All the Inhuman Monsters

Ubik, the tiniest of the God Hand, tells the mercenaries that the crimson Beherit came to Griffith only because he is fit to become a demon. The bare figures ringing the band, it says, are all apostles, monsters born the same way as Zodd and Wyald through ordinary Beherits. Griffith's stone is something else entirely. Where a common Beherit yields an apostle, the Egg of the King will elevate Griffith into a fifth member of the God Hand. When Slan mentions offhandedly that the band will be slaughtered to bring this about, the apostles all laugh and, in unison, cast off their human guise before the frozen humans.

Guts rounds on Griffith, asking whether he truly means to trade the band for his own ascension. Griffith cannot answer aloud, yet he stares at the God Hand as if entranced. Void takes over, explaining that every life present has been drawn to this moment by causality, an event it names the Invocation of Doom. Conrad then pushes the ritual forward. A giant palm heaves up from the ground of faces to lift Griffith into the air. Guts rises with him since he still grips Griffith, but the rest of the band loses their footing as the earth reshapes into an enormous arm. The faces cushion Griffith so he will not plunge to his death, yet they do nothing for Guts, who dangles only by Griffith's hand. Agony shoots through Griffith's wounded arm, his fingers slip, and Guts drops the length of the limb while Griffith keeps ascending. Driving his dagger into one of the faces to arrest his fall, Guts starts the grueling climb toward Griffith seated in the massive palm. Each finger of the outstretched hand holds a God Hand member, save the index finger, which still awaits its occupant.

Ubik reveals that Griffith's crimson Beherit, the Egg of the King, will make him the fifth God Hand rather than a mere apostle. The surrounding apostles shed their human forms in front of the band. Void names the moment the Invocation of Doom. A colossal arm of faces raises Griffith toward the God Hand, and after Griffith's grip fails, Guts is left clinging to the limb and starts climbing to reach him.

Part of the Golden Age Arc, this chapter appeared in Young Animal issue 7 on March 22, 1996, running twenty-two pages. Void's line about all things lying within the flow of causality later recurs in episode 130, where Puck echoes the phrase after learning that Rickert was the boy once rescued by the traveling performers he had joined.