Eternal Ordeal

"Always Win Your Battles."

- Zote

The Eternal Ordeal is a secret challenge which can be found in the Hall of Gods in Godhome. It requires defeating as many Zotelings as possible before dying.

The Eternal Ordeal always starts with a fight against Zoteling the Mighty (who is the same as Zote the Mighty as he is fought in the Trial of the Warrior; however, he is able to deal contact damage). After defeating him, a full-screen title card appears displaying "The Eternal Ordeal", and a counter with Zote's head appears as a HUD in the lower-left of the screen to track Zoteling kills.

Zote begins to sing along with the music as waves of Zotelings begin to spawn. As the counter racks up kills, the difficulty increases and more variants appear, some exclusive to the Ordeal (the Zotelings unique to the Ordeal do not have Journal entries).

Rewards
Once 57 Zotelings have been killed, the counter turns gold (as does the hidden Zote statue) and a new Menu Style is unlocked: The Eternal Ordeal. The title screen features a statue of Zote with him singing the main menu theme of the game.

Location
The Eternal Ordeal is located inside the Hall of Gods. Unlike Grey Prince Zote, this challenge is unlocked by default. To access it, the Knight must first navigate to the far east of the second level of the Hall of Gods and break the ceiling above the third arch from the right. (Howling Wraiths/Abyss Shriek is useful for finding and breaking the barrier, but Nail attacks can also be used to break it.)

Then, reach the hidden ledge above the arch by Super Dashing off the right wall (The Sharp Shadow Charm also works since it extends the range of Shadow Dashing) and then double-jump to grab the wall.

After entering the secret room above, a pounding noise comes from the crumbling left wall. Once this wall is broken, a statue of Zote enters the room accompanied by Zote's voice. This statue can be challenged which starts the Eternal Ordeal. Once the Knight dies in the Ordeal, they are returned to this statue.

Types of Zotes

 * Kills to Spawn is the minimum to spawn this Zoteling. New Zotelings only spawn when a previous one is killed, selecting randomly from among the available types. This means a new Zoteling type may not spawn immediately.
 * No more than 2 of the same type of Zoteling spawn at the same time.
 * All Zotelings increase in speed with each kill. The speedup is subtle but becomes highly noticeable around 50 kills. At ~80 kills, charging Zotelings and Lanky Zotelings can cross the arena in ~1s.
 * No Zotelings other than the initial Zoteling the Mighty, Winged Zotelings, Hopping Zotelings, and Volatile Zotelings can be hit with the Dream Nail.
 * The initial Zoteling's Dream Nail dialogue is the same as when he is fought in the Colosseum of Fools.
 * The other Zotelings Dream Nail dialogue is the same as when they are fought alongside Grey Prince Zote.

Simultaneous Zotelings
The maximum number of Zotelings alive at any time increases with the number of kills.

Charms

 * Fragile Strength/ Unbreakable Strength decreases the number of hits required to kill Zoteling the Mighty from 6 to 4, and Winged Zotelings and Hopping Zotelings from 3 to 2, which is very valuable when the fight speeds up. Be careful that the Knight then kills Volatile Zotelings (and subsequently makes them explode) in a single hit.
 * Shaman Stone allows killing the Turret Zoteling, Fluke Zoteling, and especially Zote's Curse in a single full blast of Abyss Shriek, unless they leave the attack before all of the damage is dealt.
 * Grubsong and Thorns of Agony convert damage taken into advantageous SOUL and damage, respectively. In a long and drawn-out fight like this one, they provide significant help while costing just 1 Notch each.
 * Longnail and Mark of Pride help against Zotelings with charge attacks, especially Zoteling the Mighty and Lanky Zotelings which both have a very fast flail attack.
 * Soul Catcher, Soul Eater, and Spell Twister are useful for casting more spells, useful in a chaotic environment like this.

Trivia

 * The fifty-seven kills to unlock the Eternal Ordeal title screen is a reference to the fifty-seven precepts of Zote.
 * Zote's Curse resembles Salubra's Blessing; however, it drains SOUL instead of regenerating it.
 * The 57 precepts are represented by the Lore Tablets behind the Zote statue that is the entrance to the Eternal Ordeal.
 * The Eternal Ordeal statue has a cut description of:
 * "Intruder amongst the gods of Hallownest"


 * By shifting the statue sprite around after loading the level in Unity, cut content can be found: what appears to be a selector for a "mode" (Attuned, Ascended, Radiant) and a switch that allows for changing bosses between dream variants.
 * Killing Zote at the beginning of the Eternal Ordeal unlocks his Journal entry. However, killing Winged, Hopping and Volatile Zotelings during this encounter does not unlock their entries.
 * There is a glitch where if a Heavy Zoteling leaps against a wall, it immediately creates shockwaves from the point where it jumped.
 * There is a glitch where if the Knight finishes off any Zoteling with the Flukenest Spell, the kill count increases for each Fluke that hits the Zoteling. This glitch was patched in some earlier versions of the game, but still works.
 * Heads of Zote cannot be damaged by the Defender's Crest and Spore Shroom Charms.

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