There are more questions than answers with Helck at this point.  For a longtime anime watcher that will probably set off your radar in a couple of ways.  First, that the comedic tone of this series is at least somewhat a misdirection.  And second, that it’s got a while to spin a narrative.  Helck is a two cour series and while that’s a bit of a rush for the length of the manga, so far at least the pacing doesn’t feel at all rushed.  It’s an amusing start, but the sense is there’s a bit of an iceberg thing happening here.

The big questions as I see them:

• Who is Helck, and why does he (say he does anyway) hate humans so much?   Why does he seem resistant to the toxin which blankets the demon lands?
• Who are the winged warriors?  Are they human (seems obvious they’re not), or even allied with humans?  Or are the demon lords just making assumptions?
• Since the demons’ territory is so covered is miasma even they have to live in domes, why would the humans – who seemingly live in a verdant paradise – even want to conquer it?

As for this episode, it mostly consists of the journey of “Anne” and the four finalists to Castle Urum.  The wastelands are full of monsters spawned by the toxin, and the group (at least four of them) need to stop at shelters to escape the toxin.  But the monsters themselves don’t seem to present a huge challenge.  Dorsche (is it a coincidence that anime has two bald strongmen with that name?) gets most of the good gags here – like his “barrier” needing 30 minutes to erect.  Hyura stresses over what to call Vermillio, and Kenros acts chill and forms a one-man Helck fan club.

Another nugget of info is dropped when the quintet heads to the monster-riddled underground tunnel route to avoid a storm.  With enough toxin “new world” monsters are created, and they’re enough of a pain that even Vermillio is concerned.  But again, they’re no trouble for Helck – who has experience with them, for some reason.  We also learn from Azudora that he was the one who invited Helck to the tournament, with this eventuality in mind.  His wounds were self-inflicted, and he trusts the big galoot – though Anne is not on-board with that just yet.

Once at Castle Urum, Anne tells her crew that the one who takes down the leader will be the new demon lord.  Dorsche and Kenros don’t care, they’re happy to let Helck win.  But Hyura is obsessed with winning at any cost.  There appear to be less than a dozen winged warriors (angels?) here, nothing like the 103 described earlier.  But just one of them (the leader, seemingly) is enough to do Hyura some serious damage when she charges in recklessly.  I’m assuming she’s got some sort of healing powers and that arm will grow back.  But it’s clear who’s the one with the goods to actually defeat these things, whatever they are.