a distance, Griffith, Casca, Corkus, Rickert, Judeau, and their followers watch him lead his troops against a castle held by Tudor forces. Judeau shares the unsettling rumor that a dreaded, near-legendary swordsman named Zodd fights on Tudor's side, a figure so old in the tales that he has earned the name Nosferatu and a reputation for being deathless. The word leaves the whole group uneasy.

Inside the castle, Guts prepares to breach a keep where fifty of his men were sent and never came back, all slain by one warrior within. When Gaston, his second, suggests calling for reinforcements, Guts refuses to trouble Griffith. A lone survivor then staggers out, half his body torn away, gasping the name Nosferatu Zodd before he dies, confirming the rumor. Guts orders his men to hold outside and enters alone.

Moving through the keep, Guts passes soldiers ripped to pieces despite their armor. Deeper still he finds Zodd himself, a towering, naked figure marked by animal features and armed only with a huge cutlass-like blade. Guts charges, but the far larger, far stronger warrior swats him aside with ease, seeming scarcely human.

Guts is established as a raid captain within the Band of the Falcon. The legend of the immortal Tudor-allied warrior Zodd is introduced. Guts enters the keep alone after a mutilated survivor confirms Nosferatu Zodd is inside, and his opening charge is casually repelled by the monstrous swordsman.

A Golden Age arc chapter, this twenty-page installment appeared in Young Animal issue twelve on October 23, 1992. It opens Guts' first clash with Nosferatu Zodd, one of the series' defining early encounters, and cuts off just as the fight begins, continuing directly in the next chapter.