The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 138: Battle Against Darkness
So, uh, this chapter is... weird. On one hand, I'm absolutely pissed off that Fraudrin gets hit with the Worf Effect something hard. For those who aren't aware, the Worf Effect is a term coined by people in the internet to refer to a storytelling trope when an established badass character (RE: Fraudrin) gets taken out by a bunch of new characters (RE: the Knights of the Azure Sky) to show how threatening these new characters are. And that leaves an absolutely bad taste in my mouth that one of the biggest villains in the series basically got, well, taken out like a bitch. But on the other hand, Fraudrin isn't exactly killed yet, his demon buddy is clearly watching it all go on and it isn't as un-foreshadowed as it seems since Wayeo was among the group that got knocked around by Meliodas before.
Anyway let's break down the chapter somewhat. The cover page is actually showing a scene happening elsewhere in the kingdom, all One Piece like, this time showing Guilla training princess Veronica. Though she really isn't doing all too well. Why can't Guilla be the one to train with the druids instead of Griamor? Guilla seems to be a lot more useful (and powerful) than Griamor will ever be.
We start the chapter off with Fraudrin-Dreyfus walking down this random mining town, taunting Dreyfus about how the three of them, with Griamor, had walked around here to buy Griamor's armour and ironically says about how he wants to be a Holy Knight. And Dreyfus is's apparently perfectly aware for however long Fraudrin's been possessing him... which is apparently very very long because Fraudrin claims that he knows Dreyfus longer than he knew his wife. Or son, by proxy. Dude, that's pretty fucked up.
Apparently Dreyfus can mount a small token of resistance, causing throbbing pain within Dreyfus's head, and actually making the demon tattoo disappear in one scene. But Fraudrin doesn't even treat it as anything more than an inconvenience.
Fraudrin is about to snack on a bunch of unsuspecting civilians when this little girl in a red riding hood outfit shows up and winks at Fraudrin all cute-like. She kind of flirts with him -- nothing too femme fatale or sultry -- but she's all like 'oh, you look like a Holy Knight!' and then throws off the hood to reveal herself as Deldrey, member of the Knights (or Pleiades, depending on your translation) of the Azure Sky, led by Lord Denzel. The name Denzel, whoever he is (he's no one we've met before) gives Fraudrin pause, but he goes straight into soul-eating mode. Apparently demons can gain the memories of the souls they eat.
But Deldrey is all confident and shit... and Fraudrin punches his own face. Which looks brutal as hell. For a moment I thought this was Dreyfus putting up some resistance, but Fraudrin suddenly says things along the lines of "what am I about to do to my beloved Deldrey?", and Deldrey explains that her power, Love Drive, causes any man to fall completely in love with her upon seeing the slightest wink or affectionate gesture.
Fraudrin's attempts to throttle Deldrey turns into a gigantic "I LOOOOOVE YOU" which is both hilarious yet upsetting because, well, here is Fraudrin, one of the Ten Commandments and arguably Meliodas's archnemesis, and he's being played like a fool by this random girl who literally showed up of nowhere.
Fraudrin is shown to be able to resist somewhat, as is seen by him tightening his grip and not blocking all the arrows that came next... because Deldrey's partner, Arden, shot a bunch of arrows aimed at Deldrey. Fraudrin instinctively blocks them with his own body. Deldrey then gives Fraudrin a big ol' Poison Ivy kiss on the mouth to better exert her control -- can't be too careful, after all.
Fraudrin then threatens to destroy the entire town with the ridiculous "Milky Way Breaker Blade"... I'm not quite sure if Fraudrin still uses Dreyfus's power of... breaking things instantly or whatever the hell that was? Or if it's Fraudrin's demonic power, but whatever it was, it doesn't activate. Arden, the archer boy, shows up and tells us his ability, Bane, which will basically increase the magic requirement for each arrow shot into his opponent. Which is all video-game like, yeah?
Since magic is a bit of a problem, Fraudrin just leaps up, ready to slice Arden into bits with a single strike of his hand... when that strike is blocked by this muscular mustachioed short man, Wayeo... one of the three Knights of Azure Sky we saw quite a while back. Fraudrin's strike is strong enough to blow up buildings and the ground, standard anime stuff, but Wayeo goes all 'Deldrey I want to marry you', all Sanji-like, before, well, simply just knocking Fraudrin out.
Yes, those three dudes just took out a freaking Demon of the Ten Commandment by themselves. And even if you can make an argument for Fraudrin being 'sealed' within Dreyfus's human body, Human!Dreyfus was still strong enough to bat around almost all of the Seven Sins one-on-one back during the whole Hendricksen mega-arc. I mean, upon closer inspection there are obvious workarounds around these seemingly game-breaking powers. Love Drive can apparently be countered and resisted depending on the degree of flirtatious action took, and it can only cause the target to defend Deldrey and doesn't prevent Fraudrin from attacking Arden. And while Arden's powers may be useful for suppressing magic, it doesn't stop him from being demon karate chopped to death.
Wayeo... just gets his powers from his ridiculous chest hair, I guess.
I dunno. I could think of several reasons why Fraudrin got taken out -- it's a bid so that he can regain his real body, it's because he's stuck within Dreyfus's body, it's a trap to get to see this mysterious Lord Denzel... the fact that the Legion-esque masked shadow-Quintesson demon member of the Ten Commandments is just hovering and not helping Fraudrin out seems to imply that they're using Dreyfus-Fraudrin as... bait.
But still, the point of this chapter is still to make the Knights of the Azure Sky look good by taking out Fraudrin. And I guess I should be cheering for a bunch of good guys, but I dunno, it just looks cheap and I honestly don't particularly care for any of these three.
At the end we see Ban, revived from being turned into Ygdrassil fertilizer, apparently just going around looking for rumours of revival objects. Did we need that gigantic two-page spread of Ban? I mean, I like Ban and all, but that does seem too excessive even with the increased page count. They follow a tip to go to the bandit town Ravens, which seems to imply some connection to, y'know, Ban-dit?
Also holy hell Jericho really looks like Deldrey and I got confused that Deldrey was working together with Ban until he clarifies things up.
Overall I don't really know what to make of this chapter. Obviously Ban's appearance is a welcome surprise, but the whole worfing of a Ten Commandment member just for the sake of introducing these Knights of the Azure Sky dudes... it does set them to be important, that's for sure. Eh, I dunno. We still definitely haven't seen the last of Fraudrin yet, and I'm curious to see how this is handled. Not the best of chapters, certainly, due to how relatively obnoxious Arden and Deldrey were.
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