White Defender

"Figure from a fondly remembered past. Reacts gallantly to defeat by becoming stronger. "The Champion's Call, the Knotted Grove, the Battle of the Blackwyrm... I remember it all. I will carry those glories with me always... until we meet again.""

- Ogrim of the Five Knights

The White Defender is a hidden boss in Hollow Knight introduced in the Hidden Dreams update. He is the Dream form of the Dung Defender, at the peak of his past glory.

Behaviour and Tactics
The White Defender's attacks are stronger versions of the Dung Defender's moves, along with a few new ones:


 * Dung Toss: White Defender gathers up and throws two dung balls one after the other. The balls bounce around the arena randomly in large arcs, reaching the top of the arena. Each ball persists until it hits the floor twice. These dung balls continue to bounce even if they hit the Knight, and White Defender performs other attacks while the dung balls are bouncing.
 * Dive: White Defender dives in and out of the ground to move around the arena. He dives in once and re-emerges somewhere else in the arena shortly after, covering about 25% of the arena. He moves left or right independent of where the Knight is.
 * Burst: White Defender dives underground and after a bit of time bursts into the air, releasing dung balls everywhere, 5 on each side, that fall away from him in tall arcs. These dung balls do not bounce around. Instead, they break once they hit a wall, the floor, the ceiling, or the Knight. White Defender can burst up anywhere in the arena, and he travels underground for 1.5 seconds before he finds his burst point.
 * Spike Slam: White Defender slams his arm into the ground, causing large spikes of dung to jut up. Three spikes form in rapid succession on each side of White Defender. The spikes reach high into the air and are unable to be cleared, even with Monarch Wings.
 * Defender Jubilee: White Defender gathers up and throws 3 dung balls one after the other, like a longer Dung Toss attack. After the third dung ball, White Defender leaps into the air and curls into a ball to join in the bouncing. After bouncing on the ground 3 times, he slams straight into the ground sending spikes across the arena in both directions. The spikes form in sets of two (one on each side) and disappear just after the next set of spikes springs up. White Defender remains underground until all of the spikes are gone. Once the spikes are gone, he re-emerges with a Ground Burst attack. The spikes are short enough that the Knight can double jump over them.
 * Zeal: Once per fight, after enough damage is dealt to him, White Defender emits a loud shout like he does at the beginning of each fight signaling the beginning of this attack. For around 11 seconds, White Defender strings together 6 Ground Burst attacks, each occurring about 1.5 seconds after the previous. Once Zeal is over, White Defender returns to his regular attack patterns. White Defender only uses this attack once at 600 HP.
 * Evade: When the Knight is too close, White Defender sometimes quickly curls into a ball and rolls back a short distance. Half the time, he immediately follows this manoeuvre up with a Spike Slam attack.

He can be fought up to a maximum of five times, but after each victory, he deals an additional mask of damage (one mask in the first fight, two masks in the second, etc.)

Unlike Dung Defender, White Defender does not stagger, and Desolate Dive/Descending Dark do not knock him out of the ground.

For damage output, Nail-based Charms work very well; Fragile Strength/Unbreakable Strength, Quick Slash and Mark of Pride/Longnail are helpful.

Spells can be useful against White Defender. A well-timed Shade Soul can destroy a dung ball before it is tossed and damage White Defender at the same time. Howling Wraiths/Abyss Shriek can deal maximum damage when White Defender is returning to the ground after a Ground Burst (provided the Knight is standing just to the left or right of White Defender). As with all Spell-focused builds, the Shaman Stone and Spell Twister Charms are very helpful.

It is possible to keep White Defender in his ball form until he is defeated so long as he does not hit the ground 3 times. This can be accomplished with well-timed upward slashes and quick movements. The Dashmaster and Sprintmaster Charms help with this tactic.

As with the other Dream Bosses, the Knight does not die when they lose all their health during this battle, but simply wakes up next to the Dung Defender. This means that Fragile Strength and Fragile Heart can be used continually without breaking.

The left and right corners of the arena are generally safe for healing due to White Defender's attacks rarely reaching them.

Location
To reach the White Defender, both the Dung Defender and all three Dreamers have to be defeated first.

Use Desolate Dive/Descending Dark on the floor at the far right end of his boss room directly underneath the floating platform to access a hidden room beneath. Here Dung Defender can be found sleeping in the room on the left. Use the Dream Nail on him to enter the dream and initiate combat.

Trivia

 * In the background of the arena, the white silhouettes of the Great Knights (minus Ogrim) and the Pale King can be seen in this order: Ze’mer, Dryya, the Pale King, Isma and Hegemol.
 * The White Defender can be beaten a total of 5 times on each save file, though he can be challenged indefinitely in Godhome.
 * After defeating the White Defender 5 times and hearing Dung Defender's extra dialogue, when leaving the room and returning, there is a seventh dung statue made in the Knight's image.
 * White Defender's journal entry mentions "The Champion's Call", "the Knotted Grove," and "the Battle of the Blackwyrm." These events or locations are never mentioned anywhere else in the game.
 * There is a glitch where a dung ball can become stuck in one of the corners of the room, which can potentially be detrimental as the hit-box for the dung ball is still active. However, it can still be destroyed by Spells.