False Knight

"A maggot driven mad by a strange force. Inhabits a stolen armoured shell. Weak creatures love to steal the strength of others. Their lives are brief and fearful, and they yearn to have the power to dominate those who have dominated them."

The False Knight is one of the main bosses in Hollow Knight. He keeps the City Crest required to open the gates to the City of Tears. The Failed Champion is his dream form, faster and stronger.

Lore The False Knight is a Maggot wearing the armour of Hegemol, one of the Five Great Knights of Hallownest. This weak creature wanted to find means to protect his siblings living in an abandoned storeroom in the middle of the Forgotten Crossroads. When he discovered Hegemol seemingly sleeping in his armoured shell, he took it for himself in hoping for the great strength wearing the armour seemed to promise. Even though madness did not drive him to do this, the False Knight eventually fell to the Infection's control.

In-game events The False Knight falls from the ceiling when the Knight enters the hall below the Maggots' storeroom, killing any husk still wandering inside. He then attacks the Knight, deluded on his own strengths, while threatening to collapse the building in his rage.

At the end of the fight, the False Knight accidentally breaks down the floor and falls outside the storeroom below, where the Knight can execute the final blow. Once defeated, the Maggot is expelled from the armour along with the City Crest.

When returning to the storeroom, the Maggot's corpse can be found laying on an upper level hidden by a breakable wall. His brethren are mourning him, and flee at the Knight's approach. Using the Dream Nail on the corpse brings the Knight to a dream projection of the storeroom where the Failed Champion, a much stronger form of the False Knight, can be fought.

After this second defeat, the False Knight's ghost appears floating above its corpse to tell the Knight the reasons behind its cowardly acts. It then shatters in Essence absorbed by the Dream Nail.

Behaviour and Tactics
The False Knight possesses a variety of attacks:


 * Leap: False Knight jumps a distance in the air to either reposition or prepare for a Slam attack. False Knight does not leap twice in a row. False Knight stops using this move in Phase 3.
 * Charge: False Knight runs a small distance to get close up if the Knight is too far away and to perform a Leaping Bludgeon at the end of the charge.
 * Slam: False Knight rears back, priming the mace for a moment, before swinging it forward, slamming it into the ground. The impact of the mace creates a shockwave that travels forward across the whole arena. In Phase 2, this attack also causes barrels to fall, and in Phase 3, even more barrels fall per slam.
 * Leaping Bludgeon: False Knight leaps into the air and slams his mace down in front of him when he lands. False Knight targets the Knight when he leaps so he will strike where the Knight was when he started his leap. While False Knight is in the air, he lifts his mace above his head and then swings it in an overhead arc before he lands, bringing his large body and mace down simultaneously. In Phase 3, this attack also causes barrels to fall.
 * Rage: After enough damage is dealt to his armour, the False Knight staggers, falling down and revealing the Maggot inside the armour. When the Maggot takes enough damage, it re-enters its armour and initiates this attack. Jumping to the centre of the arena, False Knight slams his mace multiple times on his left and right. Each time the mace strikes the ground, barrels fall from the ceiling. False Knight continues to slam the ground with his mace for about three seconds. If the Maggot is left to stagger for too long without being attacked, the False Knight gets back up and continues his regular attacks without going into Rage.

After False Knight recovers from the first stagger, he goes into Phase 2: the muffled voice of the maggot is now audible in each attack (in Phase 1 False Knight is completely silent) and barrels fall for the Slam attack. After False Knight recovers from the second stagger, he goes into Phase 3 where barrels now drop for the Leaping Bludgeon attack and more barrels drop for the Slam attack.

When the False Knight Staggers and the Maggot pops out, heal if necessary then get in as much damage as possible. This is the only time the Knight gains SOUL from attacking the False Knight.

It is important to note that attacking the armour does not award SOUL, so players should conserve their SOUL meter if they need to heal and/or use Grubsong to regain SOUL when struck.

If healing is needed, the safest opportunity is to wait until the False Knight goes into a Rage and then heal up in a corner of the room. Watch for falling rocks.

While the falling rocks do no damage when they hit the armour from above, the Knight can hit the rocks from the side causing them to fly into the False Knight when angled properly, dealing 10 damage each. This is a great way of harming him during the Rage attack if healing is not necessary. Hitting these falling rocks into the False Knight can also cause him to Stagger.

After exposing the Maggot's head three times, the False Knight performs one more Rage attack before breaking the floor, falling to the level below and revealing the Maggot. Drop down and attack the Maggot to end the fight.

After the first time the False Knight Rages, a segment of the wall above the left gate becomes breakable, granting the player the chance to flee the battle if they so choose. This is useful as the player obtains the Vengeful Spirit Spell in the room immediately after the False Knight room, allowing them to either attempt the fight again with a stronger, ranged attack or simply proceed through the rest of the game and come back later. Returning to the area after escaping resets the fight.

After defeating the False Knight (Or the Failed Champion), the player can still strike his armour with the Dream Nail, yielding dialogue and SOUL like usual. This is particularly useful when challenging the Pantheons that contain him in Godhome, as it allows the player to accumulate additional SOUL for the subsequent battles before being taken to the next one.

Location
False Knight is located in the centre of the Forgotten Crossroads.

Trivia

 * After the False Knight is defeated, the head of his mace is revealed to be another bug with an armoured shell. It can be hit it to knock it rolling in a direction while also stunning it, but it does not take damage and simply scurries off-screen when it gets the chance to. Hitting it with the Dream Nail gives the dialogue "Free at last!" and will also give SOUL.
 * When struck with a nail, the bug makes the same sounds as an idle Belfly.
 * The False Knight's Dream Nail dialogue along with the SOUL gained from using the Dream Nail on them actually originates from the body's hitbox as it is separate from the head's. This means that even if False Knight has been defeated and the Maggot has been removed from the armour, the empty armour casing can still be Dream Nailed.
 * The False Knight has an infinite amount of health points. Both his armour and the Maggot within reset their respective points as they interchange stages. However, he is scripted to die after 3 armour stages and 4 Maggot stages.
 * This also means that if enough damage can be done each during each armour stage, False Knight can be fought infinitely as he cannot die unless he finishes the Rage attack.

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