Elden Ring: Beast Clergyman / Maliketh, the Black Blade (Crumbling Farum Azula) Boss Fight

As you probably know, bosses in Elden Ring are divided into three tiers. From lowest to highest: Field Bosses, Greater Enemy Bosses and finally Demigods and Legends.

Maliketh, the Black Blade is in the highest tier, Legendary Bosses, and is the end boss of the Farum Azula area. He is a required boss who must be defeated in order to progress the main story of the game. Killing him will permanently change Leyndell to be the Ashen Capital, so make sure you have nothing left to do in this playthrough in the regular version before this fight.

Upon first entering this boss fight, the boss will appear to be the Beast Clergyman you probably remember from the Bestial Sanctum in Dragonbarrow. Although it is not strictly confirmed to be the same Beast Clergyman, he does seem to recognize you and change his dialog if you have satisfied his fixation on stuffing his face with Deathroot, so I’m going to assume it’s the same beast.

When you get him to around 60% health, he will reveal himself to be a much more formidable foe, namely Maliketh, the Black Blade, who appears to be some sort of beastman assassin. He moves around extremely swiftly and does high damage. I had summoned Black Knife Tiche for assistance on this fight and although I won’t go as far as to say she completely trivialized it, she did help a lot with splitting the aggro from the boss. I did manage to kill the boss on the first attempt where he changed to Maliketh (I had previously died once before he changed, without Tiche), so the fight was easier than I expected it to be with Tiche’s help. She ended up dying just before the boss did though.

The boss is a very fast and agile fighter, and he uses several of the same moves as the Black Knife assassins do, so between me in Black Knife armor, Black Knife Tiche being stylish as usual, and the boss calling himself a Black Blade, this was really a fast-paced showdown between a bunch of rather shady characters. Fortunately the main character won in the end, so all is good.

When the boss is dead, you will be transported to the now Ashen version of Leyndell, the capital city. The city is mostly empty at this point, except for a few bosses that you will need to deal with.

And now for the usual boring details about my character. I play as a mostly Dexterity build. My melee weapons are the Nagakiba with Keen affinity and Thunderbolt Ash of War, and the Uchigatana also with Keen affinity. I was level 171 when this video was recorded, which I think is a bit high for this content, but it was still a fun and reasonably challenging fight, although summoning Black Knife Tiche did make it feel a bit on the easy side of things. I’m always looking for the sweet spot where it’s not mind-numbing easy mode, but also not so difficult that I will be stuck on the same boss for hours ;-)

Fanart inspired by this boss fight

Anime-style scene of a Black Knife armored warrior fighting Maliketh, the Black Blade, amid the ruins of Crumbling Farum Azula. More information

Anime-style scene of a player in Black Knife armor facing Maliketh, the Black Blade, inside a dim ancient temple. More information

Overhead anime-style view of a Black Knife–armored player circling Maliketh, the Black Blade, on a broken stone arena in Crumbling Farum Azula. More information

Further Reading

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