Who is this woman sleeping inside of the holy ark? She looks very similar to Shizue of course, but we know she’s been there for much longer. I think it might be the previous hero who entrusted the mask to Shizue, but we know very little about her. Either way, she is now in Yuuki’s hands and from the looks of it slowly waking up. That also begs the question, why if she was waking up immediately after being released did Luminus keep her sealed up? Was it just to make sure she didn’t get away? 

We return to the fighting and Rimuru and Leon are starting their little playfight. I still don’t fully understand the point of all of this, but I think it’s to give Granville enough time to monologue and get some information out of him. This doesn’t seem to be going all that swimmingly though as Hinata is struggling against the former hero. Granville was a big part of Hinata’s training as he was one of the Seven Days Clergy and he knows the ins and outs of her ability to the point that he has countered most of them. She cannot steal his skills from him and he is able to keep up with her every move. Considering how much we know about Hinata and her unbelievable strength, that makes Granville pretty impressive. He was a hero once, sure, but he’s not been very active for a long time, so it’s surprising he kept his skills this well honed. 

We learn a little bit more about Louis here. He and Roy were apparently one person at first, being the Bloody Lord. When Luminus defeated him and made him work for her, she decided to split him into two people to mellow him out a little bit. This also means that when Laplace killed Roy in a previous season, he returned that strength to Louis, making the vampire much more powerful. Even though that’s true, Laplace is completely unbothered by the attack itself but recognizes that they might be out of their depth and since their goal was only to distract, running away becomes the next thing. Both Laplace and Footman head out of here, with Louis chasing them while sending Gunther to back up Luminus who is still fighting against Maria.

It is at this point in the midst of all this chaos that Luminus realizes what the true goal of this entire escapade was and sees that her holy ark has been stolen. She kills what remains of Maria and then loses her calm. Okay but why does Chloe immediately call Leon her brother? What the hell is going on here? Is it just because he summoned her at some point and made her call him that or this – the more likely answer – actually the Chloe that is Leon’s sister? I’m definitely very confused about all of this. But there isn’t much time to calmly discuss this as Luminus comes flying into the midst of this chaos to deal with Granville. 

We now learn the reason why Granville aged like normal despite being under the employment of Luminus where he shouldn’t age at all. He sent all of the energy that he got from Luminus into the body of Maria, choosing now as the perfect time to absorb it and get ready for a counter attack. And he’s still angry about Mariabel’s death, which makes sense since he’s her grandfather, but he also knew that she kind of called it onto herself. She was not a great person and he also doesn’t know that Yuuki was the one who actually killed her, so he’s not only angry at the wrong people, he’s working together with the one he really should be angry at. Yuuki is becoming a real Aizen Sousuke level villain where he is manipulating everyone against each other while sitting back and watching the world burn. 

The gathered forces against Granville are in for a bad time from the looks of it as the madman has seemingly prepared for every instance. We now learn something interesting though that sends Hinata into a fit of rage. He guesses something about her past and the darkness in her heart and throws out a guess that she might have killed a parent. We did see that Hinata was pretty depressed when she was taken to this world so perhaps something truly awful happened in her past back on earth that still haunts her and that is why she was unable to become a proper hero in this world. Regardless of the reason, she stands no chance against a powered up Granville.

As if to make everyone hate him as much as possible, he fires a powerful attack at Chloe because somewhere along the way protecting all of humanity became more about being the biggest possible scumbag there is. At least Clayman wanted to be a powerful demon lord and King Edmaris wanted to expand his land. They knew they were selfish, but Granville is pure evil pretending to be good, perhaps even tricking himself into thinking he is right. The attack cuts through Hinata, Venom and Leon’s shoulder before finally being stopped by Rimuru. The hit on Hinata looked especially bad. Venom is already showing to be a very trustworthy ally by jumping in front of Chloe and then also catching her as she falls. What a bro for someone who only joined the team recently. 

With Hinata dying due to Granville’s attack, she transfers her power to Chloe who then vanishes. We learn that Hinata’s soul has disappeared as well. Chloe seems to be much more important and much more complex than I initially thought. It is at this moment that Yuuki finally shows his face with the newly awakened Chronoa, who I’m guessing is the same as Chloe in some way. There is definitely some fuckery going on here that I can’t wait to unpack in the next few episodes because this is shaping up to be one hell of a cliffhanger. It looks like next week we get to watch three demon lords fight against a creature on the same level as Veldora. I know the author just does it to build at least some tension, but I bet Rimuru wishes Veldora was here right around now. Things are ramping up really fast and I’m excited to see where this goes. I didn’t expect Yuuki to actually show his face out in the open, I thought he would just run off to the east without interfering. My guess is that Granville won’t make it out of this alive and perhaps Luminus ends up dying too. I’m so confused right now and in the best way. I hope you feel the same and as always, thanks for reading!