How to Beat Bakir, the Mad Khan in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Bakir is the second of Brencis’s three Boyars — the Fextralife wiki records him as Bakir the Mad Khan, a vassal “known for his cruelty and how he despises humans.” He leads a military force, runs the pillories and the distilleries, and hosts the Lunar Tournament, “a game that always ends in a bloodbath.” Like Ambrus and Xanthe, killing him feeds the maximum-infamy requirement for the deal ending — and if he is still alive at the Griefberg assault, he appears as a boss in the castle dungeon.

How Do You Unlock the Bakir Fight?

Work his Court tab. Twelve activities branch from Bakir’s court, and per Fextralife you only need to complete about nine of them to draw him out — investigate his pillories, kill his headhunters, and the Anger meter climbs until The Lunar Game starts. The full questline is expensive in the one currency the game never refunds: Fextralife prices it at roughly 42 time segments, so budget against your 30-day clock before committing.

The quest can stall on “Wait for the right opportunity” at Lunar Manor. Rock Paper Shotgun’s author got it moving again by destroying one of Bakir’s stations on the grounds, which summoned Farkas.

How Do You Get Into the Lunar Tournament?

Farkas the Fox is Bakir’s scorned servant, and he is your way in. He wants his heirloom — an amethyst ring — returned, and in exchange he will smuggle you into the tournament. The catch: no inventory inside, and using Vrakhiri powers would expose you.

Before sundown you can tilt the odds by talking to the masked contestants:

• The Porcupine promises not to block you.
• The Marten responds to honesty and an offer to team up.
• The Rat and The Cockroach are unhelpful — but poisoning the tournament liquor with berries (found via Focus Mode) disables The Cockroach and spares you, in Rock Paper Shotgun’s words, “an extra and wholly unnecessary fight.”

At Bakir’s speech, keep quiet. Cheering or silence has no consequences, but provoking him forces a gearless brawl against the entire cohort.

The Blood of Dawnwalker — Bakir Boss Fight & All Choices — YouTube

The Blood of Dawnwalker — Bakir Boss Fight & All Choices

How Do You Solve the Maze Riddle?

The tournament maze throws an undead wolf pack, a Murohn, and the Great Bog Wurm at you — with an optional fight against The Porcupine if you betrayed him. The riddle at its heart, quoted by Rock Paper Shotgun:

“Silver coin shimmers on the right, Middle feels like a summer light, Left reeks of blood and fear”

Choose left. Two more pickups matter on the way through: The Marten dies in the maze and leaves you the Darkbane Amulet (a Master amulet raising crit chance and damage against supernatural enemies), and the Nobleman’s Black Bracers up weapon damage while cutting attack stamina cost. The Rat, tied to the willow at the maze’s center, holds the token Bakir asks you to cut free.

How Do You Actually Beat Bakir?

The Fextralife wiki is blunt about the preferred outcome: get Bakir alone inside the Treasury Room. The alternative is fighting him in the courtyard with his men around him — a much worse version of the same fight. Blowing your cover in the maze and cutting through the cohort also ends in a duel with him, and Rock Paper Shotgun notes the fight path is worth taking for the loot: Vrakhiric Bracers, Bakir’s Armour, an Epic Amulet, and Sunlight’s Boon.

No wiki publishes his HP, but TheGamer’s walkthrough documents the fight in full. It starts the moment you tell Bakir you intend to kill him — switch to your claws. His standard claw swipes are parryable and a successful parry buys “a pretty generous stun window,” but a missed perfect parry ends the combo in an unblockable kick. His deadliest string is a series of unblockable stomps that send a vertical wave of blood at you — dodge left or right, up to four times if he is at range. He also has a rushing unblockable kick: dodging sideways lands you beside him for free hits. He teleports away and favors ranged attacks, so play hit-and-run, and if he catches you in his close-range grapple you can spam healing blood vials through it.

Per GameSpot’s moveset coverage, his Flying Kick teleports him into a kick to your face, and his Ground Cascade is shared with Xanthe’s arsenal — a Reddit thread adds that his blood-wave attack has a rhythm you learn by dying to it.

Kill or Drain?

The Lunar Game pays out 500 XP, 1 Skill Point, Bakir’s Armour, and Bakir’s Treasury Key per Fextralife — and then you choose his fate. Draining his blood unlocks Shadowstorm, a vampiric ability you cannot get any other way. Like Ambrus, the drain raises your Corruption and takes you both to Anachora — and per Method.gg you can invite Bakir along for the rest of the run, where he comments from inside your head. TheGamer is blunt on the choice: killing him “yields nothing” — there are no story consequences either way, so take the drain.

Sparing him is possible without any fighting at all: at the feast, refuse to remove your sword and mask and talk about your dreams instead. Bakir befriends you, returns your things, and offers one Treasury item. That route keeps him alive — and Rock Paper Shotgun is honest that nobody yet knows what a living Bakir does to the Brencis endgame.