Chapter Mokushiroku no Yonkishi Chapter 260 Spoilers & Discussion

[Demonspeed]

Lancelot was holding back for days otherwise he would have nuked Camelot instead of taking his time just like he did the demon realm.

And on the other hand the recoil doesn't last for long , at least I hope not.

So when he arrives in Britannia , he'll be able to hold back once again.

Headcanon. It's never been said. And Camelot is much larger.

 

[Mountain-Photo-165]

Headcanon. It's never been said. And Camelot is much larger.

You think Lancelot has been spamming Nemisis level attacks off screen in Camelot ? , that's the headcanon.

Not to mention it's completely false , we've seen his level of attacks while he was in Camelot , he was clearly holding back.

 

[Covers]

Lancelot was holding back for days otherwise he would have nuked Camelot instead of taking his time just like he did the demon realm.

And on the other hand the recoil doesn't last for long , at least I hope not.

So when he arrives in Britannia , he'll be able to hold back once again.

Mel with his true magic gonna hold Lancelor recoil maybe with Ban help.

 

[Mountain-Photo-165]

Mel with his true magic gonna hold Lancelor recoil maybe with Ban help.

Wait, what? Why would Meliodas get his true magic back?

I think it's more likely that he goes Indura, so that both he and Elizabeth end up in the same situation until Tristan saves them in the future.

 

[Vortigern]

I'm very late this week. People thought the title was referring to Elizabeth, the Archangels or even the SD, but it turns out it was actually about Meliodas having a dream within a dream. This chapter was guest written by Christopher Nolan and M. Night Shyamalan.

I was initially quite disappointed by the first half of the chapter since it looked like Nakaba really had just revived Elizabeth out of nowhere, so the whole dream twist actually managed to salvage things for me. Elizabeth's spirit or what have you appearing in her husband's dreams to guide him has a nice ring to it and is a reasonable way to snap Meliodas out of his depressed state, though I will say that this whole plot point feels a bit pointless since nothing much has happened between now and Elizabeth's sacrifice. Even if Meliodas had pulled himself together earlier he wouldn't have been able to stop Lancelot from making a deal with Cath or arrived in the Demon Realm in time to save it so this depression episode didn't really amount to anything. It pretty much only exists because it would be weird for Meliodas not to be affected by Elizabeth essentially dying. Well, I suppose this chapter also serves to signal the beginning of the good guys' counterattack while laying the foundations for Tristan and Lancelot's relationship to mirror that of their fathers. If nothing else this might at least increase the odds of Nakaba one day giving us his take on the famous duel between their namesakes from the legends.

Tristan has a lot of catching up to do before that though, and I'm not sure sparring with Beltreipe is going to accomplish much in that regard. Some people seem to have expected the KotA to take part in some kind of special training to somehow become able to defeat Chaos-Lancelot, but I don't think that was ever really in the cards. Major power-ups in this series are basically always the result of characters undergoing significant personal growth, achieving long-term objectives or passing exceedingly difficult trials. This training with the Perils doesn't fall into any of those categories and it was therefore always going to be fairly limited in terms of its impact, except maybe for Percival. That said, I doubt the training is going to be completely off-screened or anything. At worst it might be skipped for now so that the knights can have flashbacks of their training when it's finally time to put those lessons to use. Tristan practicing swordsmanship with Beltreipe makes sense and the same thing holds for Gawain getting magic lessons from Worreldane, but what's going to happen with Percival? Is he going to get melee combat training from Pellegarde or spirit magic mentorship from Ironside, or maybe both at the same time? I could see Diodra getting involved in some way too since the Ironside death flag should be coming due soon.

Frankly the best way to handle the Perils' training would be for Merlin to use Aldan to cook up simulation versions of their Chaos forms like she did with Escanor so that the KotA can finally get some payback for their earlier defeat. The real Perils can stand outside the ring shouting instructions to the youngsters like some kind of boxing coaches. Pellegarde already has the personality down and his Chaos form even looks like a giant shrimp wearing boxing gloves.

WIll Lancelot go to Goddess realm? I mean the chances are still there, but very low after this.

Next chapter we probably gonna see Meliodas with 7DS ready.

Leaving 3 KoA training and forging their weapons who knows probably was off panelled.

Or maybe they gonna stall until the 3KoA are ready.

No. We already saw how Lancelot handled the Demon Realm and there's no reason to believe things would go any differently with the goddesses. It would essentially be like having the same event happen twice in a row. Moreover, unlike the Demon Realm and the Fairy Realm there still hasn't been an arc set in the Goddess Realm that introduces it and its denizens to the readers. Having the realm be destroyed before the audience even really know what it's like would be quite weird. The Goddess Realm is likely going to be featured properly later, presumably in part 3 because the Demon Realm appeared in part 1 and the Fairy Realm in part 2. Nakaba likes his numerical patterns.

I find it odd that Lance is called Tristan's best friend. Forced parallel? There was a time where Gawain and Tristan were lacking screen time but even after it changed I never got that vibe. Percival and Lancelot feel much closer. And before the timeskip it felt that Nakaba was going for the Percival x Lancelot and Tristan x Gawain for duos among the four. Tristan and Gawain also do have entertaining interactions.

Lancelot being Tristan's best friend is to be expected because it's something that Nakaba already telegraphed back in NnT. Remember how in the penultimate chapter of the series Meliodas and Ban just so happened to name their unborn sons at the exact same time? Ever since that scene it was clear that the two of them would be very close, which was reinforced by them being established as buddies before the sequel even begun serialization. Tristan has Chion as well but the latter's incessant simping makes their relationship more like that between a celebrity and a fanboy rather than one between equals the way a friendship is supposed to be. Lancelot's dynamic with Percival has a somewhat similar inequality to it too since he had to act as the boy's babysitter during the journey to Liones. I'd describe their relationship as one between a big brother and a little brother. They are close but there is a clear hierarchy between them, with the younger sibling always looking up to the older one.

Tristan has the most in common with Lancelot due to their shared background of growing up as the children of famous heroes, the princes of their kingdoms and most importantly hybrids who struggle to connect with their component clans. It makes sense that they would be close when each one is basically the only person in the world that the other can truly relate to as equals. There's a similar connection between Percival and Gawain given how both of them are on some level artificial and grew up in the care of foster parents without knowing the truth about their origins.

Also you mention in a different post how Lancelot chose to hang out with Percival after coming back from Benwick, but remember that this was the first time the two could have a chat after Percival literally died in front of Lancelot two years ago, which caused the latter to completely break down for a while according to Ban. It would have been very strange if Lancelot had not prioritized Percival after an experience like that.

The gradual shift away from the new characters and the 3KotA and back to the old established main characters of NNT has really hurt this manga in its pacing and its content, not to mention that Lancelot and Cath as a villain duo also suck.

Why are we wasting time on Meliodas and his mental state or the feelings of Elizabeth and Meliodas as a couple for each other? Their conflicts were solved, their relationship status is completely irrelevant to this story arc and if it only serves as a tool to give Meliodas motivation back to stand against Lancelot then it is an ill-chosen narrative tool. The focus on Diane and King and their family after the timeskip was still fine since it also introduced new characters and exposed new and old readers to their extended family. I said this before and I don't wanna mope needlessly on about this but Meliodas, Elizabeth and Ban take up waaayy too important roles and panel time in where we are right now in the manga. Their participation should not be as relevant as it is portrayed because this no longer feels like a sequel to the first series but more like an extension of NNT. Funnily enough Nakaba said he wanted to have this series as a stand-alone that can be understood even by new readers who have had no experience with NNT but in the process he has begun to rob it of the aspects that distinguished it from the first series. Tristan, Gawain and Percival, the 4 Perils and their related characters, the platoon members, Balin, Gareth, Bors, none of these people are in focus, none of them seem to matter. I didn't start reading this series only so that the dynamic all-powerful duo of Ban and Meliodas can heroically step up again and fix shit once more. I wanted to see a baton pass to a new generation that still hasn't happened and I wonder at this point if it will ever come because it isn't even clear if Nakaba will have the balls to kill of established characters in the long run. We might not even see that.

What are we doing here? I feel like week in, week out I am living in that meme of "trust me bro, just 50 more weeks, bro, then the manga will be back on track. It will be so good, bro, please, don't quit, just stay for a little longer, just half a year so Nakaba can cook bro, it's worth is, I promise"

I really, really want to like this manga, I really want to give it a chance but at this rate I feel like I am losing all interest with every week that passes and focuses on things this series absolutely doesn't need. Even art-wise Nakaba can't even be arsed anymore to finish drawing some of his newer characters. We get huge close-ups and double page spreads of Mel and Elizabeth and Beltreipe dueling Tristan is drawn as a fucking silhoutte. You can't find a more fitting and equally sad and pathetic visual display that sums up the state of this manga currently. Hollowed out, devoid of idendity, utterly subpar and uninteresting.

I can see where you're coming from when it comes to the focus on the old cast taking the spotlight away from the newer characters, but personally I'm not really worried about this becoming a habit. You bring up the passing of the torch and that appears to be the point of this whole approach. In order for the KotA surpassing their predecessors to be meaningful, especially to the readers unfamiliar with NnT, Nakaba first has to establish why the Sins are such a big deal in the setting. That's why we're seeing them fight these battles that their successors aren't quite ready for yet. The important detail to keep in mind is that they basically only have to go through their main abilities once before they're ready to step aside. For example, we've already gotten explanations for Ban's durability and his ST's ability, so the only thing missing is Snatch being highlighted in some way. After that Ban is either dying or at the very least getting benched for good. Meliodas similarly only has Revenge Counter and potentially his original magic left to reveal. For me them getting this attention right now feels appropriate since we're about to see the end of Cath. Once that ghost from the past is finally out of the way the story can move on to Arthur and the Round Table knights facing against new villains. I doubt the Sins will have much to do with any of that stuff, aside from Merlin of course. This is their last hurrah.

The other criticism of yours is a much bigger problem I think, that being the villains or more broadly the main conflict. Ever since the Perils got demoted from elite henchmen to fodder Cath has had to shoulder the villain role entirely by himself and he just doesn't have what it takes. Even with all of his power and hax he's simply too incompetent to maintain the kind of gravitas that someone in that role needs to possess. He works well as a kind of deranged schemer that the readers love to hate, but any time his plans fall apart he turns into a punching bag, which gets old fast. His temporary replacement is not much better either. I can appreciate the process of Nakaba hyping up Lancelot's strength this entire time in service to him eventually turning evil and becoming a seemingly insurmountable threat, but the execution is lacking both in terms of the flimsy romance that led up to it as well as the way it's currently going down. Lancelot being halfway corrupted with malice reduces his already often muted personality even further down to him either pleading for his enemies to run away or silently mowing them down. It's not particularly interesting to watch. Him being made to do all this against his will also means he's not an actual villain but more like a damsel in distress whose actions are ultimately going to be whitewashed somehow, presumably by revealing that Jericho and Zeldris are alive. I'd wager the only people enjoying the current arc are the Lancelot fanboys who can't get enough of him and the powerscaling crowd who only care about seeing big feats or whatever.

As a side note, your complaint about Beltreipe being drawn as a silhouette rings a bit hollow when we consider that the scene is highlighting Tristan as the physical manifestation of Meliodas and Elizabeth's love. That's why the boy gets a double spread that focuses solely on him, to the point that even the background is just pure white like a page straight out of Bleach. Drawing Beltreipe as a silhouette is a very reasonable move in this context and should not be taken as a slight against him.

 

[Covers]

Wait, what? Why would Meliodas get his true magic back?

I think it's more likely that he goes Indura, so that both he and Elizabeth end up in the same situation until Tristan saves them in the future.

Remember Zeldris comment on how only someone with Demon King power level can unseal the abyss where the demons are taking refuge.

Mel is only Demon King level with his True Magic.

 

[Mountain-Photo-165]

Remember Zeldris comment on how only someone with Demon King power level can unseal the abyss where the demons are taking refuge.

Mel is only Demon King level with his True Magic.

Honestly, I think True Magic Meliodas is too much, even for Chaos Lancelot. He's got that destruction hax with him, and there's no countering that.

There's no need for 4KOTA if True Magic Meliodas is around; the villains are cooked, and he removes tension way worse than Lancelot.

Besides, I don't think there's a reasonable way for Meliodas to get back the power he already sacrificed. Zeldris simply entrusted his people to his brother.

--- Double Post Merged, Today at 2:39 PM, Original Post Date: Today at 1:52 PM ---

Spoiler: Is Lancelot's Hazy Moon truly stronger than Meliodas's True magic ?