Intrusion

With the Dragon Slayer drawn, Guts meets a leaping pishacha and cleaves it cleanly down the middle, a single stroke that stuns the gathered aristocrats. Taking him for some sworn knight, a cluster of nobles crowd in to ask whose banner he serves, only for four fresh tigers to shatter the windows and tear the questioners apart.

Serpico calls on his sylph cloak to spring far above the beasts, a feat that dazzles the room as much as the first kill did. He deposits Farnese near Schierke, Isidro and the clinging Casca. Guts turns to slip away, but Farnese pleads with him to hold the hall, since her whole family is trapped inside the banquet. Schierke adds her own coaxing, and he gives in.

Schierke tells Serpico she has traced the Kushan spellcasters puppeteering the tigers from afar, and he vanishes through a broken window to end them. Left with the beasts, Guts turns the fight into a lopsided rout in his favor.

Guts splits the first pishacha lengthwise and slays four more that burst through the windows, killing several noble bystanders in the process. Serpico uses the sylph cloak to vault the tigers and shelter Farnese with the others. Persuaded by Farnese and Schierke, Guts agrees to defend the banquet hall rather than leave. Schierke senses the location of the Kushan mages controlling the beasts, sending Serpico off to hunt them.

This is chapter 260 of the manga, part of the Millennium Falcon Arc, running twenty pages. It first appeared in Young Animal issue 16, published on August 12, 2005.