Jagged Steel

Jagged Steel, the Frenzied Brute, is Phantom Blade Zero's required teaching boss in the riverbed below Rustblade Pavilion in Weeping Creek Valley. Block his combos, parry the third hit of his spin, perfect dodge his red flashes, and he drops the Jagged Steel bleed sword.

Block, wait for the glint, then parry or dodge: Jagged Steel, the Frenzied Brute, is the required boss of Chapter 2, Against the Flow, that teaches exactly that rhythm, and PCGamesN calls him an introductory boss "which teaches you how to parry and perfect dodge". He has 8,280 HP on Pathbreaker and drops the serrated bleed sword he fights with, and by Nov 9, 2026 82.3% of Steam players had used it to inflict Blood Loss.

Down the gorge to the riverbed

His arena is the riverbed below Rustblade Pavilion, the nearest bell, past the Red Thread Barrier in Weeping Creek Valley. Follow the gorge trail beside the stream and pass the mist of the waterfall at its far end; Game8 puts the arena in an open area behind the waterfalls. Beside a corpse under a hanging fire basket lies "Captain Chen Zhu's Secret Letter", which warns of a rampaging Maskwalker whose cuts bleed heavily.

On your first visit a Gold Mask and an Iron Mask are already fighting him in the riverbed, and he kills them both. Your Remnant Dust still rises by 1,114 when they die, though you did not land the blows. On later visits he stands idle until you come close.

Reading the Brute

Let him swing into your guard. The Brute's strings are blockable almost throughout, Game8 finds, so keep block up and wait for the glint that marks the hit to parry or dodge.
Answer the red flash with a perfect dodge just before impact, as the combat tutorial teaches; PCGamesN says to follow the on-screen prompts.
Do not read a pause into the end of a slash chain: he often goes straight into his charge or spinning sweep.
Watch your health after his combos land. His bleed ticks Soul's HP for about 3 seconds and leaves blood pools around you, and his heaviest single hits take about 240 of Soul's 850 HP.
Speed is the danger. Game Rant's preview found his "sheer speed" was "too much" at first.

Even the parries are his own. In Fextralife's Oct 9, 2026 preview video (6:23), which covered the first two chapters where the Brute waits, bosses had "unique deflect and parry animations" captured against each boss's own weapon, so a clean parry against his serrated blade does not look like one against the next boss.

His moveset

Spin attack opener: two blockable hits, then a third you can parry. Game8 says a clean parry opens a counterattack and can stagger him early.
Four hits and an upward swing: block the first four; the fifth, a rising swing toward you, is the one to dodge, which leaves room to stagger him.
Five-hit basic combo: it starts with "a faint red light in his right hand". Block all five, then react to the dodgeable attack that follows.
Charge: keep your distance and he sprints at you with the blade raised, swinging as he arrives.
Spinning sweep: a full turn at waist height that leaves a red trail.
Overhead chop: the blade goes up and drops straight down in front of him.
Leap: he jumps high and drops onto you. AllThings.how calls it one of his easier moves to read, since he is visibly airborne first.
Riverbed slam: he drives the blade into the riverbed and throws up a column of water.

None of the guides describes a second phase, and Game8 lists him as a main story boss of Against the Flow who cannot be skipped.

The reward: Jagged Steel

The sword he drops is a one-handed weapon with 240 damage and 124 status effect. It fills an enemy's Bleed Gauge, and its Jagged Steel Rampage skill is unblockable; skills unlock at weapon levels 5, 10, 15 and 25. Bleed has no effect on Puppets, Golden Bodies or Phantom Bodies, so it does nothing against Hua, Deadly Betrothed, while Game8 recommends it against Peng Meng, and it remains the early bleed pick in the rankings on Weapons.