How to Defeat Bell Eater in Hollow Knight: Silksong

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If you’ve been playing Hollow Knight: Silksong for a while, you probably noticed how huge the map is. Since some quests require you to travel to distant areas, it could take a long time to explore everything if you didn’t have a quick way to get around. Luckily, the bellways provide a helpful shortcut option.

These bellways get an upgrade once you reach Act Three in the game. This happens after you defeat the Bell Eater boss, which is quite a challenge because it limits your movement a lot.

How To Reach Bell Eater

Bell Eater is one of the few bosses in Silksong that you can’t miss. However, you need to reach Act Three first by defeating the Grand Mother Silk and trapping her inside a Soul Snare. After doing this, you’ll spawn in The Cradle, where you must descend into Cogwork Core through a specific path.

Once you’re there, head to the Songclave area. From this point, just get to any bellway and call the Bell Beast. This action will cause the Bell Eater to spawn, and you’ll need to go underground to start the fight.

How To Beat The Bell Eater

When you enter the Bell Eater’s lair and move to the right, it will block your way with its body, attacking with its head and tail. Here are the main attacks to watch out for:

Slash Attack: The Bell Eater raises its head and takes a step back to wind up. Then it lunges forward with all its tentacle-like limbs, either slashing or striking. To avoid this, stay out of its head’s reach and dodge away. You can also jump and hit downward repeatedly during the attack.
Projectile: The boss pulls out its head without warning and spews red projectiles across the area, covering a large space. The best way to dodge is to back away from its head as much as possible.
Bomb Attack: It brings out its tail, which then releases two or three bombs that bounce around before exploding in an area. Positioning yourself wisely near the tail can help you dodge the bombs and even land some hits during the attack.
Bells Spawn: Before this attack, the ground shakes, and you see the boss’s body move across the field, either along the floor or the ceiling. It then summons large bells that fall, bounce, and drop again. To survive, position yourself carefully so the bells don’t land on you. If you’re caught between falling bells, time your attacks to hit a bell when it’s falling to alter its path. When the boss moves across the floor during this, jump and glide to avoid the bells.

Important Tip: You can’t damage the Bell Eater by hitting its dark parts; only the red head or the pinkish tail are vulnerable.

The biggest challenge in this fight is doing enough damage because the boss parts don’t stay on the field after attacking. You need to attack quickly while dodging its strikes. In the first phase, only one part (head or tail) appears at a time. Once the battlefield enlarges in the second phase, both parts come out at once, making it more difficult to deal damage and avoid projectiles. Using skills like Thread Storm and Silk helps manage this situation effectively.

The boss’s head and tail can sometimes appear in the same spot, allowing you to attack both at once with certain abilities. Combining tools like Cogfly and Pollip Pouch also helps deal consistent damage.

After defeating the Bell Eater, you unlock the Beastling Call Needolin music. This allows you to summon small Bell Beasts that can take you to the last Bellway you visited, although there are some restrictions on where they can summon you.