Is the Sleeping Dark Beast Just Standing Quietly?

A fleet of Kushan galleases closes silently around the Seahorse under cover of a murky night. Timing their approach to the moment much of the crew is absorbed in Schierke's ritual, the raiders fire ballista bolts to pin the vessel in place and let their soldiers climb aboard from behind.

Serpico and Isidro are seated on the top deck when noise from the stateroom draws their notice, and Serpico sends the boy to investigate. Realizing the ship has been boarded, Serpico reaches for a sword he left behind in the stateroom and finds himself trapped. On Isidro's shout he vaults the railing and drops nimbly to the lower deck, where the two spot a Kushan clinging to the outer hull and Isidro drives a foot into his face. From there they see the boarders have already penned in everyone inside the stateroom.

Elsewhere, a group of Kushan pushes into the space beside Guts' cell, where Azan is caught mid-feast on pilfered food with a few crewmates and comically scrambles to hide the evidence. The chapter's colored artwork was drawn by Studio Gaga's Hideki Sugimoto under the supervision of Yoshimitsu Kurosaki.