If you’ve just beaten the Divine Beast Dancing Lion at the top of Belurat, Tower Settlement, the next question is pretty much inevitable: what comes after the lion in the Elden Ring DLC? The short version is Belurat opens into the wider Land of Shadow, and your best next main route usually points toward Castle Ensis. That said, Shadow of the Erdtree doesn’t funnel you down one clean hallway. It branches fast, and knowing which path is actually worth taking can save you from running headfirst into a brutal difficulty spike.

What Is After the Lion Elden Ring DLC

Beating the Divine Beast Dancing Lion gives you 120,000 runes and the Remembrance of the Dancing Lion. You can trade that remembrance with Enia for either the Stormbeast's Maw greatshield or the Divine Beast Head armor piece, both of which have real use depending on your setup, especially if you’re leaning into poise-heavy builds or something arcane-adjacent. More importantly, the fight opens the way forward by unlocking a Site of Grace just beyond the arena — Belurat Gaol — and clearing the fog wall that had blocked the northeastern exit.

That distinction matters because this lion is, for all practical purposes, a progression gate. The Belurat version sits at the end of the DLC’s first legacy dungeon and controls access to the broader map. The other Dancing Lion in the Ancient Ruins of Rauh is a completely different story: that one is optional, comes much later, and is a much nastier rematch. If you wander into Rauh too early expecting a similar fight, you’re probably going to feel the difference immediately.

Belurat Exit and Next Route

Once the fog is gone, Belurat’s main exit links back toward the Gravesite Plain side of the map, near the Three-Path Cross Site of Grace. From there, you’ve got three routes that matter right away.

The most natural progression path heads east and then north, taking you through the Cerulean Coast side areas and onward to Castle Ensis. There’s also a second route climbing southwest toward Scadu Altus, though that path is tied to the Moorth Ruins lift. To get that working, you’ll need to deal with the Stonesword Key prompt and pick up the lift activation medallion from a field enemy near the ruined grandam area. The third route is more of a useful cleanup loop, sending you back toward a previously locked storeroom under Belurat’s outskirts where you can grab a Shadow Realm Map Fragment.

That map fragment is a big deal early on. It clears up a large chunk of the early DLC map and makes it way easier to spot routes, ruins, and side pickups you might otherwise miss. It also helps reveal the rough positions of at least two Revered Spirit Ash upgrades hidden in terrain that’s easy to overlook when the map is still blank.

If you want a smooth setup for the next stretch, it’s best to activate the grace chain in order:

• Three-Path Cross

• Cerulean Coast

• Castle Ensis Entrance

Doing that gives you a clean fast-travel route for fragment farming before you commit to the next major boss.

Next Main Bosses After Dancing Lion

The boss order after the Belurat lion is one of the most talked-about parts of Shadow of the Erdtree, and honestly, that makes sense. The DLC opens up a lot after this point, and it doesn’t force a strict sequence.

Boss	Location	Role in Progression	Difficulty (Relative)
Rellana, Twin Moon Knight	Castle Ensis	Mainline checkpoint; unlocks Scadu Altus lift	High
Golden Hippopotamus	Shadow Keep (early wing)	Mainline; unlocks Messmer's keep interior	Medium-High
Putrescent Knight	Stone Coffin Fissure	Optional; strong loot, off-route	Very High
Messmer the Impaler	Shadow Keep (inner sanctum)	Critical mainline; unlocks upper DLC	Very High

For most players, Rellana, Twin Moon Knight is effectively the next major required stop. She waits at the end of Castle Ensis, and beating her opens access to the Scadu Altus plateau, which is where the DLC really starts handing out more fragments, upgrade materials, and room to breathe. If you rush her, you might be fighting at Blessing Level 3–4. If you take time to farm first, getting to Blessing Level 6–7 makes the fight way more manageable.

After that, the Golden Hippopotamus becomes the next major checkpoint inside the early section of Shadow Keep. This is where route planning starts to show. If you go into Shadow Keep too early, the Hippopotamus can feel way more oppressive than it should. If you’ve already explored Scadu Altus properly, though, its charge attacks and stamina pressure are much easier to handle. Either way, you need this kill to push deeper into the keep and eventually reach Messmer.

The Putrescent Knight, found in the Stone Coffin Fissure, is better treated as an optional side trip. The loot there — including the Omen Bairn replication material and an Order Healing variant — is useful, but only for certain builds, and the area itself is one of the DLC’s most confusing zones to navigate. For a first run, it’s usually smarter to leave this one until after Rellana.

What to Do After the Lion Elden Ring DLC

Figuring out what comes after the lion in Elden Ring DLC progression isn’t just about picking the next boss. The real priority is managing your power curve, because Shadow of the Erdtree leans hard on that system.

Scadutree Fragments should be your first focus for the next couple of hours. Every pair you turn in at a Miquella’s Cross Site of Grace raises your Scadutree Blessing, which boosts your damage and reduces the damage you take throughout the Land of Shadow. That scaling is huge. By Blessing Level 5, your effective damage output is roughly 20% higher than it was at Level 1, and the survivability gain is just as noticeable.

Fragments are scattered all over the place — on graves, in side dungeons, and around field ruins in early Scadu Altus. If you do a solid sweep through the Cerulean Coast and the lower Scadu Altus plateau, you can realistically hit Blessing Level 8 before taking on Rellana.

If you use summons, then Revered Spirit Ash pickups matter almost as much. These raise your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing, improving both the offense and survivability of your Spirit Ashes. In this DLC, that’s not some minor bonus. A summon at Blessing Level 4 performs dramatically better than one sitting at 0, especially in boss fights with messy hitboxes and long combo strings.

As for gear checks, your weapon should ideally be around:

• +8 for standard smithing weapons

• +3 for Somber weapons

Anything below that starts to feel rough against the DLC’s midgame health pools. Rellana in particular punishes low damage because her second phase gets much more dangerous the longer the fight drags on.

Best Progression Order After Lion

There are really two solid ways to route this section after the Belurat lion, and which one feels better depends on how comfortable you are with the DLC’s boss pacing.

Early safe route — best for first-time players, slower builds, and anyone using summons:

• Grab the Shadow Realm map fragments right after leaving Belurat

• Sweep the Cerulean Coast for grace points and Scadutree Fragments

• Enter Castle Ensis once you’ve reached around Blessing Level 6

• Clear through Scadu Altus and aim for Blessing Level 10–12 before Shadow Keep

• Beat Golden Hippopotamus, then move on toward Messmer

Aggressive boss rush route — better for confident players who trust their mechanics:

• Go straight to Castle Ensis after the Belurat lion

• Fight Rellana at Blessing Level 3–4

• Use her rune payout to buy upgrade materials from the Scadu Altus merchant

• Push into Shadow Keep as quickly as possible

Build choice matters here more than some players expect. Strength and Colossal Weapon builds usually benefit a lot more from the safe route, since they rely on poise trades and hyper armor windows that feel much worse when your blessing level is low. Dexterity and Bleed setups can get away with the aggressive route more easily because they can burst bosses down before the lower survivability becomes a huge problem. Spellcasters, meanwhile, tend to get punished the hardest by low blessings early on, so fragment farming should be the top priority before taking on anything beyond Belurat.

Your playstyle matters too. Solo players generally get more value from the safe route because every extra blessing level lowers the odds of getting deleted by a single combo. Summon-focused players should level Revered Spirit Ash Blessing alongside Scadutree Blessing so their summon can actually stay alive long enough to split aggro in fights like Rellana and the Hippopotamus.

Elden Ring DLC Progression FAQ

After Dancing Lion where go

After leaving Belurat, the best immediate move is to head back through Three-Path Cross and push northeast toward the Cerulean Coast. Picking up the nearby Shadow Realm Map Fragment first makes the whole route much easier to read and helps prevent you from wandering into the wrong lift path toward Scadu Altus. The main progression route leads to Castle Ensis and then Rellana, while the Ancient Ruins of Rauh path to the northwest is more of a high-difficulty detour that’s better saved for later.

Is lion mandatory

The Belurat Dancing Lion is effectively mandatory for progression. Even if some resources tag it as optional because of how the dungeon is structured, there’s no practical route around it if you want access to the main exit corridor and the Scadu Altus progression chain. The Rauh Dancing Lion, on the other hand, really is optional. It guards unique rewards, but it does not block the critical path.

Too hard after lion

If everything suddenly feels too hard after the lion, the answer is almost always the same: go get more Scadutree Fragments. Blessing Level is a massive multiplier, and moving from Level 3 to Level 8 before Rellana can make a very noticeable difference in both survivability and kill speed. You can also reroute into Cerulean Coast side dungeons for Revered Spirit Ash Blessings, or head back through Gravesite Plain toward the Fog Rift Catacombs for upgrade materials. In other words, if you hit a wall, don’t just keep slamming into it — the DLC is clearly designed to reward rerouting and exploration.

Conclusion

The Divine Beast Dancing Lion is the DLC’s first real gatekeeper, and beating it is what opens the Land of Shadow in a meaningful way. If you’re wondering what is after the lion Elden Ring DLC progression wants from you, the best next stop is usually Castle Ensis and Rellana, Twin Moon Knight, reached through the Cerulean Coast route northeast of Belurat’s exit. For most players, the smartest play is still fragment-first progression: aim for at least Scadutree Blessing Level 6 before fighting Rellana. The Rauh lion and the Putrescent Knight are absolutely worth doing later, but neither is required to keep moving toward Messmer and, eventually, Enir-Ilim.