The first time Coen crosses swords with Brencis in The Blood of Dawnwalker, the game expects him to lose. It happens at the tail end of the Prologue quest “Bad Blood“, in a burning village, with nothing but starting armour and a starting sword against the vampire who rules Vale Sangora. Losing is the scripted outcome and the story moves on regardless. Winning, though, is possible — and it throws you straight into the endgame.
Quick answer: Parry every attack marked with a shield icon, dodge every attack marked with a red skull, and use Voracious Bite on cooldown to claw back health. Chip his health bars down with basic sword hits between his combos, and after a few minutes of clean defence he goes down.
When the Brencis fight happens in Bad Blood
Brencis, the Knyaz of Vale Sangora, corners Coen’s family in a burning village during the Prologue. After the confrontation cutscene, the quest updates to “Bad Blood” and the boss bar appears. There is no gear check, no level requirement, and no preparation window — whatever you walked in with is what you fight with.
The fight is deliberately lopsided. Brencis has multiple large health bars, and a starter sword takes a long time to grind through them. Nothing bad happens if you die — the story continues on its intended path. Treat the win as an optional challenge, not a requirement.
Read the attack indicators: red skull means dodge
Everything about this fight comes down to the icon that appears over Brencis when he winds up. The game spells this out mid-combat, and it is the single mechanic that decides whether you survive.
| Indicator | What to do |
|---|---|
| Shield icon | Block or parry. A clean parry opens a window for a counterattack. |
| Red skull icon | Unblockable. Dodge or move out of range — blocking does not stop it. |
Brencis has two unblockable patterns worth memorising. At a distance, he hurls a blood projectile at Coen. Up close, he summons blood weapons and slashes with them. Both carry the skull marker, and both need a dodge rather than a raised guard.
Once the parry and dodge timings click, his pattern is fairly predictable. He is not a boss that punishes you with surprises; he punishes you with damage.
Voracious Bite: your only real heal in the fight
Voracious Bite is the skill that makes a Prologue win realistic. It drains Brencis for damage and refills a chunk of Coen’s health at the same time, which matters enormously when you have no upgraded gear to fall back on.
| Voracious Bite (Level 1) | Value |
|---|---|
| Damage | 109 |
| Healing | Restores 60% of a Health Segment |
| Cooldown | 30 seconds |
| Cost | 1 Activation Charge |
Tip: fire it off as soon as the cooldown is up rather than saving it for an emergency. Over a fight this long, the total healing you get from repeated casts is worth far more than one panic heal.
How to beat Brencis, the Knyaz of Vale Sangora
You will know it worked when a cutscene fires and Coen knocks Brencis backwards. The vampire lord takes it badly.
What winning unlocks: Anachora, Greifberg Castle and Realmwalker
Beating Brencis does not end the Prologue peacefully. He teleports Coen out of the village and into an arena in Anachora, the hellish vampiric afterlife where the game’s final battle normally takes place, roughly three hours into a playthrough.
Two things pop immediately. You discover the Greifberg Castle region, along with its glossary entry, and you earn the Realmwalker achievement for setting foot in Anachora for the first time. Greifberg Castle, perched above Svartrau, is where Brencis normally holds court and where the climactic fight is meant to happen.
Brencis, Grotesque Ascendant: the second fight
In the arena, Brencis sheds his human-vampire shape and becomes Brencis, Grotesque Ascendant — a skeletal thing wreathed in large red tendrils. You start this fight with full health, which sounds generous until the first hit lands.
His moveset here is built around three things: sweeping tendril strikes, ground slams, and geysers of blood that erupt from the arena floor. A single connecting attack is enough to one-shot an under-levelled Coen, and that holds true even on Story difficulty. Expect a long series of Load Last Save prompts.
The same rules still apply — skull icon means dodge, shield icon means parry — but there is no margin at all. This form is tuned for a fully levelled character with proper gear, so beating it in the Prologue means clearing an endgame boss without taking a single hit’s worth of punishment.
Can you finish the game in the Prologue?
Yes, in principle. Beating the Grotesque Ascendant this early is one of the game’s possible endings, and publisher Bandai Namco has confirmed the run is legitimate rather than a bug.
Yes, you can finish the game at the end of the Prologue by defeating Brencis if you are good enough; it is a possible ending… [but] it’s extremely hard to actually do.
Only a handful of the studio’s own developers have managed it. Lead quest designer Rafał Jankowski has described charging Brencis straight out of the Prologue as feasible but strongly inadvisable for a first playthrough, since it skips all the quests, gear and skills that exist to make Coen strong enough. Rebel Wolves has called pulling it off a “feat worthy of legends”.
Defeating the Grotesque Ascendant turns Brencis into a red spirit and opens a branching dialogue exchange, with Coen able to press him on what was done to his family. The game has seven endings; a Prologue kill most plausibly lands on The Folk Hero, the ending awarded for taking Brencis down early and alone, without recruiting any of the potential allies.
If you want the challenge, the first form is genuinely learnable — it just demands patience and clean defence. The second form is a different proposition entirely, and there is no shame in taking the loss, letting the story carry you forward, and coming back for Brencis at Greifberg Castle with a sword that can actually hurt him.
