Bilewater Full Guide And Walkthrough

Welcome to Blighttown — Oh, sorry, I mean Bilewater. Oops, slip of the fingers. Pestilent water, annoying flies, shaky wooden platforms and a murky greenish yellow hue that makes you feel a little nauseous. Sound familiar? Yep, we got it all here, folks.

As irritating as it is, Bilewater has several extremely important things that you’re going to have to face sooner or later, especially if you want to progress to the all-important Act 3 of Hollow Knight: Silksong.

However, if I were you, I would skip this area until you’ve got a good amount of masks and all of your movement abilities. Once you’ve got the Faydown Cloak, well, you’re good to go. So, let’s take a look at what Bilewater has to offer, so we can get in and out as soon as possible.

Exploration and Bellway Station

Let’s start with how to get there. You can enter Bilewater through several entrances, some of which are a little vague.

• Eastern Sinner’s Road — Through a breakable wall in the tall chamber with the Simple Key at the top.
• The Mist — Western Sinner’s Road leads to the Mist, which can take you to the Exhaust Organ
• Whispering Vaults — The Eastern Area of the Whispering Vaults leads to a long vertical drop, which in turn leads to Bilewater and the Twisted Bud.

The first things you’re going to want to do when you enter this area are grab the Bellway Station and the area map from Shakra. The Bellway is found immediately due east of the Exhaust Organ in the Southwest of the area. You will naturally find this if travelling south from the Whispering Vaults.

Once you’ve unlocked the fast travel point, head northeast, through a long horizontal chamber and into the first tall room that leads upwards. You’ll need the Faydown cloak to begin exploring further. In this room, there is a small room to the east where you find Shakra.

Groal The Great

Runback Bench

Before you even think about taking on Groal the Great, to save yourself a massive amount of pain, you should find the hidden bench to make the runback slightly less excruciating (No, not the fake one at the top of the area).

First, head to the area indicated in the image above, and then break the eastern wall. Follow the path down and to the left, and you will emerge in a small chamber with a wooden bench at the bottom. You can break the western wall here to create a shortcut.

Groal Boss Fight

You’re going to have to face this boss sooner or later because he blocks access to the Seeker’s Soul, which is needed for the Silk and Soul Quest.

From the bench, return to the breakable wall and follow the path that leads east, up, and all the way to the west, to find the boss arena.

Before you can even face this tricky foe, you’ll have to get through a couple of waves of enemies, while dodging spiked balls that drop from the ceiling. Get comfortable with your pogoing abilities, as these enemies excel in attacking horizontally. You want to be up high to avoid the majority of the damage here.

Conversely, when Groal spawns, it’s actually safer to be down low, as he punishes players who rely too heavily on Pogoing attacks. If you need help taking him down, check out our handy guide!

Trail’s End

Before you can start this quest, you need to have met Shakra in every location that she spawns, and subsequently have bought all of her maps. Once you’ve done this, go to the Wishboard in Bellhart, and you should see a wish request to find her in Bilewater.

Scattered throughout the area are the little rings embedded in the ground that will help you trail her. However, you don’t actually need to use these if you know where you’re going.

Start at the mid-area runback bench and head to the large chamber northeast. Right at the top is a little passage heading eastwards that’s only available once you start this wish. Follow the passage, and you’ll find Shakra and her dead mentor.

After playing a song on your Needolin, Shakra will give you the Throwing Rings tool and help you in the High Halls arena fight, if you haven’t done this already.

Twisted Bud

To find the Twisted Bud and earn the Witch Crest, you’ll first have to enter the area from the Whispering Vaults. This path is pretty well hidden and can only be found by pushing a movable box up near the ceiling.

Once you fall into Bilewater, head down and follow the path that leads west, where roots start to grow. This should remind you of Greyroot’s place in Shellwood. Deep in this Grotto lies the Twisted Bud.

You can take this back to Greyroot, and he will embed the parasite into your shell. From here, you can either go and fight Grand Mother Silk to unlock a secret ending, or you can go to Yarnaby in Greymoor to start the Infestation Operation Quest. This will see the parasite removed, earning you the Witch Crest.

Exhaust Organ

If you entered the area from The Mist, you will have seen the looming Exhaust Organ, pumping all the waste into Bilewater.

Head inside the Organ to come face to face with Lace’s sister, Phantom, and earn yourself the Cross Stitch Silk Skill.

You can do this in Act 1 as a speedrunning method instead of ringing the 5 bells and entering the Citadel through the Blasted Steps. This is far more difficult, but a lot faster. An elevator will open after defeating Phantom, which takes you straight to the Grand Bellway Station.

Weavenest Murglin

In the far southeast of Bilewater, due east of the Sinners road entrance, is a Needolin door that leads to a Weavenest. You’ll have to swim through the muck and under a wall to reach it, though!

Here, you can find a Ruined tool that can be transformed into 3 different types of Silkshot:

• You can repair it with the Forge Daughter in the Deep Docks.
• You can also take it to the Architect in the Underworks for another variant.
• If you want to repair it yourself, you can instead take it to the top of Mount Fay, just under the peak where you obtained the Faydown Cloak, for the third and final variant.

Whichever one you choose, you’ll need a piece of Craftmetal to create this tool.

Collectables You May Have Missed

Lost Fleas

There are 3 Lost Fleas to be found in Bilewater.

All the fleas here are hidden pretty well, so even if you’ve explored the whole area, chances are you’ll probably have missed one, due to the confusing and annoying nature of Bilewater. Here are their locations:

• Head to the Exhaust Organ. Go up and left until you find the room where you can refill your silk gauge. There is a hidden passageway that leads outside. From here, jump over the platforms leading west to find the Lost Flea.
• The next can be found north east of the Weavenest door. Head left into the vertical section. About halfway up, on your left, there’s a breakable wall leading to the next Flea.
• The final Flea can be found in the same area that you broke the wall to find the runback bench. In the top left of that chamber, you can jump into the ceiling to find a hidden pathway to the final Flea.

Quick Sling

This is found in a pretty hard-to-explain area, so it’s best shown through the image above. At the bottom of the tall room above Shakra’s spot, head east to a smaller room. At the top, there will be some wooden planks you can break open to head further up.

Here you’ll find the Quick Sling, which lets you throw double the amount of tools at once! This really isn’t that useful, as you can already throw tools pretty fast. There’s another breakable support further up, but don’t bother with this, as there’s nothing of value up there, apart from a cheap death.

Mask Shard

Head down from the Quick sling, and instead go east to find 2 long horizontal rooms full of Slubberlugs. These maggot-fish creatures jump up from the water and try to drag you in.

The best way to get past them is to stay up as high as possible and use the clawlineto traverse the area. At the end of these rooms is a Mask Shard.

Memory Locket

You can find 2 Memory Lockets in Bilewater

• The first is directly west of the runback bench. After you sit down, break the wall to the left of the bench and the locket will be inside a little sack hanging from the ceiling.
• The second is found just southwest of the Twisted Bud. You’ll have to go right, down, and left, past the trapdoor shortcut and through a breakable wall to find this locket.

Once you’ve got everything listed here, you’ll be done with Bilewater forever. Unless, of course, you want the Hunter’s Memento! If you want to put yourself through that pain, don’t let me stop you! I did it for the achievement. Was it worth it? I’ll let you decide.

Released

September 4, 2025

ESRB

Everyone 10+ / Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood

Developer(s)

Team Cherry

Publisher(s)

Team Cherry