剑风传奇

Created by Kenturo Miura, Berserk is manga mayhem to the extreme - violent, horrifying, and mercilessly funny - and the wellspring for the internationally popular anime series. Not for the squeamish or the easily offended, Berserk asks for no quarter - and offers none! His name is Guts, the Black Swordsman, a feared warrior spoken of only in whispers. Bearer of a gigantic sword, an iron hand, and the scars of countless battles and tortures, his flesh is also indelibly marked with The Brand, an unholy symbol that draws the forces of darkness to him and dooms him as their sacrifice. But Guts won't take his fate lying down; he'll cut a crimson swath of carnage through the ranks of the damned - and anyone else foolish enough to oppose him! Accompanied by Puck the Elf, more an annoyance than a companion, Guts relentlessly follows a dark, bloodstained path that leads only to death...or vengeance.

The evil Count uses his dark powers to transform a defeated guard captain into an inhuman horror to combat Guts, the Black Swordsman. Puck, Guts' pint-sized fairy sidekick, is captured when he attempts to stop an old doctor's execution, and he is given as a gift to the count's daughter, a sweet girl in a gilded cage, imprisoned by her father in her own room. Guts, determined to make mincemeat of the Count, assaults the castle and carves a swath of blood-soaked destruction through the Count's minions. Face-to-face with the Black Swordsman at last, the Count reveals his true form, and even Guts' super-sized sword may not be big enough to contend with this demonic monstrosity!

Guts, the feared Black Swordsman, finishes his desperate battle with the monstrous Count, cutting and blasting him to gory scraps when the presence of the Count's daughter makes the monster hesitate. But Guts won't even have the time to clean his gigantic sword when the Count's dying pleas activate the Behelit, summoning the five God Hands, demon lords of immeasurable power. Guts' journey so far has been a long road of pain and death, but that's a walk in the park compared to fighting his way out of Hell itself!

Now that the evil Count has been killed and dragged to Hell by the demon lords of the Godhand, Guts, the Black Swordsman, recalls his horrific upbringing and his brutal "benefactor," the mercenary Gambino, whose parenting skills leave much to be desired. His bleak childhood spent wandering from battlefield to battlefield, Guts' growing skills as a slayer catch the eye of many, including the legendary Griffith, warrior leader of the Band of the Hawk, who is eager to test the fighting prowess of the young swordsman. As usual, any time that Guts is involved, there'll be Hell to pay!<br /><br />Created by Kentarou Miura and the inspiration for the wildly popular anime series, <i>Berserk</i> is an unholy hurricane of blood, carnage, and horror! Brutal, crude, and darkly funny, <i>Berserk</i> is not exactly for the theater crowd...unless the theater features pit fights!

He is Guts, the Black Swordsman, a warrior of legendary prowess - relentless, fearless, merciless. As cold and brutal as the iron of the massive sword he wields. Bent on revenge against the unholy forces that have branded him for sacrifice, but especially on Griffith, one of the demon lords of the Godhand. But Griffith was once a man, the leader of the Hawks, a renowned cadre of elite fighters with a young Guts as its fiercest champion. Though forged in a crucible of cruelty and violence, nothing could prepare Guts for a confrontation with Nosferatu Zodd, a superhuman beast who slaughters Guts' comrades as easily as a scythe cuts wheat. Even Guts and Griffith are no match for the abomination's power...but something Griffith wears around his neck may well be!

Back in the day, Guts the Black Swordsman was a top slayer for The Band of the Hawk, an elite mercenary unit led by Griffith, whose calm demeanor and callow beauty belied his fighting prowess and steel will. While in a king's employ, the attraction between the king's daughter and Griffith and the growing favour of the king towards the Hawk leader raises the hackles of the king's jealous son, who plots to have Griffith summarily assassinated. But if the plot fails, the king's son will likely have to deal with Guts and his titanic broadsword, and the results of such confrontations are rarely pretty...or easy to clean up.

Two feudal kingdoms, Midland and Chuder, battle for supremacy in what will become the final clash in a century-long struggle. Spearheading the Midland forces is the Band of the Hawk, a legendary cadre of elite mercenaries led by the charismatic Griffith and with the fearless Guts as its berserker champion. The Hawks' ferocity, courage, and fearsome skills - not to mention Guts' enormous broadsword - are just what Midland needs to turn the bloody tide, but during the fray, Guts and Griffith's most trusted lieutenant, Casca, fall together from a cliff into a raging river. Miraculously, both barely survive, and Guts tends to Casca's wounds as she tells of having her life saved by Griffith, her induction into the Band of the Hawk, and her deep feelings toward Griffith. She even seems to finally be warming up to the grim Guts. But this greeting-card moment won't last long, for Chuder warriors are on the prowl, and the only greetings they carry are on the points of their spears!

The century-spanning war between Midland and Chuder continues unabated. The two warring kingdoms, vying for supremacy, launch headfirst into what will become the final battle. Leading the Midland forces are the Band of the Hawk, lead by the charismatic Griffith, with the fearless Guts as his trusted champion. But should the Hawks triumph again on the battlefield, the war with Chuder may end, but the secret war within Midland may begin as those who seek to rise within the court see the ambitious Griffith as an obstacle to obtaining power. And nothing is more formidable than an enemy unseen!

Griffith, charismatic leader of the elite mercenary Band of the Hawk, has seen better days. His fearless champion, Guts, has left the Band, defeating Griffith in personal combat as his ticket out. With his judgement clouded by this unthinkable humiliation, Griffith eases his pain in the arms of the daughter of Midland's king. But the King doesn't take kindly to an employee picking the royal flowers, and the next stop for Griffith is the dungeon and the torture rack! Without Griffith and Guts, the Hawks become easy prey for Midland's army, and the AWOL Guts may be the only answer to the Hawks' - and Griffith's - lethal problems.

Warrior supreme Guts has returned, and just in time to save the weakened Band of the Hawk from certain destruction...and to form an intimate bond with the beautiful warrior Casca. But job one is to find a way to free Griffith, the Hawks' leader, from the dank dungeons and round-the-clock tortures of the Hawks' former benefactor, the King of Midland. But while the flayed and starved Griffith may be in isolation, he is not alone. Horrors beyond imagination await Guts and the Hawks in the catacombs, and those who die may just be the lucky ones!

The Band of the Hawk - what's left of them - are on the run, Guts and Casca having rescued the Hawks' leader, Griffith, from the horrors of the King of Midland's dungeons. Starved, tortured mercilessly and imprisoned in an iron mask, Griffith hangs to life and sanity by a thread...and he'll be no help against the King's latest charges sent to bring him back to pay for his dalliance with the King's daughter. Now the depleted Hawks will have to face the Knights of the Black Dog, led by the merciless, bestial Wyald...one bad dog who's even worse when he unleashes the beast within!

The Band of the Hawks' rescue of their leader, Griffith, has brought them no ease. Broken beyond healing, a frail ghost of his former glory, Griffith is now more an object of pity than a man, and the Hawks, who've grimly hung together under duress and death during his absence, are now on the verge of splintering to the winds. But Griffith's dreams and ambitions, built on the bodies of his troops and the countless enemies they have slain, have not gone unnoticed in the spirit realm, and though Griffith has nowhere to go as a man, he may yet have a future...a future borne on jet-black wings in the company of the demon lords of the Godhand!

The Band of the Hawk may have been the most formidable band of fighters around, but when matched up against an army of abyssal monstrosities, earthly fighting skills don't amount to a hill of beans. The Hawks' tortured and mutilated former leader, Griffith, has used the accursed Crimson Behelit to open the gates to a shadowy realm of unspeakable horrors, the realm of the demon lords of the Godhand, who are willing to transform Griffith into a being of terrible power and majesty as long as Griffith is willing to give up his former command as sacrifices in the Invocation of Doom. But nobody takes down the Hawks without a fight, and their berserker champion, Guts, will take on anything Hell can throw at him in order to save his lover, Casca, from the sordid violations that only Hell can offer.

The once unbeatable Band of the Hawk is smashed, and their former leader, Griffith, has made an unholy pact with the demon lords of the Godhand, sacrificing his former troops to resurrect his crippled body and ascend to stand in power beside these profane gods. The Invocation of Doom has unleashed a plague of unspeakable horrors upon the earth, and the first battle not only shatters the Hawks, but the hand of their champion, Guts, and the mind of their captain and Guts' lover, Casca. And while time may heal some of Guts' wounds, it will not heal his desire for vengeance. And his discovery of a gigantic, dragon-slaying sword might be just the ticket to deal out some king-sized payback! Also included in this volume is "Berserk Prototype," the very first Berserk story, created during Kentaro Miura's college days as his audition that sold the series!

From his days as a young mercenary to his time as captain of the Band of the Hawks' Raiders, Guts' life has been defined by his ability to fight and his will to win. Now cursed with the Brand of Sacrifice - a sigil that will forever mark him as prey for the damned - and with his companions dead, his lover's mind destroyed and his one-time commander and friend reborn as a malevolent demon lord, it seems that more than ever Guts must rely upon his instinct to survive. But Hell has many faces, and when what appears to be an innocent country village proves to be a den of tragic secrets, the horror of a fairy tale perverted by pain and hate may prove to be more than Guts can handle!

Warrior supreme Guts has been marked for sacrifice to the armies of the damned, and now he has the blood of a village of possessed children on his hands - a horde of elf-demons straight out of a fairy-tale fever dream. But now Guts must deal with the Queen of the Elves herself, and though she may be cute as a button, she has hideous power and lethal intent, and in her wake, no one lives happily ever after!

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!

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!

The bewildered and near-mad Casca, former captain of the Band of the Hawk - and former lover of Guts, the Black Swordsman - has been adopted by Midland's pagan cults as a witch, due to her demonic Mark of Sacrifice. But the Holy Iron Chain Knights campaign to rid the kingdom of heretics by any means necessary puts Casca in mortal danger, and Guts is having none of it, But all parties involved may end up with more than they bargained for as demonic spirits, drawn to Casca's brand, begin to possess the heretics and unleash the forces of hell. But hell hath no fury like the Black Swordsman!

The Black Swordsman Guts' former captain and lover, Casca, has been taken by the Holy Iron Chain Knights to the "Tower of Conviction" of the fanatic torturer of the Holy See, Mozgus, who plans to treat the rumored witch to the proper agonies of the damned, but Guts is on his way to rescue Casca and dish out some chastisement of his own on any who get in his way. But forces in the demonic realms are in motion and are being drawn to the torture tower in what may be a prelude to a second Eclipse and an unprecedented release of malign spirits into the world!