I'm Quitting Heroing - Episode 11 Review - Leo Is Struck Down by Echidna
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Following I'm Quitting Heroing - Episode 10, this ep picks up right where the last episode began. And it basically only progresses real time in the story about 1 minute.
Queen Echidna has just fired the Anti-Leo spell at Leo. Echidna notices that Leo has time to dodge the attack. But he doesn’t. He basically accepts the attack without struggling and smiles. He mouths out the word “thank you” to Echidna.
Then Leo narrates his origin story. Awesome. Always love slowing things down at the climax of an anime.
He talks about his 3,000+ years of life. At first, he was very useful to humans, protecting humanity from demons. He fought alongside his allies and won peace. Things calmed down, it seemed. But after a while, more war and violence came. In the form of regional conflicts. So Leo fought again.
Leo actually started to enjoy the fighting. It proved humanity still needed him for something. And then a new demon invasion came.
Leo journeyed the world searching for battle. He started to lose his mind when things became too peaceful. He started wanting to destroy things so he could save the world again.
As a DH series creation, he had programming inside of him that prevented him from thinking any thoughts about harming humans. But as he evolved, he outgrew this programming. So it no longer worked on him.
Then he came up with the perfect idea. Bring back the other DH series beings. Recreate them in the old lab to cause chaos and destruction. He would be the one to stop them and save humanity again.
Around this time, a portal opened up in the Seshat Mountains. This was the invasion of Queen Echidna’s forces. Leo learned of this and wanted to protect humanity again as he was programmed to do. This moment triggered his conscience. He finally realized bringing back the DH series beings was wrong.
He destroyed the lab.
Then he set off to destroy the Demon Army, but in truth he was looking for someone who could destroy him instead. He saw Echidna in person. He started researching her to see if she could be the one. Her soldiers loved her as being a kind and thoughtful person who wanted to make her own world a better place.
Leo started to believe that she could take his place to protect humanity instead. So Leo fought her generals and Echidna to get to know them more. That’s also why he eventually joined the Demon Army.
And now it all came to this moment, where Leo had set up a play with himself as the villain that needed to be killed off by Echidna and her generals.
The spell took everything out of Echidna, but it worked. Leo became weak, like he never gained those 3000 years of leveling up. And Echidna gave the order to her generals to all attack him with everything they had.
At that moment, it seemed Echidna and Leo could understand each other with their stare. Echidna realized what Leo was doing, and it pained her. Leo was afraid, but he accepted that this was the only way.
