One of the most important challenges in Hollow Knight: Silksong is Grand Mother Silk, an incredibly strong boss whose defeat leads to multiple outcomes based on your choices. Found at the end of Act 2, Grand Mother Silk might be your final opponent, or merely an obstacle blocking the way to a new beginning to your journey.
Before you reach Grand Mother Silk, you might want to collect a number of Spool Fragments or Mask Shards in Silksong to improve your resources. Four Mask Shards will give you a new piece of health, while every two Spool Fragments will increase Hornet’s max Silk. With improvements to your vitality and power, you’ll have a much easier time facing this boss.
Where To Find Grand Mother Silk
Ascend To The Peak Of A Secluded Area
Grand Mother Silk can only be found after you defeat the character Lace for a second time during Act 2. Doing this will unlock a new path forward, leading Hornet past the Cogwork Core location above the Choral Chambers into a new region of your map.
This boss is found in The Cradle, an area accessed through an elevator that opens up after the Lace fight. Going up in this elevator places you at the bottom of The Cradle, where you have to ascend to its peak to find a large amount of Silk pooled together in a giant cocoon.
This cocoon hosts the Grand Mother, who you can fight by selecting the “Challenge” prompt that appears on a large horizontal platform near the top of The Cradle. Make sure you are fully prepared before using this prompt, either by healing to full health or checking your tools in Hollow Knight: Silksong to see if they are at full capacity.
How To Defeat Grand Mother Silk
Find The Space Between The Thinest Lines
The moment you start the boss fight, Grand Mother Silk will use six floating needles to attack Hornet, along with a variety of razor-sharp spools of thread she can command. Each piece of Silk this boss uses telegraphs where her next attack is coming from, so players who pay attention to the fine threads will be able to predict and counter certain movements.
Grand Mother Silk will weave back and forth across the length of the boss arena. To maximize each of the limited hits you can make, you might want to fully upgrade the Needle weapon before facing this boss.
The table below describes all of Grand Mother Silk’s strongest moves, including good strategies for countering each of them:
The Silk Song attack is the most dangerous, as a single hit from this move can eliminate three of Hornet’s masks at once. Needle Spears are also deadly, as Grand Mother Milk will often chain them together as her health starts getting lower, sometimes having all six of her Needles moving at the same time from different directions.
Try to use Grand Mother Silk’s Needles and spikes as objects to pogo launch off of by using downward attacks. This gives you a bit of extra airtime, but it also resets a number of your other movement abilities in Silksong to avoid other attacks and keep up the pressure with your own strikes.
While you are avoiding all of Grand Mother Silk’s moves, you need to continue hitting the boss as often as you can throughout the fight. This will cause her to eventually become staggered, giving you the perfect window to deal the most damage possible. Dodging, attacking, and learning Grand Mother Silk’s patterns will allow you to get into a good flow, eventually leading to your victory.
What Should You Do After Beating Grand Mother Silk?
Unlock Multiple Endings After Winning Against The Final Boss
As long as you keep pursuing Grand Mother Silk during the fight, the combination of the right tools and movement will ensure you defeat the boss. However, after you defeat Grand Mother Silk, you will have multiple options depending on your choices leading up to the fight.
Multiple endings are tied to what you do to Grand Mother Silk, leading to different trophies/achievements from various outcomes. For those looking to unlock every possible ending in Silksong, this fight becomes a pivotal moment where you must pick certain prompts for different conclusions.
For a first time playthrough, many players will consider Grand Mother Silk as the final boss of the game. However, defeating her with certain tools will unlock Act 3, a new, harder section of the game that is a story continuation.
The table below goes over all the different choices you could make when you defeat Grand Mother Silk, as well as their consequences: