Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Defeat Mihai (Arbiter’s Blade Trophy)

Mihai, Patron Saint of the Cathedral, is chained behind a sealed wall under Svartrau City, and he does not take kindly to being disturbed. Beating him wraps up the A Monk and a Saint quest, hands you the Broken Sword of St. Mihai, and starts the chain that ends with the Arbiter’s Blade trophy.

Quick answer: Learn the St. Mihai symbol, open the marked grave in the western part of the Cathedral Complex, inspect the broken brick in the crypt’s central room, then win the duel by dodging skull-marked attacks and parrying shield-marked ones. The trophy itself only unlocks later, once you recover the sword shards and reforge the blade in Forge It Anew.

Learn the St. Mihai symbol before you search the graves

Coen cannot identify the right grave until he knows what St. Mihai’s mark looks like. Three separate actions teach it, and they cost different amounts of in-game time — which matters, since the clock on rescuing your family keeps running whatever you do.

How to learn the symbol	Time cost
Inspect the ceiling murals inside the Cathedral Complex	0 hours
Read The Annals of Svartrau Cathedral in the Cathedral Complex library	1 hour
Read the Thief’s note during the Night Terrors quest	1 hour

The murals are the cheapest option by a wide margin. Any one of the three is enough — you do not need all of them.

Find the crypt entrance in the Cathedral Complex

Head to the western part of the Cathedral Complex, near the well. If guards are still posted there and you did not clear them out during Night Terrors, deal with them first so you can search undisturbed.

Interact with the graves until one shows the St. Mihai symbol. To skip the hunting, start at the grave in the bottom right corner of the plot and move one grave to the left.

Clear the leaves off that grave and drop inside. The coffins scattered through the crypt are worth looting on your way through.

Open the sealed wall to trigger the fight

Walk to the room in the middle of the crypt and turn on Focus Mode. It highlights the one thing here you can interact with.

Inspect the broken brick in the cracked stone wall. This costs an hour. Coen knocks, calls out, then uses a metal bar from the floor to lever open a gap in the masonry.

Look through the gap and kick down what is left of the wall. Mihai is chained on the other side. He tears free, mistakes Coen for someone called Tobias, and attacks immediately, so have your blades ready before the cutscene ends.

How to beat Mihai in combat

Mihai is a pure swordfight with no gimmick phase. He is fast, closes distance quickly, and strings attacks together, so the win comes from reading his indicators rather than trading blows.

Indicator	What to do
Skull icon	Unblockable. Dodge or step out of range entirely.
Shield icon	Block or parry it, then counter into the opening.

Stay mobile, dodge through his sword swings instead of backing away from them, and answer each parry with a short burst from your dual blades rather than a long combo. Perfect blocks are worth practising here anyway, since chaining five in a row unlocks the separate Untouchable trophy.

Once his health is gone, the fight ends in a cutscene. Mihai collapses and crawls across the floor, and Coen kneels beside him.

Post-fight cutscene with the beaten Mihai crawling across the crypt floor — The cutscene that plays the moment Mihai goes down. Image: Rebel Wolves

Dialogue choices after the fight

Coen notices Mihai’s glowing eyes. Pick “You’re like me…?” to confirm that Mihai is a fellow Dawnwalker, betrayed and walled up down here.

When Mihai starts coughing, choose “You need help.” He is dying and the conversation is on a timer, so do not sit on the prompt.

Dialogue wheel showing the You need help option as Mihai coughs — The second prompt appears as soon as Mihai begins coughing. Image: Rebel Wolves

Mihai explains that his sword is shattered and that the Kobold took the pieces, then asks Coen to forge it anew. This is the hook for the follow-up quest.

Mihai explaining that his sword was shattered and the shards were taken — Mihai names the Kobold as the one holding the shards of his sword. Image: Rebel Wolves

Choose “I’m so sorry.” Mihai warns that something is watching Coen and tells him to trust the Orders, then dies. None of these picks lock you out of the sword.

Mihai's final warning to Coen before he dies in the crypt — Mihai’s last words before the screen fades to a loading transition. Image: Rebel Wolves

Rewards and how to confirm the quest completed

You will see a “QUEST UPDATED” banner and a journal prompt as the scene ends, with A Monk and a Saint marked complete and Forge It Anew added in its place. Check your inventory for the sword fragment if you want a second confirmation.

Reward	Notes
Broken Sword of St. Mihai	The half you recover from the crypt
1 Skill Point	Spend anywhere in your trees
1,000 XP	Awarded on quest completion
Forge It Anew	New quest to track down the remaining shards

Arbiter’s Blade trophy requirements

Killing Mihai does not pop anything on its own. Arbiter’s Blade is a bronze trophy that reads “Restore St Mihai’s sword to its former glory,” so it only fires once the weapon is whole again.

That means finishing Forge It Anew: recover the missing sword shards held by the Kobold, then reforge the Sword of St. Mihai. The crypt fight is simply the step that puts the first half of the blade in your hands.

Note: Arbiter’s Blade is separate from Arbiter’s Regalia, which asks you to collect every piece of the Arbiter’s armour set and unlock its full potential. Completing one does nothing for the other.

Why the crypt does not open

Coen has not learned the St. Mihai symbol yet, so the graves give nothing when you interact with them.
The correct grave is still covered in leaves and needs cleaning before you can enter.
You are in the wrong part of the complex — the graves sit in the western section, by the well.
You skipped Focus Mode in the crypt’s middle room and walked past the broken brick in the wall.

Budget an hour for the wall inspection and, if you can, take the free mural route to learn the symbol. Do that and the whole detour costs you a single in-game hour before you walk out with the first half of the Arbiter’s blade.