Hunter's Chain Sickle Soul Temper: Gleaming Hook Explained

Is the Hunter’s Chain Sickle Soul Temper Worth Your Alloyed Scythe Blade?

The Hunter’s Chain Sickle — the Martial Phantom Edge The Hunt leaves behind at the Great Waterfall — has exactly one Soul Temper in Phantom Blade Zero: Gleaming Hook. As always, the spend is irreversible: one weapon-specific material plus 5,000 Remnant Dust. This page evaluates what Gleaming Hook actually changes (the answer is the chain, not the blade), how to earn the Alloyed Scythe Blade from one of the game’s most important duo fights, and where the temper’s famous fine print matters. For the Edge’s traversal kit, see the Hunter’s Chain Sickle guide; for arsenal rankings, the best Soul Tempers tier list.

What Does Gleaming Hook Change?

Verbatim from the upgrade screen (GameSpot’s transcription; Wikily’s truncated entry confirms the first clause):

Increases the power of the chain, allowing it to deal the same damage as the sickle blade. When the sickle blade hits an enemy, it depletes more sha-chi and builds the bleed gauge, triggering blood loss once full. This has no effect on puppets, golden bodies, and phantom bodies.

Read it as two upgrades stacked on different halves of the weapon. The chain — the half you use for Shadow Bound and Coiling Chain pulls, and for reeling enemies into your combo — stops being a utility string and deals sickle-blade damage. The blade half then gains a second engine: extra Sha-Chi depletion plus bleed gauge buildup on every hit, cashing out as blood loss when the gauge fills. The result is a Phantom Edge where both halves fight, and where sustained pressure now walks the target toward a break and a bleed at the same time.

Note what the temper does not touch: Shadow Bound and Coiling Chain pull distances, the Grappling Traverse anchors, and the Chain-Sickle Traverse vault are all unchanged. This is a damage-and-ailment layer on top of existing utility — the chain still pulls exactly as far, it simply hits like the blade while doing it.

The last sentence is the fine print, and it is not small: puppets, golden bodies, and phantom bodies ignore the bleed entirely. Several of the game’s headline bosses belong to those categories.

Game-Changer or Trap? The Cross-Evaluation

Exact chain damage formula and per-hit bleed values: community mapping in progress. Game8 logs the temper requirement (Alloyed Scythe Blade ×1, 5,000 Remnant Dust) without those numbers, and no second source publishes them yet.

Where to Get the Alloyed Scythe Blade

The Alloyed Scythe Blade drops from The Puppet Scavenger & Acolyte Hansui, the duo boss fought at the bottom of the Crimson Manor — the sunken complex beneath Weeping Creek Valley’s Sha-Chi tower, reached through the portal chain of The Herald’s Illusion. GameRant’s materials table and Rock Paper Shotgun’s boss compendium both log the blade on this fight’s reward list, alongside Hansui’s Frost Mask and the Yang Crystal Puppet Eye. That triple payout makes the duo one of the most efficient detours in the game: a temper material, an acolyte mask, and a true-ending key item behind one boss door. Route the descent with the Crimson Manor walkthrough, and read the Puppet Scavenger boss guide before you drop in — the pens arena punishes greedy pulls.

How to Temper

Soul Tempering unlocks with Myst in the Order’s underground tavern during Chapter 4. Temper at any Bell: Upgrade Equipment, Soul Temper tab, select the Hunter’s Chain Sickle, confirm Alloyed Scythe Blade ×1 plus 5,000 Remnant Dust. It is permanent — no Reforge Talisman undo — so read the Soul Tempering system guide first, and cross-check the Soul Temper materials index if the Dust could fund a higher-priority weapon instead.

The Verdict

Gleaming Hook is a clean game-changer with an honest asterisk. Against the humanoid crowds and elite duelists that fill most of the mid-game, it turns the Chain Sickle into a double-engine weapon — chain and blade both dealing full damage, blade hits feeding bleed and Sha-Chi damage simultaneously. The asterisk is the endgame: when the health bars start reading “puppet,” half the temper goes quiet. Temper it, main it through the middle acts, and let the Armybreaker soul temper or Parting Hooks soul temper arguments settle where your next 5,000 Dust goes.

FAQ

Which temper is best for the Hunter’s Chain Sickle? There is only one: Gleaming Hook. It raises chain damage to blade level and adds Sha-Chi depletion plus bleed buildup on blade hits.

Is the Hunter’s Chain Sickle soul temper worth 5,000 Remnant Dust? For pull-and-punish and bleed builds, yes — both weapon halves start dealing damage. If your endgame is puppet-heavy, weigh the immunity clause before spending.

Where do I get the Alloyed Scythe Blade? Defeat The Puppet Scavenger and Acolyte Hansui at the bottom of the Crimson Manor, beneath Weeping Creek Valley’s Sha-Chi tower; GameRant and RPS both list the blade among the duo’s drops.

What does Gleaming Hook do exactly? The chain deals the same damage as the sickle blade; blade hits deplete more Sha-Chi and build the bleed gauge until blood loss triggers — but puppets, golden bodies, and phantom bodies are immune to the bleed.

Sources

• Game8 — How to Get Hunter’s Chain Sickle
• GameSpot — All Soul Temper Materials in Phantom Blade Zero
• GameRant — Every Soul Tempering Material Location
• Rock Paper Shotgun — All 61 Phantom Blade Zero bosses in order
• Wikily — Hunter’s Chain Sickle

Exact chain damage formula and per-hit bleed buildup values: community mapping in progress. Bleed immunity clause (puppets, golden bodies, phantom bodies) per GameSpot’s verbatim transcription.