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. It keeps the City Crest required to open the gates to the City of Tears. The Failed Champion is his dream form, faster and stronger.

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 to impersonate him. Even though madness did not drive him to do this, the False Knight eventually fell to the Infection's control.

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 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 False Knight'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
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 will fall for the Slam attack. After False Knight recovers from the second stagger he goes into Phase 3 where barrels will now drop for the Leaping Bludgeon attack and more barrels will 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, doing 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 will perform 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 will become 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 will 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.
 * 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, the player can fight False Knight infinitely as he will not die unless he finishes the Rage attack.

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