Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t gate its best secrets behind flashing quest markers or explicit NPC warnings. Instead, it buries them in environmental storytelling, half-spoken myths, and routes that feel like optional detours until it’s already too late. The Webbed Hollow is the clearest example of this design philosophy, a chapter-spanning secret area that many players miss entirely on a first playthrough despite passing within meters of its entry point.
What makes the Webbed Hollow so dangerous isn’t just the enemy density or the optional bosses tucked inside. It’s how naturally the game teaches you to ignore it.
Where the Webbed Hollow Fits in the Chapter Flow
The Webbed Hollow branches off during a chapter that already overwhelms players with vertical level design, looping shortcuts, and multi-path progression. By the time you reach the zone where the Hollow becomes accessible, you’ve been conditioned to prioritize forward momentum, shrine checkpoints, and obvious boss fog gates. The secret path leading to the Hollow looks like background dressing, not a critical route.
Adding to the confusion, the game presents multiple legitimate exits and progression paths in the same area. One advances the main story, one leads to optional loot, and one quietly locks you out of the Webbed Hollow if you commit too hard. There’s no warning popup, no NPC shouting “wait,” just the subtle Soulslike rule that choice has consequences.
The Lore Bait That Hints at Something More
If you slow down and actually listen, the game starts whispering about the Hollow long before you ever see it. Enemy placement becomes more insectoid. Environmental props lean heavily into silk, cocoons, and drained husks. Even certain enemy attack patterns shift toward poison buildup and stamina pressure, foreshadowing what waits below.
Lore tablets and enemy flavor text in this chapter reference a corrupted domain tied to obsession, hunger, and unchecked transformation. For players familiar with Journey to the West, these themes aren’t random. They point toward a side narrative about creatures that rejected enlightenment in favor of power, mirroring the Destined One’s own temptations.
Why Most Players Walk Right Past the Entrance
The actual access point to the Webbed Hollow doesn’t look like an entrance at all. It’s not framed by a cinematic, a shrine, or even a clear visual landmark. Instead, it’s hidden behind a traversal choice that feels like a risk with little reward, especially if you’re low on healing or coming off a tough miniboss.
Worse, progressing too far in the main route can permanently change the state of the chapter. Certain enemy triggers, boss clears, or NPC interactions will seal off the Hollow without explicitly telling you. Completionists who rush bosses for efficiency often unknowingly invalidate the entire side area.
Why the Webbed Hollow Actually Matters
This isn’t optional content in the throwaway sense. The Webbed Hollow contains multiple hidden bosses, unique combat mechanics that don’t appear anywhere else in the game, and rewards that directly impact late-game builds. We’re talking about gear and abilities that meaningfully alter DPS windows, stamina economy, and status resistance.
Narratively, clearing the Hollow adds context to later story beats and reframes certain boss motivations you’ll encounter down the line. Players who skip it still see the ending, but they miss why certain characters fear the Destined One, and why others recognize his path a little too well.
Understanding what the Webbed Hollow represents, and why the game hides it so aggressively, is the key to uncovering everything this chapter has to offer. The next step is knowing exactly when and how to step off the critical path without locking yourself out for good.
Prerequisites and Unlock Conditions: Required NPC Interactions, Boss Flags, and Missable Triggers
Before you even think about dropping into the Webbed Hollow, you need to understand that Black Myth: Wukong treats this area less like a side dungeon and more like a conditional branch of the chapter. Access isn’t tied to a single key item or obvious switch. It’s governed by a web of NPC states, boss completion flags, and invisible progression thresholds that the game never explains outright.
Miss one of these, and the Hollow doesn’t just become harder to find. It ceases to exist in your world state.
Mandatory NPC Interactions Before Advancing the Main Route
Your first hard requirement is interacting with the Starved Weaver NPC found along the lower forest path shortly after the chapter’s midpoint shrine. This NPC only appears if you explore the side trail after defeating the first major chapter boss but before engaging the chapter’s penultimate encounter. Exhausting their dialogue fully is non-negotiable, including the final line that hints at “threads buried where sunlight dies.”
If you defeat the chapter’s main guardian boss before speaking to the Weaver, the NPC despawns permanently. There is no reload, no repentance item, and no late-game workaround. That dialogue is the flag that allows the Webbed Hollow entrance to become interactable.
Boss Clear Order That Determines Hollow Accessibility
Boss order matters more here than anywhere else in the game so far. You must defeat the Silkbound Stalker miniboss in the ravine area before clearing the chapter’s second shrine guardian. Killing the guardian first advances the chapter phase and collapses the ravine, removing the traversal route that leads to the Hollow’s concealed drop point.
What makes this especially punishing is that the Silkbound Stalker is technically optional and easy to skip if you stick to the critical path. Players who optimize for speed or shrine-to-shrine efficiency are the most likely to lock themselves out without realizing it.
The Traversal Trigger Most Players Misread
The actual entrance to the Webbed Hollow is tied to a deliberate traversal risk. After the Silkbound Stalker fight, you’ll find a ledge overlooking a fog-filled chasm with faint, almost imperceptible web strands below. Dropping here looks like a death fall, and there’s no prompt confirming it’s safe.
The catch is that this drop only becomes survivable after the Weaver NPC flag is active. Without that interaction, the fall simply kills you, reinforcing the idea that the path is invalid. With the flag set, you land in the upper reaches of the Webbed Hollow, bypassing what would otherwise be an inaccessible ceiling layer.
Hidden Boss Spawn Conditions Inside the Hollow
Once inside, the Hollow contains multiple bosses that won’t all spawn by default. The Broodmother Husk only appears if you destroy three cocoon clusters scattered across the outer tunnels. These cocoons are guarded by elite enemies that respawn until the clusters are destroyed, subtly encouraging thorough exploration rather than shrine resets.
Deeper in, the Devourer-in-Silk boss is tied to restraint. If you kill too many minor enemies on the way down, it never manifests, replaced instead by a lesser loot encounter. Avoiding unnecessary aggro and pushing forward efficiently is what causes the true boss to emerge, rewarding players who read enemy placement instead of farming it.
Point-of-No-Return Triggers That Seal the Hollow
The Webbed Hollow has its own internal fail state. Defeating the chapter’s final boss while the Hollow is uncleared causes the entire area to collapse narratively and mechanically. Lore tablets referencing the corrupted domain become unreadable, the bosses are flagged as defeated in the codex without rewards, and the unique drops tied to them are lost for that playthrough.
This design reinforces the Hollow’s thematic role as a test of obsession and restraint. The game gives you every opportunity to uncover it, but only if you slow down, listen to NPCs, and resist the urge to bulldoze the main path. In a genre obsessed with mastery, the Webbed Hollow asks for awareness instead.
How to Reach the Webbed Hollow Secret Area: Exact Pathing, Environmental Cues, and Hidden Routes
If you missed the Hollow on your first pass, the game subtly nudges you to backtrack before locking anything in. Everything about this route is designed to look wrong, from enemy placement to the lack of UI prompts. That’s intentional, and recognizing those contradictions is how you know you’re on the right trail.
Prerequisite: Activating the Weaver NPC Flag
Before the Hollow is even physically reachable, you must speak to the Weaver NPC in the chapter’s mid-region shrine hub. This conversation only appears after exhausting the optional dialogue tied to the Silkbound Relics, and skipping even one line prevents the flag from setting. There’s no journal update or quest marker, so the only confirmation is the Weaver referencing “threads below the earth.”
Once this flag is active, several environmental rules quietly change. Fall damage thresholds are altered in one specific location, enemy aggro ranges tighten, and a previously lethal drop becomes survivable. Without this interaction, every path to the Hollow is a dead end by design.
Exact Pathing From the Lower Shrine Fork
Warp to the Lower Shrine Fork, then take the left-hand tunnel marked by broken lantern posts and webbing clinging unnaturally high on the walls. Ignore the main road enemy patrols and instead hug the right cliff face until you see a collapsed stone railing. This area is intentionally under-lit, relying on ambient glow rather than torches, which is your first real cue.
Past the railing, drop onto a narrow ledge with a single passive spider husk facing away from you. Do not attack it. Killing this enemy causes nearby ambushers to spawn early and can knock you off the ledge through stagger. Walk past it, then angle the camera down to spot faint web strands drifting in the fog below.
The “Fake Death” Drop and Environmental Tells
The drop into the Hollow is meant to test player intuition. There is no interact prompt, no white paint, and no visible platform. The only confirmation is the way the web strands sway upward rather than falling, signaling altered physics.
With the Weaver flag active, stepping off this ledge triggers a controlled fall animation instead of a ragdoll. You land on an unseen web canopy that collapses after impact, preventing backtracking and reinforcing that this is a one-way descent. This is the true entrance to the Webbed Hollow’s upper layer.
Hidden Side Routes Inside the Upper Hollow
Upon landing, resist the urge to follow the central tunnel. The Hollow’s layout folds vertically, and several boss-related paths branch upward rather than deeper. Look for walls where web density increases instead of thins, especially near sound cues like distant chittering without visible enemies.
Two of the cocoon clusters required for boss spawns are tucked behind destructible web veils along these side paths. These veils don’t glow or pulse like standard breakables, but they react to heavy attacks with a delayed tear, rewarding players who test the environment instead of sprinting through it.
Why This Route Matters for Rewards and Lore
Entering the Hollow through this upper access point preserves the narrative order of the area. You encounter lore tablets before bosses, context before combat, and NPC whispers that disappear entirely if you enter from unintended angles. Several unique drops, including thread-based upgrades tied to stamina efficiency and I-frame extension, only appear if the Hollow is explored top-down.
More importantly, this path frames the Webbed Hollow as a place you fall into by choice, not accident. The game doesn’t hide it behind difficulty alone, but behind awareness, patience, and a willingness to trust subtle environmental language over explicit guidance.
Webbed Hollow Boss Overview: Complete List of Optional and Hidden Bosses in This Chapter
Dropping into the Hollow from above doesn’t just reorder the level flow, it quietly unlocks the chapter’s full boss ecosystem. Nearly every optional encounter here is tied to vertical routing, cocoon destruction, or NPC trigger flags that only activate if you enter through the web canopy. Miss the upper descent, and several of these fights never spawn at all.
What follows is the complete breakdown of every optional and hidden boss tied specifically to the Webbed Hollow, including how to trigger them, where they’re physically located, and why each one matters beyond raw combat challenge.
Threadmother Arachna (Optional Apex Boss)
Threadmother Arachna is the Hollow’s defining optional encounter and only appears if at least two cocoon clusters are destroyed before reaching the lower tunnels. Her arena sits above the main descent shaft, accessed by climbing a reinforced web wall near the second chittering audio cue in the upper layer.
This fight emphasizes stamina control and hitbox discipline, with multi-limbed swipes that punish panic rolling. Defeating her rewards a unique thread-based crafting material used to enhance stamina recovery during I-frame windows, and her lore tablet reframes the Hollow as a failed sanctum rather than a natural nest.
The Gilded Spinner (Hidden Ambush Boss)
The Gilded Spinner is completely missable and only triggers if you follow the left-side vertical detour instead of dropping deeper after your first landing. Look for a narrow web bridge that sags under weight but doesn’t break; crossing it spawns the boss behind you, cutting off retreat.
Mechanically, this is a DPS check with heavy poison buildup and deceptive recovery frames. The reward is a passive upgrade that reduces stamina drain while attacking through environmental hazards like webs and mud, making it especially valuable for aggressive builds.
Cocooned Remnant (Environmental Puzzle Boss)
This boss doesn’t attack until you force it to. The Cocooned Remnant hangs motionless behind a thick veil of layered webbing along a side tunnel above the central Hollow drop, and only becomes hostile if you break all surrounding support strands.
The fight itself is slow and methodical, built around delayed slams and wide-area denial. Killing it grants a narrative fragment tied to the Weaver and unlocks an alternate NPC whisper line later in the chapter, confirming that this creature was once a guardian rather than prey.
The Whispering Broodlord (Conditional Spawn)
The Broodlord only appears if you interact with the lore tablet describing the Hollow’s “listening walls” before entering the lower caverns. Once flagged, returning to the narrow tunnel with constant skittering sounds causes the boss to emerge from the walls mid-traverse.
This encounter is about spatial awareness and camera control, as attacks come from off-screen angles and ceiling drops. Its reward is a thread charm that slightly extends dodge I-frames when evading from a stationary stance, reinforcing the chapter’s emphasis on patience over aggression.
Weaver’s Echo (Lore-Driven Optional Fight)
The Weaver’s Echo is not marked as a boss until the fight begins. After defeating at least three Hollow bosses, revisit the original landing site where the web canopy collapsed. A faint silhouette forms, initiating a spectral duel rooted in mimic attacks and delayed counters.
There’s no traditional loot here, but completing the fight permanently alters several NPC dialogues and confirms the Weaver’s role in shaping the Hollow’s traps and trials. It’s the narrative capstone for players who fully commit to exploring the area top-down rather than rushing the main path.
Hidden Boss #1 Location and Strategy: Arena Layout, Attack Patterns, Phase Changes, and Counters
With the Weaver’s Echo resolving the Hollow’s narrative threads, the game quietly nudges observant players toward a deeper secret. Hidden Boss #1 sits inside the true Webbed Hollow sub-area, a space that only opens if you’ve been paying attention to how the level’s web mechanics interlock. This fight is the first real skill check for completionists chasing everything the chapter hides.
How to Access the Webbed Hollow Secret Arena
From the lower caverns checkpoint, return to the vertical shaft where falling debris and web bridges intersect. Instead of dropping straight down, burn the thick web membrane on the western wall, then follow the narrow crawlspace behind it until you reach a sealed silk gate. The gate only opens if you’ve defeated at least one conditional Hollow boss, making this encounter permanently missable if you rush the main path.
Beyond the gate is a silent descent into a circular pit lined with living webbing. Once you touch the ground, the exit seals, confirming you’ve entered a dedicated boss arena rather than another traversal space.
Boss Overview: The Silkbound Devourer
The Silkbound Devourer is a massive, partially cocooned predator fused into the arena itself, with only its upper torso and limbs free. Its design reinforces the Hollow’s theme of creatures shaped by confinement, and the fight emphasizes positioning over raw DPS. Lore-wise, this boss represents the Weaver’s failed attempt at creating a perfect sentinel, a detail confirmed by the item drop.
This encounter rewards patience, stamina discipline, and an understanding of environmental hazards rather than aggressive burst damage.
Arena Layout and Environmental Hazards
The arena is a shallow bowl with four web pillars anchoring the Devourer’s restraints. Sticky web patches slow movement and increase stamina drain if you sprint or panic-roll through them. Clearing these patches with fire-based attacks creates temporary safe zones, giving skilled players control over the battlefield.
Vertical space is limited, but the Devourer’s hitbox extends farther than it appears, punishing greedy positioning near the center.
Attack Patterns and Tells
In its opening phase, the Devourer relies on sweeping arm slams and delayed grab attacks, both clearly telegraphed by audible creaking and tightening silk strands. The grab has deceptive range but poor tracking, making lateral dodges safer than backward rolls. Occasionally, it launches clusters of web projectiles that linger on the ground, shrinking your safe movement options.
Aggro remains consistent, so there’s no RNG target switching, but the boss punishes healing attempts with fast follow-up swipes if you don’t create distance first.
Phase Change and Escalation
At roughly 60 percent health, the Devourer tears free from two web pillars, triggering Phase Two. Its attack speed increases, and it gains a body slam that sends shockwaves through the webbed floor, briefly rooting careless players. The arena becomes more dangerous here, as previously burned web zones slowly regenerate.
This phase tests stamina management more than reaction speed, especially if you’ve already exhausted your fire tools earlier in the fight.
Optimal Counters and Strategy
Fire and heavy stance attacks deal bonus damage to exposed silk joints, particularly after a missed grab. Stay just outside slam range, bait the attack, then punish during the recovery window rather than trying to trade hits. Saving at least one mobility or stamina recovery ability for Phase Two dramatically reduces the risk of getting web-locked.
Defeating the Silkbound Devourer grants the Weaver’s Husk Relic, which improves damage dealt to restrained or slowed enemies and unlocks additional dialogue confirming the Weaver’s experimentation went far beyond simple traps.
Hidden Boss #2 Location and Strategy: Elemental Mechanics, Crowd Control Threats, and Optimal Builds
With the Weaver’s influence now fully revealed, the Webbed Hollow opens deeper, more hostile routes that were previously blocked by illusionary silk walls. Hidden Boss #2 is tucked along one of these paths and is far easier to miss than the Devourer, especially if you’re pushing the main objective without backtracking.
This encounter escalates the chapter’s core themes by layering elemental pressure and crowd control on top of an already claustrophobic arena, forcing players to adapt their builds rather than rely on raw DPS.
How to Access the Hidden Boss
From the Devourer’s arena, return to the nearest meditation shrine and head down the left-hand tunnel where silk strands hang unusually low from the ceiling. Use a charged heavy attack or any fire-infused ability to burn away the silk curtain blocking the passage; this wall does not react to normal light attacks and is easy to mistake for background dressing.
Beyond it lies a narrow descent into the Cocooned Reliquary, a secret sub-area of the Webbed Hollow. This path becomes permanently sealed once you defeat the chapter’s main boss, making this encounter fully missable if skipped.
Hidden Boss Location: The Broodwarden of Ash
The Broodwarden of Ash waits at the center of the Reliquary, suspended above a ritual circle littered with cracked cocoons and smoldering web nests. The arena is circular and deceptively small, with elevated edges that restrict camera movement and punish careless lock-on behavior.
Unlike the Silkbound Devourer, this boss is immediately aggressive and supported by environmental hazards, making positioning more important than reaction speed from the opening seconds.
Elemental Mechanics and Arena Hazards
The Broodwarden constantly cycles between fire and venom states, indicated by its thorax glowing ember-red or sickly green. Fire phases ignite web patches on the floor, dealing chip damage over time, while venom phases spawn corrosive pools that slow stamina regeneration and shorten dodge I-frames.
Ignoring these states leads to attrition deaths rather than sudden burst damage. The key is controlling which zones of the arena become unsafe and when, instead of reacting after you’re already cornered.
Crowd Control Threats and Add Management
At fixed health thresholds, roughly every 25 percent, the Broodwarden releases Broodlings from nearby cocoons. These adds have low health but high stagger resistance and are designed to interrupt healing and punish tunnel vision.
Clearing them quickly is mandatory, not optional. Wide-sweeping light combos, staff extensions, or shockwave-based abilities prevent the arena from collapsing into chaos, especially during venom phases where stamina penalties stack aggressively.
Optimal Builds and Tactical Approach
Fire resistance talismans and poison mitigation are far more valuable here than raw damage boosts. A balanced build that emphasizes stamina recovery, elemental resistance, and mid-range pressure performs better than glass-cannon setups.
During fire phases, stay mobile and fight along the outer ring to avoid overlapping burn zones. In venom phases, collapse inward, bait the Broodwarden’s lunging thrust, then punish the long recovery with heavy stance attacks aimed at its exposed abdomen. Saving crowd-control abilities exclusively for Broodling spawns dramatically stabilizes the fight.
Defeating the Broodwarden of Ash rewards the Cinder-Spun Sigil, a key item that enhances elemental buildup against restrained enemies and unlocks hidden Weaver lore at select shrines. This relic directly ties into the chapter’s secret narrative thread, confirming the Weaver’s experiments weren’t just defensive measures, but failed attempts to weaponize elemental corruption itself.
Rewards and Progression Impact: Relics, Spirit Skills, Narrative Revelations, and Future Unlocks
Defeating the Broodwarden of Ash isn’t just a mechanical victory; it’s the pivot point that validates the entire Webbed Hollow detour. The Cinder-Spun Sigil immediately slots into the broader progression loop, rewarding players who engaged with elemental control and add management rather than brute forcing the encounter. More importantly, this relic acts as a progression key, opening systems and story beats that remain completely inaccessible if the secret area is skipped.
Cinder-Spun Sigil: Relic Effects and Build Implications
The Cinder-Spun Sigil enhances elemental buildup against restrained or staggered enemies, synergizing heavily with crowd-control Spirit Skills and stance-based heavy attacks. In practical terms, this means shock, burn, and poison procs trigger faster after successful staggers, turning defensive play into aggressive momentum. Builds that previously struggled to maintain DPS windows gain consistency, especially against elite enemies with inflated poise values later in the chapter.
This relic quietly reshapes mid-game builds. Players leaning into control-oriented kits will notice smoother boss phase transitions and fewer attrition deaths, particularly in multi-enemy arenas where stagger chains matter more than raw damage.
Unlocked Spirit Skills and Shrine Interactions
With the sigil acquired, specific Weaver-marked shrines throughout the Webbed Hollow and adjacent regions gain new interaction prompts. These unlock Weaver Spirit Skills focused on immobilization, web-binding, and delayed elemental detonations, tools clearly designed to mirror the Broodwarden’s own combat philosophy. These skills don’t overpower standard enemies, but they excel at breaking enemy formations and controlling boss positioning.
Importantly, these shrine unlocks are missable. Advancing the main chapter beyond the Hollow’s midpoint will seal several Weaver shrines, permanently locking out these Spirit Skills on that playthrough.
Narrative Revelations: The Weaver’s Failed Weaponization
The Weaver lore unlocked through the Cinder-Spun Sigil reframes the Webbed Hollow from a defensive stronghold into an experimental graveyard. Environmental dialogue and shrine inscriptions confirm the Weaver attempted to fuse elemental corruption with living hosts, hoping to create obedient sentinels capable of area denial. The Broodwarden of Ash represents the final, unstable iteration of this process.
This revelation ties directly into later chapter antagonists, subtly foreshadowing enemies that weaponize terrain rather than direct aggression. Players who engage with this lore gain critical context for why certain bosses manipulate arenas instead of relying on traditional attack strings.
Future Unlocks and Chapter-Wide Progression Impact
Completing the Webbed Hollow secret route flags the save file for future unlocks beyond the chapter itself. Later zones introduce hidden encounters that only trigger if the Weaver experiments were uncovered, including optional elite variants and an alternate Spirit Skill upgrade path focused on elemental suppression rather than amplification.
Skipping this content doesn’t block completion, but it permanently narrows progression depth. For completionists and build-crafters, the Webbed Hollow isn’t optional flavor; it’s a foundational layer that informs both mechanical mastery and narrative comprehension as Black Myth: Wukong escalates its difficulty curve.
Common Failure Points and Completion Checklist: What Locks You Out and How to Ensure 100% Clear
With the Webbed Hollow’s long-term consequences established, this is where most players unknowingly sabotage their own progress. Black Myth: Wukong is ruthless about invisible fail states, and this chapter is one of the earliest examples where narrative momentum can permanently erase optional content. If you’re aiming for a true 100% clear, this checklist isn’t optional reading; it’s survival.
Advancing the Main Path Too Far
The single biggest lockout occurs when you defeat the Hollow’s midpoint story boss and immediately push forward. Doing so collapses several Weaver-controlled pathways, sealing off shrines, side tunnels, and one hidden boss arena without warning. There is no late-game backtracking mechanic to recover these areas.
Before triggering any boss with a full cinematic intro and arena-wide terrain shift, stop and sweep every side corridor connected to the web-laced caverns. If the environment starts burning away webbing automatically, you’ve already gone too far.
Missing the Web-Sealed Descent Entrance
Access to the Webbed Hollow secret area hinges on a specific environmental interaction that is easy to misread as set dressing. Near the Hollow’s lower resin falls, look for a suspended cocoon cluster with subtle enemy aggro behavior rather than an item glow. Destroying this cluster opens a vertical descent path into the secret zone.
Players who sprint through combat encounters often miss this entirely. If you never fight enemies that spawn from ceiling webs, you likely skipped the trigger point.
Hidden Boss Order and Soft Lock Conditions
The Webbed Hollow contains multiple optional bosses, and their order matters more than the game admits. Defeating the Broodwarden of Ash before engaging the Weaver’s Echo mini-boss disables the Echo encounter entirely, removing its Spirit Fragment from the loot pool. This is not communicated through UI or dialogue.
Always hunt for arenas with residual elemental effects first. If an arena shows lingering frost, ash, or static corruption before a boss spawns, that encounter should be cleared before any major guardian fight.
Shrine Interaction Requirements
Weaver Shrines are not passive unlocks. Several require interacting with them while a specific debuff is active, usually web-bind or elemental corrosion inflicted by nearby enemies. Cleansing yourself before touching the shrine can prevent the Spirit Skill from unlocking, even though the shrine registers as “visited.”
If a shrine doesn’t immediately offer a Spirit Skill, deliberately reapply nearby status effects and interact again. This is counterintuitive, but it aligns with the Weaver’s lore-driven mechanics.
Completion Checklist Before Leaving the Chapter
Before exiting the Webbed Hollow for good, confirm the following:
You have unlocked all Weaver Spirit Skills tied to immobilization and delayed detonation effects.
The Broodwarden of Ash and all elemental Echo bosses are defeated, with Spirit Fragments in your inventory.
The Cinder-Spun Sigil lore entries are fully logged, not partially unlocked.
At least one Weaver Shrine interaction triggered a non-standard unlock condition.
Your save file reflects the Weaver experiment discovery flag, which is required for later chapter elite variants.
If even one of these is missing, your progression depth in future chapters will be permanently reduced.
Final Tip for Completionists
Treat the Webbed Hollow like a Soulslike legacy dungeon, not a detour. Move slowly, read the environment, and assume anything that looks optional is actually critical. Black Myth: Wukong rewards curiosity with power, but it punishes impatience harder than almost any modern action RPG.
Clear the Hollow properly, and the game opens up in ways most players will never see.