After the opening theme song, we hop straight into Suphia’s battle against a particularly strong opponent, a bald man named Middray. She’s having a tough time against this guy, who seems to be having a great time and not even breaking a sweat, while his companion, Hermes, seems to be having a tough time getting the upper hand against Gabiru. After a few whiff punishes on Suphia by Middray, she wonders how someone like him could be working for someone like Clayman.

He corrects her to say that he’s actually a subordinate of Demon Lord Milim, to which Suphia interjects in surprise. These guys are Dragon Faithful, a kind of Dragonewt warrior that looks more like a human. While she’s still under the control of Clayman, we’ve been seeing a lot more of Milim’s influence on the lore of the world, and more about her in general. Speaking of which, the only information we have about Middray’s strength is that he thinks that he could go toe-to-toe with Milim herself! Luckily for Suphia and the rest, this fight wasn’t hostile on any level and felt more like an honourable spar between Benimaru’s forces and the enemy forces. Gabiru only knocked out Hermes upon defeating him, and Middray wasn’t particularly interested in killing Suphia either. The two factions join forces later in the episode because of something mega dangerous! Smells like an alliance is afoot!

Yamza, the Middle Finger of Clayman’s aptly named Five Fingers, is severely outclassed in his match against Albis, one of the Eurazanian Beastketeers. Albis is also known as “The Golden Serpent” and she is one of Demon Lord Carrion’s most powerful subordinates. This is especially clear when Yamza unleashes his trump card—a special ring that enables him to create a doppelgänger of himself which we assume is just as powerful as the original.

We can’t say for sure since Yamza got absolutely punished in this fight when Albis decided to reveal her true lamia form. With purple lightning emanating from her, as well as heavy winds picking up from the explosion of ki, Albis’s transformation destroys Yamza’s doppelgänger ring in an instant and he is scared into surrendering. However, as he is about to admit defeat, Clayman shows again why he’s a vile leader by using his marionette technique to force Yamza to ingest a special crystal that turns him into Charybdis! This fight establishes Albis as a monster, even among the Beastketeers, perhaps even at the level of someone like Shion prior to her revival!

With Yamza being turned into the legendary monster Charybdis, Suphia, Gabiru and Middray’s fight comes to an abrupt stop as a dangerous enemy threatens both groups. Middray and Gabiru’s forces come to a brief truce to take down the beast, with the Dragon Faithful using healing magic on themselves and Gabiru’s forces. However, their efforts are wasted with the presence of the new and improved Benimaru, who sees things go full circle in a sense as his Hell Flare attack vaporizes the monster in seconds. Last time Benimaru had to go against this thing, Hell Flare was too feeble to even leave a scratch, talk about growth! After destroying it, he attempts to intervene in the Suphia/Middray fight, but since both sides in that conflict have fully established mutual respect and a desire to fight alongside each other rather than against each other, Benimaru’s forces and Middray’s forces de-escalate the brewing battle between them. Perhaps we’ll see Benimaru vs Middray another time, fighting as allies, but for now, we’re pleasantly surprised by this calmer, more analytical and way more powerful Benimaru!

The last fight on the list for episode 44 was Geld and Phobio against the mysterious clown pair, Tear and Footman. Out of all the present servants of Clayman, these two seemed to be the most troublesome for Benimaru’s forces and other than Middray, Tear and Footman are the only others who are yet to face defeat. They give Phobio and Geld a tough time, overwhelming them without even breaking a sweat. Eventually, the order for their retreat is called, and they disappear without a trace, but not before declaring that if they had been serious, Geld and Phobio would be long dead. From all of Rimuru’s allies participating in this battle, Geld and Phobio had the roughest time, sustaining the most injuries and going up against some of the strongest enemies of the bunch.