Embark on the next stage of your Hollow Knight journey with this comprehensive guide. We’ll navigate you through acquiring key items, facing challenging bosses, and unlocking essential abilities to aid your quest through Hallownest. This walkthrough focuses on efficiency and progression, ensuring you’re well-equipped for the trials ahead.
- Journey to Dirtmouth and Acquire Grimmchild
After landing in Dirtmouth, your first objective is to head east towards the town. Locate the newly erected tents and enter the larger one to find Troupe Master Grimm. Speak with him to receive the Grimmchild Charm (10/40).
Entering Dirtmouth in Hollow Knight, proceed right to find the Grimm Troupe tent for the next objective.
Equip the Grimmchild Charm at a nearby Bench – resting will also save your progress. Then, utilize the Stag Station to travel to the City Storerooms.
- Ignite the Grimmkin Flame in City Storerooms
Upon arriving at the City Storerooms Stag Station, exit the platform area and search for a red, burning torch. This torch is guarded by a Grimmkin Novice. Defeat this enemy to collect the flame it protects.
Locating and defeating the Grimmkin Novice in Hollow Knight’s City Storerooms to collect the flame.
Understanding the Grimm Troupe Enemies
Throughout the Grimm Troupe questline, you’ll encounter three types of Grimmkin enemies: Novices, Masters, and Nightmares. These enemies only appear when the Grimmchild Charm is equipped. Each type represents a progression in difficulty, featuring increased health and more complex attacks, yet their core behavior remains consistent.
Grimmkin enemies generally maintain a fixed distance and position relative to you until they initiate an attack, regardless of the surrounding environment. A highly effective strategy to defeat them is to evade their attacks, wait for them to teleport to a horizontal parallel position, and then unleash Shade Soul spells for significant damage.
After defeating the Grimmkin Novice, proceed to the next room to the left. Pay 150 Geo to unlock the Elevator and ascend to the Infected Crossroads.
- Collect Vessel Fragment in Infected Crossroads
Upon reaching the Infected Crossroads via the elevator, head left. In the subsequent room, locate a hole lined with spikes in the floor. Carefully drop through this opening and continue moving left to find a Vessel Fragment (3/9). This will increase your Soul Vessels, allowing for more spell usage.
Navigating the Infected Crossroads in Hollow Knight to obtain a valuable Vessel Fragment.
Optional Encounter with Tiso
As an optional detour, you can visit Salubra’s house. Climb the wall outside, jump and dash left, then double jump and cling to the overhang above to discover a hidden passage. Enter this passage and proceed right to reach Blue Lake, where you can encounter Tiso once again. This interaction is not crucial for progression but adds to Tiso’s storyline.
- Retrieve Glowing Womb Charm
Return to the vertical shaft connected to the Stag Station, as the direct route is now blocked by infection. Navigate back to the corridor that links to the False Knight boss arena. Jump into the corner of the ceiling you initially broke open behind the heavily infected Husk Guard (now immobile). Utilize the Crystal Heart to dash past the spikes and enter the room above.
Fight through waves of Aspids in the right side of this room to claim the Glowing Womb Charm (11/40) located in the top right corner. This charm consumes Soul to spawn hatchlings that attack nearby enemies.
- Battle the Failed Champion (Dream Boss)
Continue back to the False Knight boss arena and ascend above it. Break open the cracked wall but do not eliminate the maggots yet. These maggots can be farmed for Soul using the Dreamnail if you find the upcoming Dream Boss encounter challenging.
Dreamnail the deceased Maggot to initiate the fight against the Failed Champion (DREAM BOSS). Upon defeating him, interact with the maggot’s spirit to collect 300 Dream Essence.
Engaging the challenging Failed Champion Dream Boss in Hollow Knight, requiring strategic combat.
Boss Tips: Failed Champion Strategy
The Failed Champion is a formidable boss, especially at this stage of progression. His attacks and body contact inflict 2 Masks of damage, which can be daunting with a base health of 5 Masks. While many guides recommend facing him later, we tackle him now because, as a Dream Boss, he can be repeatedly challenged without needing to collect a Shade. His Dream Essence is crucial for acquiring the Dreamgate ability later in this chapter.
The Failed Champion has only three primary attacks and a phase-change attack, along with a backstep. His attack patterns are predictable but punishing:
- Swing Attack: A straightforward melee swing.
- Shockwave Swing: A swing that generates a ground shockwave, often used 1-3 times consecutively, accompanied by falling rocks that deal 1 Mask of damage if they hit. If he uses the shockwave attack two or more times, it will always be followed by a jump attack.
- Jump and Swing: He will jump towards you and swing, usually preceded by him running towards you if you are at a distance.
- Phase-Change Attack: Similar to the False Knight, he jumps to the arena’s center and wildly swings, causing rocks to fall across the arena.
Key strategies for defeating the Failed Champion:
- Maintain spacing just outside his swing range while keeping him centered in the arena.
- Avoid being greedy with nail attacks; patience is key.
- Dash under him when he jumps, as you cannot reliably double jump over his attacks.
- Utilize spells effectively. The shockwave attack can be jumped over with a normal jump.
- Shade Soul can hit him twice if used from a distance due to his large hitbox.
- Descending Dark can consistently hit him with both direct damage and shockwave damage due to his slow attack cycles.
- The phase-change attack is an excellent opportunity to retreat to the arena’s edge and land multiple Shade Soul hits if you have sufficient Soul.
Cheese Strategy: Stun Phase Exploit
During his stun phase, a timer starts when the boss falls and the maggot is exposed. After this timer, he will recover without taking damage. However, hitting him, even on his armor (where he takes no damage), resets this timer with a shorter duration. This allows you to prolong the stun phase indefinitely by continuously hitting his armor.
For the cheese, jump over him to the armor side during the stun, hit his armor with your nail, then use Dream Nail to regain Soul. Repeat this cycle. If you need to heal, replace a Dream Nail hit with Focus to heal 1 Mask. Ensure every other action is a nail attack to keep resetting the stun timer. Once healed and with full Soul, switch to the maggot side and attack until he recovers.
After claiming the Dream Essence, you can now defeat the maggots for their Hunter’s Journal entry if desired. Otherwise, return to the Stag Station and travel to the Resting Grounds.
- Face Xero in Resting Grounds
Upon arriving at the Resting Grounds Stag Station, descend and move left, passing the area where you were initially trapped in a dream. Continue to the location where you first entered the Resting Grounds. On the raised platform, interact with the red spirit or Dreamnail them to initiate a fight against Xero (DREAM MINIBOSS). Defeat Xero and interact again to collect 100 Dream Essence.
Confronting and defeating Xero, a Dream Miniboss in Hollow Knight’s Resting Grounds, for Dream Essence.
- Obtain Dreamgate and Essential Items from Moth Seer
Return to the Moth Seer and speak with her. She will reward you with a Hallownest Seal, Pale Ore (2/6), Dream Wielder Charm (12/40), Vessel Fragment (4/9), and unlock the Dreamgate ability for your Dream Nail. Note that skipping Lost Kin and/or Failed Champion may result in insufficient Dream Essence to receive all rewards, particularly the Vessel Fragment, Dreamgate, and potentially Pale Ore and Dream Wielder Charm if both were skipped.
7a. Secret Area and King’s Idol
Proceed right into the newly accessible area. Heed the warning of the first spirit you encounter and navigate to the waterfall on the right wall. Ascend to the top of the waterfall and enter the hidden area to collect a valuable King’s Idol.
7b. Return to Dirtmouth
Finally, return to the Stag Station in Resting Grounds and take the Stag back to Dirtmouth to conclude this section of the guide.
This concludes this part of our Hollow Knight Guide. You are now equipped with new charms, abilities, and Dream Essence, ready for the next challenges Hallownest has to offer. Continue exploring and honing your skills as you delve deeper into the mysteries of this captivating world.
