White Palace

A secret, extra-challenging section of the White Palace. It is hidden behind a breakable wall (the pathway opens despite being invisible) at the beginning of the first buzz-saw room on the second floor, above the atrium room.

Completing this area unlocks a special cutscene depicting the Pale King and a younger version of the Hollow Knight, alongside a Journal Entry for the Seal of Binding. After the challenge is completed, the Path of Pain becomes inaccessible.

The Path of Pain is made up of several sections each separated by an infinitely usable Soul Totem depicting the Hollow Knight. Platforming here is very difficult and requires excessive aerial and wall movement, as well as requiring the Nail to be swung towards most of the mobile hazards to gain height. There are many buzz-saws, spikes, and small wall sections, alongside thorns on the sides of most sections.

After the final platforming section, the Knight falls down a pit into a room surrounded by thorns on the walls. In this room are two Kingsmoulds which the Knight must defeat in order to finally reach the end of the challenge.

When the Path of Pain is completed, the Knight wakes up directly outside it. The Path of Pain cannot be entered again as the wall cannot be broken.

Tips


 * The Soul Totems in this area grant an endless supply of SOUL to the Knight, allowing for complete healing after each section. However, as not every section has a Soul Totem, it is still useful to have Charms that improve survivability.
 * As all of the difficult challenges without a Soul Totem are to reach the switch inside the path, survival-boosting Charms are no longer needed after the switch has been hit.
 * All of the Charms that are useful for the main the White Palace are still useful in the Path of Pain, except for Dashmaster as it is very easy to accidentally down-dash due to the amount of time DOWN is held to Nail-bounce on saws.
 * While an active hinderance for much of the rest of the path, the extra horizonal and vertical forgiveness Mark of Pride offers can render the extremely punishing final room much more consistent.
 * It is recommended to defeat the Kingsmoulds at the end with Desolate Dive/Descending Dark, as using these Spells makes the Knight immune to damage for several frames. Having the Shaman Stone and Spell Twister Charms equipped can help to deal more damage and consume less SOUL respectively.

Secret rooms The White Palace contains three secret rooms in the upper part of the area which explain more of the game's lore.

The Pale King's workshop The Pale King had a workshop where he made the Wingmoulds and Kingsmoulds with Void. This workshop can be accessed near the end of the White Palace by falling down at a certain point after using the Crystal Heart. The workshop contains a Lore Tablet and a mould that can be Dream Nailed, giving the text: "...SERVE...". Exiting this area drops the Knight back to the place where Crystal Heart was first used. It is possible to double jump back into the exit in order to enter the workshop.

White Lady's room Right before taking the lift up to the throne room, there is a room on the east side of the lift with a breakable floor and a Soul Totem. Using Desolate Dive/Descending Dark on this floor opens up a room with a chair and a structure in front of the chair. The chair has a dark imprint that looks like a smaller version of the White Lady's head. A music box version of the Shade's theme also plays here.

Throne room Lore Tablet East of the throne room in the very north part of the palace is a breakable wall. Breaking this wall leads to a lore tablet which provides more information on the Pale King.

Trivia
 * It is possible to sit on the throne after knocking the Pale King's corpse off. A version of the main theme, the Royal Hollow Knight theme, plays while sitting on it. Charms can be switched while on the throne, but masks do not heal until a Charm is changed.
 * After returning to the throne room, it is no longer possible to sit on the throne.
 * It was originally impossible to return to the White Palace after picking up the White Fragment. This was changed in The Grimm Troupe update which added the  Path of Pain.
 * The Hunter's Journal entries for the Royal Retainers, Wingmoulds, and Kingsmoulds are still automatically completed upon leaving the palace.
 * When returning to the throne room, the Pale King's corpse has disappeared from the ground. This is due to his corpse being an entity corpse, meaning that it despawns after leaving the room like any other enemy's corpse.

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