Hollow Knight | Defeating the Soul Master - Toughest Boss yet!

Hello, gamers. Welcome back to my blog.

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We are back and playing Hollow Knight again. This is slowly becoming one of my favourite indie games ever. Love everything about this game, the music, the level design, the enemy design, tight controls and an interesting metroidvanian adventure. Continuing our adventure from the previous post, we are into the heart of Hallownest kingdom and trying to figure out how to get to three dreamers.

Relic Seeker Lemm

I stumbled upon an interesting signpost which led me to another NPC, a relic collector named Lemm

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I was just wondering about what I can do with the relics that I found nearby, I had two relics, a "wanderer's journal" which sells for 200 Geo and a "Hallownest seal" that goes for 450 Geos. This is a significant amount of Geos so I sold both of my relics. Lemm doesn't sell anything he just wants to collect those ancient scrolls and relics.

Another mysterious collectable that I got is the 'rancid egg', I have yet to find a use for this item. Maybe there will be a bug who buys those as well.

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I bought one Rancid Egg way back from Sly in Dirtmouth and found another one in this City of Tears.

Cornifer to the Rescue

I was wandering aimlessly going through random doors, taking random elevators as I had no map of the area. But the RNG Gods were watching over me and I accidentally stumbled upon a room with a rest bench and Cornifer. Like always, he was busy mapping his map and I bought the unfinished map which I will fill myself.

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I carefully looked at the map and the eastern part of the area was mostly unexplored so I decided to go there.

Into the deadly 'Soul Sanctum'

The northeastern part of the map had its name and was called the "Soul Sanctum". It had its unique aesthetics, powerful enemies and new mechanics.

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These bugs had been experimenting with 'Souls' and gained powerful abilities. One of them shoots a deadly fireball at you which works like a guided missile following you for some time until it either hits something and blast or just runs out of gas and stops.

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This was going to be a tough subsection of the map. All those harvest souls made them faster, and stronger.

One of the quicker enemies was a soul Warrior. He was big and quick wielding a long nail and using the power of soul and throwing deadly projectiles at me. I died on my first try as I was just observing his attack patterns. On my next try, I killed him easily. He was predictable and had only 3 moves.

Soul Master - A challenging Boss Fight

I have fought a handful of bosses and mini bosses till now but none was as difficult as the Soul Master. Part of what made it difficult is the placement of this boss. He was pretty far from the nearest checkpoint so every time you die (trust me, you are going to die), you will have to come again from a distant bench.

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I shared a video where I was able to defeat it on my fourth attempt. My first attempt was spent just observing his attacks and all the patterns. He is fast, shoots fireballs at you and can dive with some pace causing a shockwave on the ground. It will sometimes sweep from left to right or right to left and you have to jump over it at the most precise timing. Also, he can teleport and will come after you by encircling himself with those deadly balls.

And if you manage to kill it somehow. There is a new phase too!!!

He just gets very mad and his speed drastically improves, he will dive so fast to the ground inflicting damage if you stand close to it. I was so lucky in my attempt and got him right in the corner and landed many hits.

Now I am getting why people consider this a tough game. So, far it has been pretty easy but this fight was a tough challenge and can easily take so much time. I consider myself lucky to kill him on my 4th (or 5th) attempt...xD

New ability gained - the 'Desolate Dive'

Once you kill the Soul Master, it will drop his Desolate Dive ability and now you can dive onto the ground and open up more areas. There are many places which are loose and cracked, and those can be destroyed with this ability unlocking many new hidden areas.

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I used the dive and it was a shortcut to the Soul Twister's arena room. I guess we were supposed to get out of there after obtaining this new ability.

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I came back to the bench and there was a new stag station that I could see on the map. These stations work as a quick travel point and are so important. Also, I haven't seen any other way to go back to the Fungal Wastes after the only way was blocked by a huge gate.

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I found another 'Wanderer's Journal' besides a corpse. I wish we could read these journals but they were written in ancient languages and only Lemm is interested in deciphering them.

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I paid for the stag station and unlocked it. While resting on the bench, it was time to introspect and think about this fallen kingdom. What a catastrophic event would that have been that led to almost the end of this beautiful kingdom. I guess we will find out in the later episodes.

That's it from me for this time. Let me know if you played Hollow Knight and if you love it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading...

Until next time...