Whore Princess of the Uterine Sea

Slan chides the Skull Knight for spoiling her private moment with Guts. He answers plainly, puzzled that she alone among the God Hand appeared in the cave; she clarifies that no summons drew her, that she came willingly to see the swordsman. Griffith's return to the physical plane, she explains, has thinned the boundaries between the world's layers, and even she cannot locate her fellow God Hand members. Having volunteered answers to questions he never asked, she watches the Skull Knight draw his blade and responds by raising four ogres from the bloodied water around her and Guts.

Schierke, meanwhile, has raised two more barriers to shield her charges from a wave of trolls, one around herself and another around Isidro and the villagers. Her eyes shut in concentration, she cannot see that the trolls carry physical farm tools her wards cannot stop, so Isidro steps outside his own barrier to meet them directly. The Skull Knight brushes aside Slan's ogres and summoned trolls with ease, prompting her to boast that the Uterus of Darkness is her personal realm where she may conjure without limit. Her boast distracts her long enough for both combatants to notice Guts aiming his prosthetic at her belly, firing its secondary trigger with his teeth. Isidro, drawing courage from his salamander dagger and the memory of Morgan risking his life for him, dodges the armored troll leader's crossbow and axe, then guts it with a burst of flame from his blade. Slan's cannon wound merely arouses her and seals shut, but the Skull Knight tells Guts the Dragon Slayer can harm her because it dwells in the Interstice, and Guts drives half its length into her.

Running twenty-two pages within the Millennium Falcon Arc, this chapter was published in Young Animal issue nine on April 25, 2003. It establishes that a God Hand member cannot be killed by ordinary force yet remains vulnerable to the Interstice-bound Dragon Slayer, a rule that shapes Guts' fight for the remainder of the encounter.