Mortal Combat (1)

His amusement gone, Wyald turns to finish Guts, who forces his fear-locked body into motion and slips the blow. He jams his sword up into the beast's fanged mouth and rips it free on the swing, drawing blood, then weaves past a flurry of punches and kicks before hacking the creature's legs out from under it. To the astonishment of the watching mercenaries, Guts is dueling the giant single-handed and gaining ground. He vaults onto the hulking form and buries his blade in the ape torso's belly, but the arms slam shut around him like a vise. Flung once more into the leafy canopy, Guts shatters every branch he strikes and coughs up blood on landing.

The reversal is swift. Wyald springs down beside him, launching Guts into the air, then swats him with the back of one enormous hand and sends him crashing into a thick limb, where he hangs motionless above the forest floor. The band, certain he is beaten, begins to wonder whether he still lives. Griffith, unable to walk, wills himself toward the wounded man until his own mouth runs red with the strain. As Guts hangs there, a memory rises of the punishing logs Erica once hurled down a waterfall at him, of the broken bones he earned, and of her doubt over why he drove himself so hard against mere humans when a monster like Zodd could crush any man alive. He snaps awake as Wyald reaches for him and rakes his blade upward, splitting the central eye and the small human torso beneath it.

Guts tumbles free as Wyald clutches the fresh gash, then slashes at the hand groping for him again. Finished with the game, the apostle vows to devote the rest of the clash purely to killing Guts, who remains set on fighting to the very end. The chapter sits within the Golden Age Arc and debuted in Young Animal issue 18. Erica figures only inside Guts' recollection of his training.