Nue Malefact is the creature bonded to Shidou, and it turns up more often than any other boss in the game. Emma fights it alone five times: once in a Chapter 1 flashback at the Ogouchi Colony, three times over the course of Chapter 3 as it retreats across The Great Wall Terraces, and once more at level 32 in Chapter 6, and it fights beside its handler in every Shidou and Nue encounter. It is weak to Poison in all of them.
Appearances
Chapter | Level | Location | Form |
|---|---|---|---|
Chapter 1 | 16 | Ogouchi Colony, during a flashback | Solo |
Chapter 3 | 16 in the chapter text, 20 in the encounter roster | The signal source in The Great Wall Terraces | Solo, breaks off at about a quarter of its health |
Chapter 3 | Not listed | The forest arena east of the railroad bridge | Solo, retreats again once staggered at about a third |
Chapter 3 | Not listed | The statue arena north of the shrine campsite | Solo, clears the Grand Wall in one jump when its health empties |
Chapter 3 | 20 | The Great Wall Terraces, Mountainous Region | Paired with Shidou |
Chapter 6 | 32 | Fuji Frontier Zone, Mountainous Region | Solo |
Chapter 6 | 35 | Fuji Frontier Zone, Mountainous Region | Paired with Shidou |
Chapter 11 | 48 | Mount Hiei Zone | Paired with Shidou |
The Chapter 1 fight is the one that opens the story: it is the attack on Emma's home settlement, the moment Koo returns to bond with her, and the reason the two of them board the walking vessel at all. That first kill hands out nothing, since the encounter exists to teach parrying.
Chapter 3 is a chase rather than a boss fight. Each of the three encounters ends on a scripted retreat at a set health threshold, and the first two hand over a Nushi Skill on the way out. Chapter 6 repeats the shape in miniature: the beast is waiting at the tunnel exit past the Bridge Control Room: Approach campsite, it runs off once beaten, and the paired fight follows behind a gate that a lever on the nearby control panel opens.
Encounter rosters do not agree on how many separate fights Chapter 3 actually contains. Some collapse the chase into a single level 20 entry at The Great Wall Terraces sitting beside the paired fight, which is also where the drifting reward attributions come from, with the Ursine Memories unlock filed under a second-encounter label that counts the flashback as the first. The chapter itself stages three.
Rewards
Encounter | Level | Rewards |
|---|---|---|
Chapter 1 flashback | 16 | None |
Chapter 3, first chase | 16 | Ursine Memories, Nushi Skill: Rampaging Asagao |
Chapter 3, second chase | Not listed | Erymanthian Memories, Nushi Skill: Creeping Kiku |
Chapter 3, third chase | Not listed | Blade Art: Asagao, which is gated on a Great Wall Terraces kill without any stage being named |
Chapter 3, paired | 20 | Nushi Skill: Chimeric Flow |
Chapter 6, solo | 32 | Bloom Art: Dokuzeri: Fang II, Finisher: Dokuzeri |
Chapter 6, paired | 35 | None |
Chapter 11, paired | 48 | Bloom Art: Erica: Strangle, Blade Art: Nue |
Attack Patterns
Attack | How It Works | Response |
|---|---|---|
Swipe Attack | A single telegraphed swipe. | Parry it. The wind-up is long. |
Double Tail Swipe | Two consecutive tail strikes, sometimes followed by a claw swipe. | Parry both. Parrying only the first still costs health. |
Lightning Strikes | Roars and calls down lightning that tracks Emma's position. | It stands still while channelling. Keep moving and punish, but do not stand under the markers. |
Charged Lunge | Glows red, lunges in, and swipes its tails twice. The first swipe rings the area with lightning. | Parry the tail swipes and stay out of the ring. |
Six-Hit Combo Swipes | Five swipes into a finishing slam. | Parry the whole chain, then punish the recovery. |
Seed Bomb | Confirmed in the Chapter 11 paired fight. Fires large seeds that scatter across the arena, each one sprouting roots where it lands. | Read the landing spots and dodge between them. |
Rushdown | Confirmed in the Chapter 11 paired fight. Three consecutive charges with short pauses between them. | Unparryable. Use the pauses between charges to dodge sideways. |
How to Beat Nue Malefact
Parrying is the whole fight. Filling the stagger bar under its health knocks the beast down and buys a long damage window with no risk of eating a lightning bolt, and it is far more reliable than trading hits with a boss that chains five and six attacks at a time. Koo's Higanbana: Roots can bind it out of the slashing sequence the first time it commits, and Dokuzeri: Fang applies the poison it is weak to.
In the paired encounters, take the beast down before turning on its handler. It has the longer reach of the two and it is the one that punishes a split focus.
Preparation
Poison is the weakness across every appearance, and in the paired fights it is the weakness of both opponents at once, so a single loadout covers the whole sequence.
Tool | Where It Comes From | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
Hunter's Sword | Katana stand by the Great Forest: Entrance camp in The Great Wall Terraces, unlocked by listening to the storyteller golem first; listed with the other Katanas | 51 melee attack with the Envenomed passive: plus 8 poison buildup for five seconds |
Floral Wraps | Strongbox beside the Old Sagami Colony: Approach camp, reachable before the paired fight; listed under Armor | 31 defence, six Spirit Stone slots, 50 Acid resistance and low enemy awareness |
Poison Arrows and Poison Bolts | Crafted ammunition, covered under Bow and Ranged Combat | Weakness damage for the charges and the lightning channel, when closing in is the worst option |
Higanbana: Roots | Bind-element Koo skill unlocked from Higanbana: Bloom | Has a chance to bind the beast out of its slashing sequence the first time it commits to one |
The Chapter 3 encounters sit far enough apart that resting and upgrading between them is expected rather than optional, and the route is laid out to allow it. A camp and a Dragon Vein shrine sit close to the second arena, and another camp waits past the enemy towers just before the third, so there is a stocking point standing in front of every stage of the chase.
Related Pages
Shidou covers the human half of the paired fights. Malefacts explains the enemy type, and Bosses lists every story encounter in order.
The Parry System page covers the timings this boss exists to teach, Entanglement Gauge explains the meter that can interrupt the rapid slashing sequence outright, and Regions and Zones maps the areas the chase crosses.