Mandate Encampment Walkthrough - Optional Bosses Guide

The Mandate Encampment sits on the Village of Lu’s eastern edge, visible from the first hour and locked until deep into Pangzhen. Behind its gate is Phantom Blade Zero’s densest cluster of optional fights: three high-value duels, a formation boss, and the puppet who holds both a top-tier dual weapon and an Illusory Pipa component. This Mandate Encampment walkthrough follows the camp in clear order and flags the one missable that guide readers keep tripping over.

Getting In: The Outer Gate Key

You can tag the Mandate Encampment Outer Gate bell from the Village of Lu crossroads early, but the gate stays shut. The key comes from Pangzhen: progress the city until you beat Gu Wanyue, the Wailing Wraith near the Pond of Fading Song bell, then jump down the well beside it. The Mandate Encampment Outer Gate Key glows on the floor of the puppet-filled room below, right next to a Memory Flower. Fast-travel back to the Village of Lu and open the gate.

Cliffside Walkway and Corpse-Eating Xue

Inside, take the left path up the hill — the right side is blocked until later in the story — and pick up the Guardian Idol Fragment: Head by the campfire. The first fight is Corpse-Eating Xue, a Maskwalker-type brawl against a pack rather than a duelist. Area-of-effect weapons like the Hunter’s Chain Sickle or a two-hander keep the mob off you. Xue drops nothing, so treat the fight as a gate check, not a farm.

Wan Jun, the Coppermaul: The Bashpole

Wan Jun, the Coppermaul is the first of the camp’s three big optional bosses and the one you should never skip. He swings slowly but every hit lands like a siege engine, and the arena walls will eat your dodge if you fight with your back to them. Stay center, punish the recovery after his charged smashes, and the fight ends quickly.

His reward is the Bashpole, a Phantom Edge that smashes through wooden planks sealing floors — one of the most backtrack-valuable tools in the game, and part of the wider Phantom Edge collection. Test it immediately: planks near the arena entrance hide the Phantom Remedy medicine, and another set sits by the Main Encampment Gate.

The Seven-Star Formation and the Training Grounds Key

Past the main gate, a dying Mandate Disciple sets the camp’s story tone: something has gone very wrong with the Baishan Sect. Wall-run up to the Three Towers bell and drop into the arena for the Chief Disciple of the Seven-Star Formation — a multi-enemy duel where repositioning matters more than damage. Winning pays out the Swordsman’s Summon Phantom Edge, the Twin Fish Pendant accessory, and, critically, the Training Grounds Key. The creek below the arena also hides two tale items: Moji’s House Key and the Broken Iron Sword.

Red and Wu Lengshuang: Two Optional Duels

Two of the camp’s three high-value optional bosses wait on the road to the Training Grounds:

• Wu Lengshuang, the Soft Sword — senior disciple of the Baishan Sect, already cracking under her Sha-Chi when Soul finds her. Her soft sword whips around guard angles, so fight her with the same discipline as any Perfect Transcension from the combat system guide: parry blue, Ghoststep red. She drops the Soft Snake Sword and the Guardian Idol Fragment: Leg by the tree, completing that accessory set.
• Red, the Mysterious Swordswoman — an optional duel at the top of the camp tower. Current guides report no reward for beating her; she exists as a pure skill check and a lore tease. Skip her if you are rushing, fight her if you want the camp’s hardest one-on-one.

Baishan Stormswords Prerequisite: Do This Before Yubi

Here is the missable. After Wu Lengshuang, walk up the stairs and speak to Baishan in the center of the flowerbed to advance the tale Secrets of the Baishan Sect. If you unlock the Training Grounds and kill Yubi before finishing that tale, you permanently lose the Broken Vessel accessory — it is flagged in our missable side quests guide for a reason.

With the tale done, open the Training Grounds with the key and drop in to face Yubi, No. 21 Swordfighter Puppet. The payoff is a double: the Baishan Stormswords — a wind-and-thunder dual-wield set that tops several early tier lists — plus the Broken Vessel fragment and the Illusory Pipa Backplate on the arena table, one of three components mapped in our Illusory Pipa parts guide.

The Portal and the Way Out

Upstairs from Yubi’s arena you will find the Lament Draught medicine and the second Herald’s Illusion portal — step through to open the second eye of the Three-Eyed Puppet. That chain concludes at the Puppet’s Tongue key and eventually the Crimson Manor. Back outside, sweep the Behind the Encampment Waterfall bell for lore rooms and the last Mandate Leaders Memory Flowers, then catch up on open tales — the Broken Iron Sword finishes in Pangzhen. From the docks, the natural next step is the Meigu Lake walkthrough.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Mandate Encampment required for the main story? The camp holds main-path beats about the Baishan Sect, but several of its bosses — Red, Wu Lengshuang, and arguably Wan Jun — are optional. The Bashpole and the Baishan Stormswords make skipping them a bad deal.

What order should I do the bosses in? Corpse-Eating Xue, then Wan Jun for the Bashpole, then the Seven-Star Formation for the Training Grounds Key, then Wu Lengshuang and Red, then Yubi last — after Secrets of the Baishan Sect.

Does the Mandate Encampment connect to the true ending? Indirectly: the Illusory Pipa Backplate and the Herald’s Illusion portal both feed true-ending chains, so a clean clear here saves backtracking later.

Sources: Maxroll’s Mandate Encampment walkthrough, GameSpot’s Mandate Encampment access guide, Game8’s boss and weapon entries, and GameBoost’s secret boss list (October 28 - November 1, 2026).