The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Remove the Rubble Blocking the Gate

Smoke and Ashes is the sixth main mission in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and its last objective is a single interaction that carries a heavy price. Clearing the debris from the village gate burns seven time segments off Coen’s 30-day countdown, pushes the clock from day into night, and closes out the prologue.

Quick answer: Walk to the collapsed gate in Laslea Glen where Anca is waiting, stand in front of the rubble until the interact prompt appears, and hold the interact button. A cutscene plays automatically and the objective completes.

What you need before the rubble objective appears

The gate cannot be cleared early. It only becomes interactable once the preceding objectives of Smoke and Ashes are done, which means searching the family home, learning Compel Soul from Anca, and getting a usable answer out of the dead Brencis soldier by presenting Brencis’s Banner as a catalyst.

After that conversation resolves, Anca leads you to the ruined gate on foot. Following her is the simplest way to reach it, but you can also open the map and set the marker yourself if you wander off.

Map screen centered on Lasleo Glen with the quest marker selected — The map screen centered on Lasleo Glen, with the active quest marker selected. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Time and reward cost of Smoke and Ashes

Two objectives in this mission consume time. Everything else is free. Knowing the split matters because time in The Blood of Dawnwalker moves the story toward Brencis’s coronation, and there is no way to get segments back.

Detail	Value
Mission	Smoke and Ashes (6th main mission)
Starts	Automatically after Bad Blood
Starting location	Laslea Glen / Anca’s house
Return to Anca	1 time segment
Remove the rubble blocking the gate	7 time segments
Fail state	None
Rewards	150 XP, Burning Blood, Astral Communion

Note: casting Compel Soul on the soldier for the first time also unlocks the bronze trophy Dead Man Talkin’, even though the corpse tells you nothing useful on that first attempt.

Clearing the gate in Laslea Glen

Head to the destroyed gate at the edge of the village. Anca stands beside the blocked archway, and the wooden beams and debris piled against it are visible from a short distance away.

Walk directly up to the debris until the interact prompt appears on screen. On PC this reads as “F Interact”; on controller it is the mapped interact button.

Hold the button rather than tapping it. The hold triggers the transition, and Coen begins hauling the beams away on his own. There is no minigame, no timing window, and no combat here.

Interact prompt shown on the rubble blocking the village gate during Smoke and Ashes — The interact prompt on the rubble blocking the gate, with the Smoke and Ashes objective tracked. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Watch the cutscene through. Seven segments pass while Coen works, the sun goes down, and his vrakhiri side surfaces painfully in front of Anca. Finish the dialogue that follows to close the objective.

How to confirm the objective completed

Three things happen together and confirm it worked. The time of day flips to night, Coen reverts to his vampire form with glowing eyes, and the exchange with Anca plays out where he demands to know what is happening to him.

Once the conversation ends, Anca says she is packing up and heading to St. Tyna’s, and asks you to meet her at the inn near the convent when you are ready to search the library. Smoke and Ashes then clears from the quest log, the prologue closes, and the valley opens up for free exploration.

Why the prompt may not appear

If nothing shows up when you stand at the gate, the cause is almost always the objective order. The rubble stays inert until you have presented Brencis’s Banner to the dead soldier and let the resulting cutscene finish. Track the quest and check that the current objective reads “Remove the rubble blocking the gate” before trying again.

The other common miss is positioning. The prompt is tied to the debris in the archway itself, not the gate frame, so step in close and face the pile directly.

There is no way to skip the seven-segment cost or clear the gate any faster, so treat it as a fixed toll on the way out of Laslea. Everything after this point runs on your own schedule.