Quick links
-
What are the benefits of the trial?
Melinoë has her hands full Hades 2: along with his quests to the House of Hades and Olympus, the god Chaos has also decided to take an interest in her and the conflict. The pitch-black stone sits ominously on Melinoë's training plans.

Family
Hades 2: Complete Guide to the Pitch Black Stone
We'll show you how to unlock the Pitch Black Stone and Chaos Trials.
The Trial of Blood is one of the more difficult of Chaos' trials, rated five out of five… eyes? It challenges Melinoë with the task of getting through the rift of Thessaly and determining the goddess of battle, Eris, with the sister blades, the white horn and a cat. The initial charge for Trial of Blood can be a bit complicated, and you still have a bit to jump on.
What is the charge?
For Trial of Blood, the main features you start with are the weapon, its aspect, and the mnemonic. They are Sister blade in the aspect of Artemis and the White Horn. You won't be able to test the blood test until you unlock all three of these things.
Sister Blades are fast and mobile. The aspect of Artemis gives you a Parry and Riposte: when you channel your Omega Attack, you have a chance to Parry, prevent damage from most types of direct attacksthen Riposte, making you Impervious to pme Sec and give your next nine hits a +50 percent critical chance.
Artemis's memento, White Antler, also increases your critical chance, starting at +20 percent and increasing as you upgrade the memento. It also sets your maximum life to 30. When it's possible to start a run with 100 Life, 30 is quite a downgrade.
While the trials of Chaos dictate which weapon, aspect, memento, Boons, Arcana, and acquaintances you start with, any upgrades you make to Melinoë and her tools and companions will carry over into the pitch black stone. Similarly, encounters in the pitch black stone apply to upgrading your memorabilia.
Some tests also give you a specific Familiar, Arcana, and Boons to start with. Here you have the cat, Toula! While she has a nice attack, for this trial, she brings to the table a single Death Defiance. When you only have 30 life it's valuable.
Your Chaos Arcana spread consists of only two cards: The lovers and the strength. The Lovers give you an example of damage resistance in Guardian Encounters. In the Rift of Thessaly, this will likely only be Eris, although there is a chance of encountering Charybdis as well.
The heavy lifter here is Strength. This card gives you one damage reduction and a +25 percent damage as long as you have no Death Defiance effects. You could theoretically shoot your Death Defiance early and purposefully to get that damage boost, but since Toula's Defiance only restores 10 Life, you're more likely to be at a disadvantage. Better to save Strength for when that Death Defiance thing goes naturally.
What are the benefits of the trial?
You start with a handful of blessings from Artemis, Aphrodite, and Poseidon, meaning you'll likely only see Aphrodite and Poseidon during Thessaly's demolition.
Flutter Strikefrom Aphrodite, your attacks deal an extra +120 percent damage to nearby enemies. Glamor gain inflicts its special condition, Weak, on nearby enemies, and allows you to gradually restore Magick when any nearby enemy is weak. Finally, Broken decisions make your weak effects more potent.
Weak enemies deal less damage.
Poseidon's Heroic Blessing, Flood controlreduces any damage you take by five, but Primes 30 Magick. The Sister Blades is not a super Magick dependent weaponso this probably won't cause much of a problem, especially with Aphrodite's Glamor Gain.
Finally, your Boon is from Artemis First blood. All enemies with at least 80 percent health or armor can take critical damage, increasing your chance by 30 percent.
Into The Rift
The Trial of Blood is easy if you think about it. Just don't get hit. Simple.
But really: damage reduction can only do so much. Especially when reaching Eris, whose attacks get stronger the more damaged she is, one attack can mean the end of a run. The Trial of Blood forces you to pay attention to every detail on the screen and stay ahead of everything.
Artemis is here to help you wipe out everyone in your path: everything she offers for this trial increases your critical chance, with some damage prevention. It is very easy to kill most enemies in a hit or three. It will only be a question of make sure you strike first.
blessings in the rift
You'll probably only see Poseidon and Aphrodite in the demolition of Thessaly, but there's also a chance Hermes will make an appearance. Much of what you choose will be about finding what works best for you.
For example, you can benefit Poseidon's knockback Boons, keeping distance between you and enemies that can potentially hit you; or you can lean into Aphrodite's proximity and forgo those knockback abilities to keep your enemies close and benefit from Flutter Strike and Glamor Gain. You can try the tests as often as you likeso there's no harm in trial and error to find what works best for you. But in the meantime, some will almost always be easy choices.
Almost everything from Hermes is amazing. Most tend to make you or your attacks faster, or make enemies slower.
- Agile mind: makes your Omega move faster, minimizing the time where you are most vulnerable (channeling). Especially when the Artemis aspect is focused around your Omega attack, speeding it up gives enemies less time to hit you when you're slowed down.
- Hard target: makes most enemies' ranged shots slower and therefore easier to see coming and avoid. It's an underrated one, but many enemies in the Rift of Thessaly have projectiles. It likely won't work on Eris, but those pesky Sticklers and Blaskets have a power you'd be wise to avoid.
- Nitro Boost: makes your Sprint 15 percent faster and gives you a barrier that ignores drops of damage, the number of hits blocked depending on the Boon's rarity. The increased speed does wonders for dodging Eris' gunfire, and this the damage barrier works in every encounter, not just Guardian, like the Lovers card.
Aphrodite's Boons are largely focused on doing more damage and taking less damage. They tend to be a little less flashy, but are almost always a good option. Just look out for life affirmation – it does something Max life rewards more potent, which won't help you here.
- Shameless attitude: it gives you a total damage bonus, but doubles the bonus if you have at least 80 percent health. Anything that helps you kill enemies before they kill you will go a long way, and if you can keep your health up, all the better.
- Healthy recovery: heals you to 100 percent health when you leave a location, provided you haven't lost too much health – you need at least 80 percent for this to kick in. This requires that you first have a shameless attitude.
- Sweet surrender: Weakly hit enemies take more damage. This one requires either Rapture Ring, Passion Rush, or Glamor Gain, but luckily you start with Glamor Gain. Rapture Ring or Passion Rush will help spread the Weak around a bit more, so they're still good.
Poseidon has a lot of knockback abilities, which helps give you room to breathe when surrounded by enemies.
- Dare to flourish or Tide Ring: A ranged special from Wave Flourish pushes long target even further, and Tidal Ring adds extra damage to your Cast. Tidal Ring could later be combined with Geyser Spout to add knockback.
- Island Getaway: Poseidon's Duo Boon with Aphrodite gives you 15 percent damage resistance from nearby enemiesand make it so Boons of Aphrodite treat all enemies as nearby – which pairs amazingly with Flutter Strike and Glamor Gain. You already have Flutter Strike from Aphrodite for Island Getaway's prerequisites, and from Poseidon you need one of Wave Strike, Wave Flourish, Tidal Ring, Breaker Sprint, or Fluid Gain. It might be a little harder to get hold of, but if possible, it's absolutely worth it.
Daedalus Hammers
Since your starting boons are focused on melee, if you happen to run into a Daedalus Hammer, it's best to stick with ones that upgrade your attacks, although there are some exceptions.
- Explosive ambush: Your Omega Attack deals 400 percent damage in a larger area, but uses +20 Magick. This goes well with Aspect of Artemis, but keep an eye on your Magick limit.
- Truancy attackt: Causes your attacks to deal +150 percent damage when hitting enemies from behind. This will promote good habits: getting behind enemies will both increase your damage and decrease your chance of being hit, since enemies usually have to face you.
- Melting sickle: Your special destroys 50 percent of all armor, based on the total. This is the exception! If you can cut down an enemy's armor from a distance, it will be much easier to finish them off.
How to defeat Eris
The strategy is simple: beat others before they beat you. The execution, a little more difficult.
Eris is in trouble. She has a gun, she's fine and you only have 30 lives.
- Stay behind her: Many of her attacks show their path before she fires, and if you're quick enough you can get behind her or take cover. Boons can help, but it's also very possible without divine intervention. Melee works well against Eris, as it makes it much easier to slip behind her. She can only shoot in one direction. Don't be that way.
- Kill the henchmen: She will summon little guys throughout the fight to help her. They're annoying and get in the way, and if you're focused on Eris and ignore them, you're much more likely to get hit. With Artemis crit they should die easily – get them out of the way.
- Hit her!: Get up close and personal with the Goddess of Strife! Use the aspect of Artemis Omega Attack, and rack up those critical hits.
It's fine if it takes practice. You're just killing some time, after all.

Next
Hades 2: Sister Blades Combat Guide
Sister Blades are very fast weapons that Melinoe can unlock in Hades 2. Here's everything you need to know.