Helck

Episode 7

After an overall good episode last week, this week's episode is good for slightly different reasons. It was easy to forget how much was at stake because much of the grander political movement lingered in the background. We know that the absence of a demon lord has been creating issues in the wider demon realm. But this is the first time the show detailed the extent of what the demon realm is dealing with. Not only do they have to deal with this constantly growing human threat, but other territories are under attack from other organized armies or random responding monsters. Again, the show did allude to this earlier to justify why they couldn't just send an army to fight the humans due to stretched resources, but it's nice to have it elaborated.

That said, a lot of this makes me wonder if I missed something because there are already established powerful demons that hold some political power. One of our main characters, Vermilio, is one of them. Why hasn't one of these demons become the new demon lord? It doesn't sound like it would be that big of a deal for the demon populace to accept. Plus, if it's all power scaling, Azudra is stronger than the top contenders to take over as demon lord outside of Helck, and he's the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings.

Regarding the human threat, it seems my theory was correct in that death plays a role in the humans getting stronger or, at the very least, the awakened humans getting stronger. Hearing the humans talk about how they will keep returning stronger and with new experiences felt like I was reading dialogue from an RPG. The humans even respawn in front of the king as if they had just died in a video game. We have yet to see precisely how the power scaling works and whether or not there will be any drawbacks since the main focus of this episode seems to be on the king of the human realm itself.

He went through an awakening to acquire the magic power necessary to utilize this respawn ritual on such a massive scale. It's quite smart if you think about it, but it's clear that there is something else going on with the king because he looks like the easy first phase of a Dark Souls boss. The plot moves forward, but now I'm cautious about what the next episode will bring since we'll spend most of our time back on the island with Helck and Vermilio. Hopefully, they can rejoin the main cast soon.

Rating:

Helck is currently streaming on HIDIVE.