Throughout The Relic: First Guardian, you will come up against a lot of challenging enemies that have completely unique gameplay mechanics and challenging combat aspects that make you think before rushing in again, and The Prodigal Bound in Dust is one such boss. He does have a rather depressing story leading up to its arena but also puts the players in a unique situation in terms of their combat style.
How to Find The Prodigal Bound in Dust in The Relic: First Guardian
While exploring the world of The Relic: First Guardian, you will eventually stumble across a location known as the Cinder Cradle. This location may seem rather simplistic to begin with, as it is a village set upon a hill filled with strange glowing rocks that light your path, but sadly this location isn’t so simple.
As you can see from our image above, the location of Cinder Cradle is relatively long and snake-like as the player progresses up a hill in order to find The Prodigal Bound in Dust, but what makes this location interesting is how it is entirely infested with ghosts that will attempt to stop you from progressing up this hill along with various notes left on the ground detailing the unfortunate story that takes place here.
Once you enter Cinder Cradle, it is quite simple to find the boss, as the path is incredibly linear and laden with notes that help guide your way as they tell the story of a man and his mother, which, as you can likely guess, does not end well, but we will not spoil the specifics for you.
In terms of the actual boss fight, it can be located at the top of the hill directly after a rest spot can be found, in which a small circular arena has been created using barrels and dilapidated walls.
How to Beat The Prodigal Bound in Dust
Now that you have found The Prodigal Bound in Dust, it is time to enter the fight and take on this spiritual enemy. Once you enter the arena, you will begin to notice that The Prodigal doesn’t immediately rush towards you like many of the other bosses in the early sections of The Relic: First Guardian, but he instead moves around a lot slower and, in some cases, will even hang back and wait for you to advance, and there is a reason for this.
Unlike many of the other bosses that you have likely faced so far, The Prodigal Bound in Dust is unique in the sense that he is actually able to parry your attacks as well; rather than just going gung-ho with attacks on you, he instead is rather patient and waits for the opportunity to hit you back with a more devastating hit.
The way this works is that upon hitting The Prodigal Bound in Dust, there is a very likely chance that he will perfectly parry your attacks or even your skills, which you may think isn’t a big problem, but how this works is that it reduces your stamina, and if you attack this boss too much, he can eventually break your poise and cause you to be stunned. That being said, this is not a guaranteed situation, as his blocking isn’t always perfect.
Once this happens, you are essentially a sitting duck waiting for the punishment that the boss is ready to issue to you. Because of this, you may be wondering how you are able to fight this boss with him being able to parry your attacks, and the simple answer is that you are required to be patient in a lot of different ways.
For us, we found that being able to perfectly parry The Prodigal Bound in Dust’s attacks and eventually breaking his poise was the most consistent way to slowly whittle down his health and eventually be able to defeat him, but there is another way that can be slightly risky if you are willing to take the chance.
UPCOMING BOSSES
- Cleaver
- Looter Borja and SPOILER
Although the boss can parry pretty much anything you throw at him, there is a small gap in which he is vulnerable, in which you can mount a small counterattack, and that is at the end of his combos as he is resetting to his normal posture. If you are patient and able to time it right, there is the possibility to attack during this small window, but it is a lot of risk for potentially no reward
The biggest opportunity that you should completely exploit is the fact that the boss doesn’t seem to care when it comes to the different versions of magic within the game, instead only parrying weapon attacks and skills, meaning that if you want a cheap shot’s worth of damage with next to no risk, magic is your best bet.
In terms of The Prodigal Bound in Dust’s attacks, there isn’t too much to worry about, as he is quite reserved in his attacks, leading to a slower combat experience, with some of his attacks being quite clear to read, ensuring that you can block them reasonably. On the other hand, when the boss lets loose a little bit, there are some combos that he exploits that, if you are not prepared, can easily break your defence.
Whether it be his rather fast kick that he uses to catch you off guard or his quick double stab. Both of these attacks can easily become a problem when you first encounter this boss, but after you have seen them for the first time, the novelty does wear off, and you can predict them with ease.
After a long and gruelling fight, you will finally be able to defeat The Prodigal Bound in Dust, in which he falls to his face, disappearing into nothingness, but what might catch you by surprise is that there is no traditional loot popping up on the screen, and this is entirely by design.
Now that the boss is defeated, you are able to explore the area he was guarding, which is a house upon a hill. There are a few things that you can find once you begin to head into the home, the first being the end of the boss’s story as you find a few more notes and a rather depressing tableau and some loot located in and around the house, which are the following:
- A Relic – Dagger in the Dark
- A Sealing Stone of Regret
- Relic Energy
Once you defeat this boss, you are free to head back down the hill as you listen to the narrator conclude this story, eventually ending up back at the rest spot at the bottom of the hill, which we entirely encourage you to use.
For your next read, why not check out our tips for The Relic: First Guardian, or our guide to beating Mog, one of the earliest bosses that’ll make your life hell.
Liam is a Senior Editor, Writer, and Critic for Thumb Wars and has been working with the team since day one. Liam is a big fan of all things gaming, as you will catch him playing all of the new releases from every genre you can imagine. Whether you find Liam gaming just for fun or spending his free time streaming, you will always find a smile on his face when it comes to all things gaming.
