Grunbeld Arcbeast

Grunbeld Arcbeast is an antagonist in Kentaro Miura's epic dark fantasy manga, Berserk. Making his debut as a villainous Apostle, a monstrous entity that preys upon human flesh, he was not always this way. In Berserk spin-off novel called Berserk: Knight of the Flaming Dragon in which Grunbeld features as the novel's protagonist, tells how heroic Grunbeld forsook his humanity and became an Apostle.

Guts had called him out on his supposed "ethics", stating that monsters like Grunbeld should not pretend to have human qualities such as a warrior's code or pride. Guts' accusation makes sense; the fact that Grunbeld became an Apostle means he has betrayed and sacrificed those who loved and trusted him, having done something that is unacceptable to any humans with morality. Even before all these, above and all Grunbeld is an Apostle, a powerful being that transcends humans. So asking for a duel 'with dignity of a warrior' at this point as if he is still a human would make very little sense. Because how Grunbeld became an Apostle remained mystery prior to the novel published in January 2018, it was assumed that Grunbeld too, followed footsteps of other Apostles before and after him: lost to his own despair, betraying his loved ones to become an entity that transcends his own humanity to escape his predicament.

The truth was much more complicated than that.

Past
Grunbeld was born in island state called Great Principality of Grant. He belonged to the declined aristocratic clan called Arcbeast. He grew up without a father and was solely raised by a prideful and ferocious mother who always reminded who he is and instilled him only dying bravely in battle is he allowed to reach heaven called Gods' Manor in the afterlife so he must be brave.

Because he was bigger than average children, he ends up being picked on and was having constant brawls with other kids. One day he was ganged upon by multiple bullies, got beaten up badly and was left for dead. Due to great pain young Grunbeld was unable to move for a while. It was then he encounters a blind girl named Benedicte. Although Benedicte could not see, she could 'see' with 'mind's eyes' and through 'mind's eyes' she can see what others normally can't. She tells Grunbeld that he is a fire dragon incarnate. Under her assistance and guidance he goes to well that had a healing properties. Grunbeld immersed in the well and healed himself of his injuries. As he spent his time with Benedicte he felt his heart soothing and comfortable. When he exited the forest, the forest and Benedicte were nowhere to be seen: The forest was revealed to be an interstice between fantasy world and reality, just like Forest Manor of Spirit Trees where Flora and Schierke resided.

Soon after, Grunbeld's village was invaded and occupied by military sent by Chuder Empire. His servant was castrated and bled to death, his mother lost her life fighting Chuder soldiers to her bitter end. When she died she was gang-raped, had all her teeth and nails pulled out forcibly, decapitated horizontally and finally having her tongue cut off. Grunbeld would later grow up (age 14) and avenge her mother by killing her mother's murderer in a duel with wooden weapons exactly the way he killed her.

Grunbeld and other village children, who were captured and held in Chuder's watchtower, received conversion training under the harsh abuses of Chuder soldiers commanded by a Chuder officer named Abekarsis, to serve Chuder Empire. During this grueling period Grunbeld becomes friends with Edward, a bastard son of Archduke Hokon who is an influential aristocrat of Great Principality of Grant intimately involved in sovereign affairs. And Sigur, a teen born from noble family. Grunbeld becomes their leader and mental support to them. Abekarsis, who teaches children to turn them into Chuder soldiers through abusing them great deal, continued his attempt to brainwash Grunbeld into becoming Chuder. But Abekarsis ultimately realized that converting Grunbeld is impossible and decides to kill Grunbeld. The malicious Chuder disciplinarian has Grunbeld, Sigur and Edward on a cage fight against a tiger imported from the Kushan Empire. Edworld and Sigurdogue fight with Grunberg, but thanks to cunning wisdom of Edward the trio manage to buy some time until the night.

Eventually night descended and the trio must fight a tiger in a caged arena. Armed only with wooden swords, the three teens, as planned, grabs burning torches. It turns out they waited until night because they wanted to obtain torches, as the tiger, being an animal, instinctively fears fire. Grunbeld fights tiger with a lamp but tiger was very big (3m long and weighing 500kg), heavy and ferocious: Grunbeld was struggling against the predatory beast and Edward ends up losing one of his eye. Just when everyone was cornered and seemed to be in great danger, Grunbeld saw a warhammer hung over the arena and in desperation, attempted to grab it. But the warhammer, with length of 130cm was originally an artifact stolen from Grant temple by Chuders. It was not meant for ordinary humans to wield so it was treated as nothing more than a mere votive object. The real reason this warhammer was put in the arena was sadistic and unsavory: to have contestants seeing it and attempting to pick it up, but unable to due to being too heavy, then watching them wallowing in despair. But Grunbeld, with his immense strength, picked up the warhammer and killed the tiger with it by smashing its head with the weapon. (this is the warhammer that Grunbeld would use it in Berserk until it was destroyed by Guts wearing Berserker Armor)

Abekasis, not willing to let the trio go, attempts to shoot them down with Chuder archers, but Kiresten, who is the supreme commander of Grant army, crashed into the arena and rescued all surviving prisoners of Grant. After spending four years as Chuder captive Grunbeld was free. It was then Grunbeld discovered a face-like white stone (Behelit) that came out of Tiger's stomach. He obtains it and keeps it as his souvenir.

General Kiresten adopts Grunbeld as his own son and cherishes him dearly. Here it is revealed that Benedicte was a granddaughter of Kiresten. She lost her sight due to illness but gained intuition and had become Grant's medium. 14 more years later, Grunbeld has found himself as the fierce defender for Great Principality of Grant. Grunbeld was the commander of Grant praetorian guard and the leader of his own unit called Grunbeld Brigade. So long as Grunbeld was breathing, Chuder Empire would not dare harassing Grant.

But the tragedy sowed from within.

Archduke Hokon of Grant, was an extremely unstable and corrupt individual: when he was young rival aristocrats and even his own sister tried to assassinate him. Traumatized by these events, he became violent, paranoidal and distrustful of others. He relieves his stress by secretly kidnapping village's women and torturing them. He became jealous of Grunbeld's fame and support but his jealousy grew even worse when his wife (illegitimate) archduchess Fulda expresses her wish to bear Grunbeld's child. One day he got a contact with Chuder's Abekasis, and the two men plotted to eliminate Grunbeld. Abekasis offers the traitorous archduke marriage to Chuder's royal family, and in return Hokon would sell out his country to Chuder Empire for annexation.

Hokon decided to exploit Edward's jealousy towards Grunbeld, who while cherished Grunbeld as a friend, also yearned to be acknowledged and to escape from Grunbeld's shadow. To make matters worse for Edward he suffers unrequited love for Sigur, but Sigur secretly loves Grunbeld. Hokon's scheme was to mentally corrupt his son by having Fulda (who happens to be Edward's mother) married to Grunbeld and arrange Sigur's marriage, taking Sigur away from Edward. When the news was made, people of Grant automatically assumed that Hokon chose Grunbeld as his successor of archdukeship over his son, and this flamed Edward's feeling of inferiority complex.

Meanwhile there was an assassination attempt on Benedicte's life thwarted by Sigur, which was engineered by archduchess Fulda who tried to eliminate Benedicte who was like a sister to Grunbeld. By killing her Grunbeld would be solely for Fulda to have. Fulda attempted to seduce Grunbeld but Grunbeld showed no interest. After Grunbeld left, Edward (who had things to discuss with Grunbeld) bursts into the room to find his mother naked. Psychologically shattered, Edward accuses his mother of exploiting his best friend for her own selfish agendas. Then Edward murders Fulda by strangling her. Hokon, never expecting his son to become corrupted to this level, was impressed and acknowledges Edward as his own. Hokon then instructs Edward to suceed him by removing Grunbeld. Edward had just crossed the point of no return.

With Hokon and Edward's schemes, combined with Chuder invasion led by Abekasis, pushes Grunbeld into a corner. Tricked by a falsified information, Grunbeld led 1,000 men to a battle, where 20,000 Chuder troops laid in wait. But even in such odds, Grunbeld and his men managed to score a miraculous victory and routed the Chuder by wounding Chuder commander Abekasis. As Grunbeld was returning to his headquarter, he discovers Benedicte and Sigur shot by arrows and badly wounded: Prior to going to battle, Grunbeld felt uneasy about leaving Benedicte unprotected in her temple so he entrusted Benedicte under Sigur. But Edward's troops barged into Benedicte's temple, raping and butchering all maidens they see. Benedicte and Sigur barely managed to escape and attempted to reach Grunbeld, but Edward, at first trying to capture two women alive, suddenly changed his mind and ordered two women to be shot dead. Sigur and Benedicte were shot by arrows from Edward's troops as they fled.

In the ensuing chaos Grunbeld was told of Edward's treachery. Before Grunbeld Edward, commanding 10,000 troops, displayed decapitated head of general Kiresten, who committed suicide rather than becoming a hostage and be a burden to his adopted son. Even worse, the Chuder troops that was routed previously by Grunbeld and his men, regrouped and returned to have a rematch. Grunbeld was surrounded everywhere by enemies. But even so, Grunbeld refused to give in and fought back ferociously, inflicting his enemies appalling losses. But Edward's scheme, combined with handicap of having to protect injured Benedicte, severely limited Grunbeld's fighting capability and this disadvantage eventually began to take toll on the champion. The end of the road for Grunbeld came when he was subject to bombard cannon attacks; although he withstood the first shot, he was unable to endure the multiple following shots. Grunbeld is still standing, but bloodied, broken, exhausted and unable to go on. Seeing Grunbeld's life decreasing by the minute, Benedicte prophesies Grunbeld to survive by sacrificing her and Sigur, then look for the Hawk of Light. As situation seemed hopeless, Grunbeld's blood smears onto his Behelit which, after rearranging its face to proper form, proceeds to summon God Hand, triggering Invocation of Doom. The four 'angels', Void, Slan, Ubik and Conrad tells Grunbeld to join the force that would be led by reincarnated Hawk of Light in the future. Grunbeld ponders of prophecy made by Benedicte which coincides with God Hand's testament.

Sigur was on the verge of dying and about to be raped by now insane Edward, Benedicte was also barely alive, and Grunbeld, realized that he too would die soon. Grunbeld forcefully declares that he is a dragon, and would offer his most important people to God Hand. No sooner than he said this, the Brand of Sacrifice was engraved onto bodies of Sigur, Benedicte and Edward - even though Edward betrayed everyone, he was still dear friend to Grunbeld: his value as a sacrifice was more than sufficient. Immediately after reborn as a fire dragon, Grunbeld devours Edward's lower body and kills his former friend for his treachery. Just before his life expired, Edward regretted - way too late - of all the tragedies and griefs he caused.

Grunbeld then focuses his attention to dying Benedicte and Sigur: Grunbeld says he loves them too much to leave them to be violated at the hands of their enemies and tells them that they would live on inside him. Sigur and Benedicte, dying of their wounds, understanding Grunbeld and wishing to let Grunbeld live, willingly submitted to their fates and was consumed into flames made by Grunbeld. Grunbeld, now an Apostle dragon, proceeded to annihilate Chuder army, killing his most hated enemy Abekasis by torturing him slowly; chewing off his limbs piece by piece before burning him alive. Finally, Grunbeld heads to the capital of Grant and kills Hokon who was waiting for Edward's return. Finally, Grunbeld destroys every single of Chuder's military strongpoints in Grant. After this Grunbeld the dragon has become a legend who saved Grant from the tyranny of Chuder Empire and was told among people of Grant from generation to generation. But of course, no one in Grant knows savage and bloody truth behind the myth of their fire dragon.

Few years after the bloody Invocation of Doom, Grunbeld was seen travelling through Midland occupied by Kushan Empire. For all those who saw him, they singularly called him: Knight of Fire Dragon.

The novel ends with Grunbeld pondering about his future.

"I was told... I was destined to serve the Hawk of Light."

In his past life, a word from someone he loved dearly is now his only diagram to his path in life. What could be White Hawk's identity? What does the White Hawk intend to do? What kind of enemies will he be fighting against in the future? Everything is within the palm of god...

Berserk

 * See Grunbeld in Villain Wiki.

Trivia

 * Edward, before losing his eye, desired to become famous by winning joust matches, but had to give up his dream after losing one eye. He then mentions Moonlight Knight Locus, a wandering knight who would also become an Apostle and ends up being Grunbeld's comrade-in-arms in Griffith's New Band of Hawk. But here Locus was already a famed fighter, suggesting that Locus might be older than Grunbeld.
 * Although Grunbeld's life had been stained with bloodshed, destruction, bereavement and tragedies just like his rival Guts, there are two decisive differences:
 * Grunbeld had embraced his predetermined fate and became an Apostle, whereas Guts rejects and defies his predetermined fate to die and continues to maintain his humanness.
 * Grunbeld's sacrifices voluntarily offered themselves to Grunbeld whereas Guts and Band of Hawk were sacrificed without knowing what hit them.
 * Kentaro Miura and his students nicknamed Grunbeld "Fake/Pseudo Guts" - they both use arm cannons, similar hair styles, impressions, both are leaders of raiding units, share tragic pasts, are bigger and stronger than average people, finally share similar armor designs.