Holding back the Night (New Side Quest #6)

Game Played : Elden Ring: Nightreign - Everdark Sovereign Update (2025)

Announced in a tweet and shadow dropped alongside an unrelated patch with no patchnotes, the first of enhanced bosses were added to the game. Under the new title of ‘Everdark Sovereign’. These are so far limited time and so far it seems like there is only 3, each of which I will add to this article.

For reference, the Expedition leading into the boss doesn’t change, only the boss fight itself. The bosses start in their Phase 2 and move onto a new ‘Phase 3’

Adel, Baron of Night - 3 Attempts

Of the 8 Nightbosses, Adel is my 5th favourite. I like the boss visually but mechanically he can be a little hard to read – much like a lot of dragon fights, there’s a lot of flailing about. Mix that with the visual clutter of the lightning and you’ve got a very busy boss fight. Everdark Adel doesn’t add too much more to the moveset as far as I can tell, the main gimmick seems to be the tornado that you’re forced to fight within unless you want to take damage. Given how much Adel moves around usually, having him want to stay in a small area is good. Adel’s grab is also buffed in phase 3, buffing his attack by 15% instead of 12% and more pressingly, the unique ability to bleed the player twice.

As for the runs themselves, the first run wasn’t great but the boss fight went decently, getting the boss down to a third. Run two had a great initial run but I just fumbled the boss fight, dying without even reaching the new phase.

Run 3 was the one, a fantastic run leading into the boss fight. Ended up with a buff from a Libra deal, anti-dragon buffs and the Sword of Milos as well as some great talismans. The boss itself was like Zen, it was as if I had mastered all the timings. Didn’t get grabbed once, didn’t go down once.

Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow – 1 Attempt

Fulghor sits somewhere in the top 4 Nightlords for me, alongside Gladius, Libra and Heolstor – still not sure where I rank them all yet. Great visual design, the fight is a little weird though. Holy attacks blend too much with the ground at times and the second phase is fun but more could have been done with the Night arm.

Not much to say, got the run first time thanks to a Lightning Zweihander+2. Unlike with Adel, Lightning is effective throughout the entire fight. The three main moves – Arrow Rain, Arrow Nuke and Twinblade flurry are all fairly well telegraphed and easy to dodge. Very cinematic and cool though. It’s interesting that the changes here don’t seem as drastic as Adel, or maybe the new Fulghor phase feels more of a natural extension of the moveset than Adel’s which feels like a third phase hard mode moveset. If that makes sense.

Gnoster, Wisdom of Night - 6 Attempts before giving up (3x Wylder, 1x Ironeye, 2x Wylder in MP)

My least favourite Nightlord by a large margin and so far definitely the most changed by its Everdark Sovereign form. The original boss has two entities – Gnoster the Moth and the unnamed beetle both sharing Gnosters health bar (to allow melee players to progress the boss as Gnoster flies around). In phase 2, Gnoster lands on the beetle meaning there’s only one target and one health bar. That’s pretty standard affair.

Phase 3 mixes things up. Naturally like previous ES versions of bosses, the fight starts in Phase 2, in this instance it’s a full health bar but with reduced overall health. Instead of there being a third phase so to speak, it’s a return to Phase 1 with a big twist. A new Moth enemy spawns – Animus, Ascendant Light. Animus revives the other two bugs (with the beetle being given its own health bar now – Faurtis Stoneshield) at a third health each. If the player kills Gnoster or Faurtis again, Animus will possess and revive them at half health, buffing them. Attacking the possessed bug also damages Animus. Killing Animus ends the fight, even if Gnoster and Faurtis still have health.

I despise this boss, so much. I feel like I can’t do it. Usually I’d take a tough boss in my stride but this is the first time I’ve felt the 40 minute runback between attempts to be an active detriment to me wanting to fight bosses. I had to check that I wasn’t just being daft - I refought Caligo, Libra and Heolstor - three bosses I had only beaten once. I beat all three in a row, deathless. So I don’t think I’m bad at the game, I just cant do this one.

And so comes the announcement and official confirmation that we are seeing Everdark Sovereign forms of Tricephalus, Augur, Equilibrious Beast and Fissure in the Fog (maybe in that order) but at a later date. For the next 3 weeks they're going to cycle through the first three, two at a time. Instead of waiting what might be another 7 odd weeks, I'll upload this as a Part 1, with Part 2 coming around early September

So far, 2 good one bad. Four to go, and I'm excited to see what happens with the remaining 4 Nightlords…