Hehehe. I must survive, I tell you.

Who designed these ants?!

You are correct, but this is Hunter’s March. It is probably only the third area most players enter, yet the entire map is crammed with brutally difficult platforming. Its ordinary enemies are feats of game design in their own right, and the hidden boss has an extra surprise prepared just for you!

Allow me to introduce the local wildlife.

First, there are the common walking ants. They accelerate through sharp turns and are basically free. Then comes the flying variant, which predicts your movement precisely, seals off your route, and catches you utterly unprepared. Then there are ninja ants, firing exquisite little ranged shuriken and often appearing in groups to ambush you. Next come the enormous flying ants. Besides their magnificent player-tracking shots, they also have a ground slam and a melee strike: three attack patterns in all. Best of all are the senior ants. They straight-up use the senior warrior’s moveset: dash slash, triple slash, aerial slash, and even a block.

Every enemy so far only deals one mask of damage. So what does a two-mask enemy look like in a paradise such as this?

At the entrance you meet a catastrophically buffed Brother Longya, with an absurd attack range. On your second encounter, a giant flying ant even joins him, creating a pincer-attack sandwich. And then comes the foulest boss in Hollow Knight history: the Savage Beastfly.

Does it have complicated attacks? Not at all. Phase one randomly alternates between two patterns. After phase two, it transforms into the Collector. It only summons three kinds of minions—not many at all—and all three are right there in the arena. Yes, the Beastfly’s ground slam can kill the minions, but that is the ideal scenario. Reality is usually: finish fighting the minions, fight the Beastfly; finish fighting the Beastfly, fight the minions. It even has five phases. If, like me, you have a Level 1 needle, every phase requires a full eleven hits. Can you imagine how hard it is to land those eleven hits?!!!

After writing all that, I suddenly realized I could lazily count it as part of today’s diary. So here we are.

I finally finished GPH a few days ago. After taking several days to recover, I can resume updating the diary and start writing a LETU survival guide for newcomers.

Oh, right. Today was also Day Two of Not Touching Silksong. Besides completing my homework without incident, I even watched a ball game!

So when you think about it, Silksong has given me quite a lot. It has taught me, for example, to treasure the beautiful peace of ordinary life. (