Lady Ethereal is one of the more challenging bosses in Nine Sols. Don’t be fooled by her chubby appearance; she is surprisingly fast and will rip you to shreds before you know it. Fighting her is a matter of learning her every move and keeping up with her breakneck speed to make any difference.
Related: How to Beat Kanghui in Nine Sols
In this boss guide, we’ll reveal her attacks and how you should react to her every move. Pay close attention because this lady is no “lady” when you threaten her.
Lady Ethereal in Nine Sols
Lady Ethereal holds one of the Nine Sols that Yi needs to collect, thus making her a mandatory boss. She resides in the Cortex Center, where she looks after the Soulscape system.
When you enter her realm, everything seems hunky-dory at first, but as you venture further, the dream falls apart, revealing the grim reality. Your actions will finally snap her, and she will become hostile.
This lynx lady grows a pair of moth-like wings, and the whole backdrop changes morbidly. The fight reminds me of The Mantis Lords in Hollow Knight since he uses a similar fighting style, meaning she teleports around the arena while using particular attacks.
She has three phases in total with separate health bars. In the later stages of the fight, she will ramp up the speed of her assault while using clones to attack in rapid succession. This fight progressively raises the challenge and tests the limit of your reflexes. There is very little room for error.
Lady Ethereal – Phase 1 Strategy
Lady Ethereal will fight herself in the starting phase. Her attacks are slower and easier to read during this point, so it’s best to learn her moveset, identify their telegraphs, and determine which countermoves will work best. Phase 1 of the fight is relatively easy and will be over before you know it. Here are all the attacks you need to know:
Important Note: Lady Ethereal will get staggered for a few seconds if you hit her with a Charged attack, a Talisman explosion, or the Azur Bow. Use this technique to give yourself more time to put in some extra damage.
| Attack | Description | Reaction |
| Horizontal Shards | She appears and fires three horizontal shards in the opposite direction. These shards are unparryable. | Jump over the lowest shard and dodge towards the boss. Then, proceed to whack her three to four times and quickly use a Talisman dash. The Water Flow Talisman works great during this fight since it’s harder to manually trigger the explosion when the fight gets faster later on. You could jump over the first shard and use the Azure Bow to fire at her. |
| Homing Pink Orb | She appears, charges up, and sends a slow-moving homing pink orb towards you. | As the orb approaches you, jump and air-parry it. Then, use the extra height to dash towards the boss and attack her with a full Triple Slash combo ending with a Talisman explosion. |
| Double Claw Swipe | She emerges near the ground, charges at you, and swipes her claws twice. | Air or ground parry both the swipes, then attack her. It is good practice to hold a Charged Strike as she vanishes so that you can unleash it after she has finished her subsequent attack. |
| Diagonal Swipe | She pops into the upper corner of the arena and sweeps in diagonally with a claw swipe. | Allow her to fly down to you, then parry her attack. Turn around and attack her afterward. |
| Stinger Crash | She appears over your head and uses her lower-body stinger to come crashing down on you. This is a crimson attack and thus can’t be parried. | Dodge to the side right before she lands and attack her |
| Triple Homing Darts | She conjures three blue darts around her and fires them with minor delay. | Wait for the first dart to launch, jump and air parry it, then air parry the next one and then the one after, and only when all of the darts are exhausted, attack the boss with melee and end it with a talisman explosion. |
| Crimson Charge | She appears on the ground, similar to the Double Claw Swipe, but this time, she performs a single crimson claw stab. This is a crimson attack that can’t be parried by standing on the ground. | As soon as she appears and has that green glow over her, jump in the air to perform a Tai-Chi Kick (It is the only to counter this type of attack). Proceed to attack her once you stagger her with the parry. |
Lady Ethereal – Phase 2 Strategy
Once her initial health bar is depleted, curtains will roll in and hide the background for a split second. After they open, Lady Ethereal will appear on top of the arena, her face all darkened, and she’ll summon two clones of her. She’ll get a fresh new health bar, and the second phase will begin.
The attacks in this phase are the same as before, but she will be using them in quick succession with the help of her clones while appearing and disappearing swiftly. All the practice you did learning her moveset in the previous phase will be helpful here. She’ll randomly chain these attacks in a series with a slight delay in between the next series of attacks.
Your goal during this phase is to figure out the real one and punish it. All of them will have dark faces, so there is no visual difference between real and fake ones. The real one can appear at any point in the attack chain, so you must be vigilant.
The one tip I can give is that the real Lady Ethereal tends to linger for a bit longer, so keep an eye on that.
You should be counteracting each incoming move with an attack of your own (melee or otherwise). The clones will disappear when you attack them, but when you use a regular attack on the real one, her face will go back to normal, and that’s your cue to double down on punishing her.
If you don’t stagger the real boss using the method above, the clones will keep coming, and the real lady will vanish. Hence, the moment you realize it is the real Lady Ethereal, use either the Charged Attack, Azur Bow, or Talisman Explosion to stagger her, which causes the clones to stop harassing you and give you an ample window to put in some extra damage.
Match her speed and keep the pressure up, and her second phase will be over before you know it.
Lady Ethereal – Phase 3 Strategy
The third and last phase starts like the previous one, but this time, her face will be normal, she’ll laugh maniacally and call forth six clones. Yup, that means things are about to get extremely dicey, literally.
This time, there are no attack chains. She and her clones will constantly attack you, giving you no time to breathe. By this point, you must have thoroughly memorized her moves, and reacting to them should be second nature to you.
There is one new ultimate attack in this phase, though. She will go airborne, raise her arms, and conjure a giant ball over her head. Clones will appear on each side to perform Diagonal Swipes one after the other, and then the real Lady Ethereal will smash the ball into the ground. The entire ground will collapse, and you will drop into another similar arena. It will be disastrous if you stand on the ground when she smashes it. She can use this attack throughout this phase.
Your reaction: Stay stationary as she conjures the ball and wait for the clones. Jump as the first clone charges at you, air parry the first and then the second, and remain airborne. Dash to the side if you are in the path of the final smash. As soon as the e ground shatters, you’ll be positioned close to her in the air. Use this opportunity to dash at her and perform a Talisman explosion to stagger and continue attacking her while she recovers. Repeat this whenever she uses this attack.
There is one other dubious attack she uses. The real lady will appear as she would when using a Diagonal Swipe, but she remains in place, charging her claws while her clones attack you. The ensuing attack is like the regular swipe, but the delayed timing catches you off guard, primarily due to the clones interfering.
However, identifying her is easier this time around. The real Lady Ethereal will not have a dark face and will always appear with her regular visage.
Keep your eyes peeled, and as soon as you spot her amongst the barrage of attacks, target her and stagger her using the aforementioned three attacks to stop the clone onslaught and dish out more damage.
Her time will be over once you get accustomed to her ferocity during this phase. Kill her to free her of her guilt!
The fight against Lady Ethereal in Nine Sols made me reminisce about when I fought my favorite Hollow Knight boss. Although she was much more challenging (and I died more than I like to admit), the whole dance was worth it. Hopefully, this fight doesn’t discourage you cause this boss is the perfect example of the beauty of Nine Sol’s combat.