Within the vast world of Hollow Knight, the various places the player can visit not only show the richness and intricacy of the environment but hold many secrets that players can't often access right away. Two such environments share very similar secret areas, both tied to the same concept: Lifeblood, the glowing substance that aims to protect creatures from damage and remains shrouded in mystery. In both the Ancient Basin and Godgome, there are doors that the Knight is unable to access.

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Within the Ancient Basin and the DLC area, Godhome, there are doors that are locked and hint at a connection to Lifeblood in some way, either through the presence of the butterfly-like plants often associated with the substance or by the distinctive, blue light that emanates from all of its sources. This guide will go over each door's connection to the concept, and most importantly, how exactly to open them up.

Ancient Basin

Hollow Knight - The Knight Standing Next to the Lifeblood Door in the Ancient Basin

When you make your way to the giant Lifeblood door in the Abyss, you will see that it has 14 dark spheres surrounding it. These are Lifeblood lights that sense the number of Lifeblood Masks you currently have, and you need at least 14 in order to make the door open. Getting these is rather easy and can be done by either using a combination of certain Charms to artificially increase your Lifeblood, or killing Lifeseeds to add to your actual health.

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Wearing the Lifeblood Heart Charm and killing the respective number of Lifeseeds will give you the proper amount of Masks needed; or, alternatively, you can wear Joni's Blessing to make all of your standard masks Lifeblood, compensating for any extras needed with Lifeseeds.

Behind the door lies the Lifeblood Core Charm, which gives you four Lifeblood Masks when resting, as well as an Arcane Egg that can be accessed via a left path. Note: once you pick up the Lifeblood Core, you will be kicked out of the room and cannot reenter, so if you want the Arcane Egg, you only have one chance to get it.

Godhome

Hollow Knight - The Dreamcatcher Inside The Godhome Lifeblood Door

The door to the left of the Hall of Gods is usually locked and emits a pale, blue light of Lifeblood. Surrounding it are exactly 16 notches that each correspond to one of the bindings, and represent how many you have used. To explain them simply, bindings are a sort of self-imposed challenge players can apply to the various Pantheons in Godhome. Each binding restricts, or 'binds', one of the Knight's various abilities to make challenging the Pantheons harder than usual.

These include:

  • The Nail binding, which either reduces Nail damage by 80 percent or sets it to 13 (if it is above that number)
  • The Shell binding, which locks the number of Masks you have to four (excluding Lifeblood or Fragile/Unbreakable Heart masks)
  • The Charms binding, which makes it so you can't equip Charms at all; and the Soul binding, which locks the amount of SOUL you can gather to 33 percent and disables all SOUL vessels.

Completing a pantheon with one or more binding will activate the respective notches on the door, and a minimum of eight must be completed to at least open the door.

A blue dream catcher that requires the Dream Nail will be there and will add a Lifeblood Cocoon that rewards three Lifeseeds at every Bench in the Pantheons. Subsequent bindings will increase the amount of Lifeseeds given further, up to a total of five.

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