The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Cast Compel Soul on the Dead Soldier

Compel Soul is a Witchcraft ability that lets Coen speak with restless souls, and the objective “Cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier” is where the game first asks you to use it. The step trips people up because the ability is not mapped to a normal attack input. It only becomes available while you are holding Focus Mode and looking at a valid body.

Quick answer: Stand next to the dead soldier, hold Right Click to enter Focus Mode until the corpse glows yellow, press F to select Compel Soul, then choose [attempt to compel soul] in the dialogue wheel.

Where the Compel Soul objective appears

The prompt shows up under the main quest The Blood of Dawnwalker, with “Find your family” as the active goal and “Smoke and Ashes” as the running chapter. The tracker line reads “Cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier,” and Antea is nearby for the follow-up conversation once the ritual ends.

Compel Soul sits in the Witchcraft skill tree alongside abilities such as Astral Communion and Burning Blood. Witchcraft abilities are daytime abilities, and casting hexes normally costs a slice of Coen’s health, which is why the ritual opens with him cutting his own wrist.

How to cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier (PC)

Walk up to the dead soldier’s body until you are within a couple of paces. Distance matters here, because the interact prompt will not register from across the area even if you can see the corpse.

Hold Right Click to enter Focus Mode and keep it held. The body lights up in yellow, and a spirit becomes visible above it, which confirms the corpse is a valid Compel Soul target.

On-screen prompt to hold Focus Mode and cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier during Smoke and Ashes — The on-screen prompt to hold Focus Mode and perform Compel Soul on the dead soldier during Smoke and Ashes. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

With Focus Mode still held and the body highlighted, press F. The on-screen hint spells this out as “To Compel Soul hold [Right Click] to enter Focus Mode” followed by “Press [F] to perform Compel Soul.”

A cutscene starts and gives you two choices, [attempt to compel soul] and [leave]. Pick [attempt to compel soul]. Coen cuts his wrist, the soldier’s spirit briefly reanimates, and the objective switches to “Talk with Antea.”

Inputs and on-screen prompts

Action	Input / prompt
Enter Focus Mode	Hold Right Click
Confirm valid target	Soldier’s body glows yellow, spirit appears
Perform Compel Soul	Press F
Start the ritual	Select [attempt to compel soul]
Back out	Select [leave]

How to tell the ritual worked

The confirmation is impossible to miss. Coen opens his wrist, the soldier speaks in a panic, and Coen reacts to the voice out loud. Once the scene ends, the quest log drops the Compel Soul line and replaces it with “Talk with Antea,” which is your cue that Smoke and Ashes has moved forward.

If the objective is still sitting in your tracker, the ritual did not fire and you can simply walk back to the body and repeat the inputs.

Why the Compel Soul prompt does not appear

You tapped Right Click instead of holding it, so Focus Mode never stayed active long enough to highlight the corpse.
You pressed F after releasing Focus Mode, which reads as a plain interact rather than Compel Soul.
The body is not highlighted yellow, meaning you are either too far away or aimed at the wrong object.
You chose [leave] in the cutscene, which closes the interaction without performing the ritual.

Note: Focus Mode is the same investigation tool used earlier for tracing clues highlighted in gold, so the highlight behaviour should already look familiar by the time this objective appears.

Once the soldier’s spirit has spoken and you have finished the exchange with Antea, Compel Soul stays in your kit for later corpses and haunted spots, and its Witchcraft perks can extend hex duration or cut the health you spend to cast it.