Blade & Bastard

Kumo Kagyu, the writer behind Goblin Slayer, teams up with Overlord illustrator so-bin for Blade & Bastard, a dark fantasy light novel series rooted in the classic Wizardry video game franchise. The story follows a party of adventurers exploring the treacherous dungeon beneath the city of Trefl, where death is not the end, thanks to the church's resurrection magic, fallen heroes can be brought back, but at a cost. Each revival chips away at their humanity, and the line between life and undeath blurs. The narrative centers on a mismatched group, including a stoic fighter and a reckless magic-user, as they confront monsters, traps, and the moral decay of their own repeated deaths. Drecom Media launched the series under their DRE Novels imprint in December 2022, with six volumes published to date. A manga adaptation, illustrated by Makoto Fugetsu, began serialization via Drecom Media's DRE Comics website in June 2023, now collected in eight tankōbon volumes. An anime adaptation by studio Xingfu is scheduled to premiere in 2027. [edit]