Nosferatu Zodd (3)

Now a towering beast, Zodd lashes out barehanded, and sheer terror leaves Guts too slow to react before the strike hurls him clean through a pillar. Shaking off the daze, Guts throws everything into evading as the monster roars at him to strike back. He does find a gap, but his blade only nicks Zodd's horns, and a second hit slams him into another column. Spent and battered, Guts can no longer rise; Zodd, let down by how briefly the clash lasted, still grants him a final word of respect for his grit and skill.

An instant before the finishing blow, arrows bury themselves in Zodd's back as Griffith and the Band of the Falcon arrive to pull Guts out. A second volley does nothing, and the furious monster tears into the intruders for breaking up his duel. With the beast occupied, Griffith reaches Guts and moves to get him clear, the young swordsman seething at having to be rescued at all. Their escape stalls when Zodd plants himself in their path, unwilling to let anyone walk out of the chamber alive.

The chapter falls within the Golden Age Arc and ran in Young Animal issue 14 on November 27, 1992, across twenty-two pages. It closes the three-part introduction of Nosferatu Zodd and his first savage encounter with Guts.