Berserk Volume 24

Desperate to find a sanctuary where his lover, Casca, will be safe from the demons drawn to her Brand of Sacrifice, Guts the Black Swordsman pushes his motley band of followers onward towards fairy Puck’s homeland, Elfhelm. With new allies who make their home in a mystically guarded woodland paradise, Guts’ goal seems within reach, but danger lurks in the shadows of even the most dazzling utopias, and even fairy witchery may not protect the wondrous kingdom from an army of marauding, murderous trolls! Created by Kentaro Miura, Berserk is a runaway manga locomotive, a crashing colossus of teeth-rattling action, spine-chilling horror, and taboo-breaking humor that fires the boilers of its devoted devotees and burns the rest. Ashes to ashes!

Guts, the feared Black Swordsman, is on the rampage — and it's personal. Mozgus, the malefic master Inquisitor of the Holy See, in his murderous campaign against heretics, has captured Guts' former lover Casca and has her at the ready to be burned at the stake in the Tower of Conviction, little knowing that Casca's demonic Mark of Sacrifice is drawing hideous dark powers to the Tower. It'll take everything Guts has and more to defeat Mozgus — who is much, much more than a man — and even if he can, will he be able to save Casca from the hordes of Hell amidst the inquisitor's disintegrating citadel?

Kentaro Miura's legendary adult fantasy/horror manga is now available at its original published size in handsome deluxe hardcover editions, each collecting three volumes of the acclaimed series. Collects Berserk volumes 22-24, including three fold-out color posters. The fall of the Tower of Conviction and the Grand Inquisitor, Mozgus, has heralded the unexpected return of Guts' former commander, Griffith, last seen transformed from a mutilated husk into a demon lord of the Godhand. Regenerated into health and beauty, and with his dreams of carving out a kingdom intact, Griffith has raised a new Band of the Hawk, but recruited from darkness to fulfill his deadly destiny.

Deep within the nightmare realm of Casca's dreams, Schierke and Farnese battle endless horrors to reach the dark secret that has imprisoned Casca's mind for so long. But the dreamworld dangers are no mere phantasms of the unconscious--they are a lethal reality to the intruders from the material world! From creator Kentaro Miura comes the latest chapter of Berserk, a sprawling adult fantasy epic of horror, humor, and fierce imagination and the inspiration for the wildly popular anime series.

Warrior supreme Guts, the Black Swordsman, has seen better days — and more popular — in the kingdom of Midland, a land he once defended as captain of the Band of the Hawk. But the Hawks were betrayed and slaughtered, and now the hyolier-than-thou Holy Iron Chain Knights have captured Guts and plan to whip some repentance into him — literally. But Guts isn’t so easily held at bay, at when he manages to escape with the Holy Knights’ leader, Farnese, as his hostage, the demons that are drawn to Guts’ Brand of Sacrifice are all too willing to show her the teeming darkness in her own soul!

Guts the Black Swordsman just can't seem to find a little peace. On his way to the idyllic tranquility of his miniature pal Puck's homeland of Elfhelm, Guts and his companions, at the behest of a local witch, assist a village beset by a plague of hideous and deadly trolls. Assisted by the witch's disciple, Schierke, the warrior band manages to turn the tide against the beasts, but when a monstrous ogre hits town, a tide of another kind is needed, a mystic flood to wash the town clean. But when Casca and Farnese are carried away by the flood, they become prisoners in the troll's den, where a fate far worse than any imaginable death awaits!

Hell has broken loose in the kingdom of Midland. On the death of Midland's king comes invasion, demonic forces seem to be on the rise, underground pagan cults are running wild, and the church is busily rounding up and teaching heretics the errors of their ways. While, Guts is busy testing out his newly repaired sword on the invaders, his former captain and lover, Casca, her mind wrecked by her unholy tryst with the demon lord, has fallen in with a rough crowd who don't exactly wish her well. But she, like Guts, is marked with the Brand of Sacrifice, and her abusers may soon find themselves face-to-face with the unholy abominations that are inexorably drawn to the Brand!

Now equipped with the mystical Berserker Armor, Guts fights on against the dragon-form of Grunbeld and his legion of fanatic apostle soldiers. But the very armor that holds Guts together — in a nightmarishly literal sense — might be the last straw that tears his tortured mind apart! While Guts struggles to hold his own against his inner demons, monsters of a very different sort rally in Windham as the Kushan Emperor, Ganishka, and the newly reborn Griffith rally their forces in a head-to-head struggle for control of all of Midland. But when the dust finally settles, there may be little left of the kingdom to claim!