How to Beat Branko, the Bloodstained Shield in The Relic: First Guardian

Branko, the Bloodstained Shield is the first real wall in The Relic: First Guardian, and he is designed to punish the habits you bring in from other soulslikes. He hits hard with a one-handed axe, shoves with a heavy shield, and drops red magic on the floor that can end a run instantly. The good news is that his arena is on fire, and fire hurts him just as much as it hurts you.

Quick answer: Lock on, open with Fire Magic, then dodge into his swings instead of backing away and punish with two or three hits. Keep repositioning so Branko is standing in the ground flames — once he catches fire, the burn drains his health for you. Break off the moment a red symbol appears above him.

Where to find Branko, the Bloodstained Shield

Branko sits at the north end of the map and is the first boss most players run into. You cannot walk past him by accident — the route funnels you into a ruined cathedral that is still burning, with corpses scattered across the floor. A cutscene introduces him before the health bar appears at the top of the screen.

Burning cathedral arena in The Relic: First Guardian where Branko waits — The fight takes place inside a burning cathedral at the north of the map. Image: Project Cloud Games

Those flames are not set dressing. Patches of fire stay lit on the ground for the whole encounter, and both you and Branko can be set alight by standing in them.

Branko’s attacks and the red warning symbol

Branko’s kit is small, which is why reading it properly matters so much. He works through axe arcs and shield pressure at close range, then punctuates that with a red area-of-effect attack telegraphed above his head.

Attack	What to do
One-handed axe swings	Dodge through the swing toward Branko, then counterattack immediately
Shield bash at close range	Roll to the side, reset your spacing, and wait for the next opening
Red AoE ground magic	Leave the marked ground before it detonates — do not try to trade hits
Red symbol above his head	Move away fast; this one can kill you outright

Branko swinging his axe at the player inside the burning cathedral — Branko alternates heavy axe swings with shield pressure at close range. Image: Project Cloud Games

Guard timing matters here more than raw aggression. Attacks and skills cost you no stamina in this game — stamina exists purely for dodging and blocking — so the only real resource you need to ration is your defense. Spend it on the attacks that actually threaten you, not on flinching at every wind-up.

How to defeat Branko

Lock onto Branko as soon as the health bar appears and open with your Fire Magic. It lands cleanly before he closes the gap, and it starts the cooldown ticking early so you get more casts over the length of the fight.

Get ready to dodge the instant the cast ends. Branko commits to his first swing quickly, and the opening cast is the easiest way to eat a free hit if you stand still admiring it.

When he attacks while you are close, dodge toward him rather than away. Rolling into the swing takes you past the axe and leaves you standing next to his body, which turns a defensive input into an attack window.

Punish with a short string and stop. Two or three hits is the safe ceiling; greed here is what gets players killed, because his follow-ups come faster than the recovery on a long combo.

Player striking Branko while his boss health bar shows at the top of the screen — Short punish strings after a close dodge chip away at Branko’s health bar. Image: Project Cloud Games

Watch the bottom-left corner of the screen. Your Fire Magic sits next to the fire icon with a yellow indicator that fills as it recharges, and the moment it is ready you should be looking for a safe window to throw it out again.

Reset your position whenever the red symbol flashes above him. Ignore the damage you could have dealt and get clear — a single one-shot here undoes several minutes of careful work.

Branko taunts you constantly while all of this is happening. The dialogue captions run over the fight without pausing it, so keep your eyes on his axe rather than the text.

Branko's dialogue captions appearing on screen during the boss fight — Branko’s taunts play over the live fight rather than pausing it. Image: Project Cloud Games

Use the burning floor to damage Branko

The fire on the cathedral floor is the fastest damage source in the fight, and it works both ways. Standing in the flames fills your character’s burn gauge, so never linger in a patch while you fish for hits.

Branko has no such immunity. If he spends long enough in a burning patch, he catches fire and starts losing health over time on his own. Bait his charges and swings so that he ends up standing in the flames, step out yourself, and let the burn tick while you recover stamina and wait for Fire Magic to come back up.

Tip: Heal as soon as you drop below roughly half health rather than saving flasks for a dramatic comeback. Between the axe, the red magic, and the burn gauge, this fight can take you from healthy to dead in a single exchange.

Branko's health bar partially drained late in the boss encounter — Burn damage plus magic and weapon hits carry the last stretch of Branko’s health bar. Image: Project Cloud Games

How to know the fight is over

When the final blow lands, the screen displays “DESIRE FALTERS AT THE BLADE,” followed by the line “The Ancient Power of the Relic Dwells Within.” Item pop-ups then appear one after another for your rewards and gold.

Reward	Details
Shard of Erosion	Dropped alongside the Emberflame shard on defeat
Shard of Emberflame	Quick-slot throwable that explodes into fire
Gold	Several hundred, picked up in separate drops in the arena

The Shard of Emberflame is worth slotting straight away. It is described as a fragment of flame pulled from an ancient sealed furnace, and when thrown it bursts into an explosion that engulfs the surrounding area. Scorched embers stay on the ground afterward, lighting the area red for a while, and they reawaken to follow you again after you rest under the blessing of Elvelle. Equipped in a quick slot, it is usable freely in combat to break up enemy groups.

Why runs against Branko fail

Dodging backward out of his axe range, which keeps you safe but gives you no counterattack window and stretches the fight until you make a mistake.
Extending a combo past three hits and getting caught by the recovery.
Fighting inside a fire patch and filling your own burn gauge while chasing damage.
Reacting late to the red symbol above his head, which is effectively a death sentence.
Letting Fire Magic sit idle on a full cooldown instead of using it the moment the indicator fills.

Branko is the encounter that teaches the rest of the game’s boss roster. Once you stop treating distance as safety and start treating the arena as a weapon, the same approach — read the telegraph, punish from close range, let the environment do part of the work — carries into every Brutal that follows.