BlackShard

The BlackShard (JP: ブラックシャード, Romanized as Burakku Shādo) is a sword-type weapon in Deltarune. It is a chip of the Knight's Black Knife, and is obtained if the Knight is defeated in Chapter 3, being forcibly chipped off of the sword. It grants +16 AT and the SlayDark ability and can only be equipped by Kris and Noelle, though the latter is unable to access the weapon without file tampering as of Chapter 5.

The BlackShard is the strongest weapon currently available, as it surpasses the ThornRing's AT, and is tied with the unused weapons TwistedSwd and GildedRose.

It deals additional damage to enemies of the Dark element. However, there is no such element system implemented in the game. It instead works by providing a damage multiplier to specific enemies:

• Titan Spawn take 10× damage when attacked with the BlackShard.
• The Titan takes 3× damage with its shield up and 10× with its shield down when attacked with the BlackShard, as opposed to 0.5× damage with its shield up and 5× with its shield down when attacked with other swords.

When attacking with the BlackShard, the "slash" animation that plays is red and black instead of the usual white. It is similar to the Knight's Rotating Slash attack.

If Kris's inventory is full when picking up the BlackShard, any of the first listed weapons in the inventory slot gets replaced with the BlackShard: BrokenSwd, Spookysword, Brave Ax, DaintyScarf, MechaSaber, AutoAxe, FiberScarf, Saber10, ToxicAxe, or FlexScarf.

If the player's inventory of weapons does not contain any of these weapons while still being full (which could be achieved by inventory editing, e.g. filling the inventory with multiple Wood Blades), the Black Shard will not be added to the inventory and will disappear from the overworld. However, given the circumstances required to perform this, such a case is unlikely to happen in normal gameplay.

Internally, the BlueRibbon is its armor counterpart. If the BlueRibbon was obtained in the previous Chapter, the BlackShard will not spawn at the cliff in Castle Town during Chapter 4. This is a glitch due to the two items sharing the same ID number; the cliff code assumes each Shadow Crystal boss has two rewards with the same ID, such as both Jevilstail and Devilsknife being ID 7 for their respective slots. Starting in Chapter 5, this bug has been fixed, though the change was not applied to Chapter 4.

Flavor text

• ... how is this a weapon? [When attempting to equip it to Susie]
• I... shouldn't use it. [When attempting to equip it to Ralsei]
• [No flavor text is shown when equipping it to Noelle; unused]
• (Recently, seems like weapons can't be thrown away so easily.) [When attempting to drop it in the Light World in Chapter 4]

Gallery

• 
  Obtaining the BlackShard from the Castle Town cliff
• 
  Kris attacking Lanino with the BlackShard

Trivia

• If the SOUL explores the northeast Vents of Noelle's House, Asgore can be found looking at a "black shard". He calls the shard beautiful, and talks about making Toriel and the others believe him.
  • The documents written by Asgore and found by the party over the course of Flower Castle mention "black shards" being left at the library's computer lab, the Light World location of Cyber World, and the site of a Dark World from a long time ago.

• The flavor text for equipping Noelle with the BlackShard is blank, a trait only shared with her flavor text for the ThornRing, Ralsei's flavor text for the BitterTear, and all party members' flavor text with the TensionBow and SkyMantle.
• The BlackShard is the only weapon that does not change form across the Light and Dark Worlds, as it maintains the same name and stats in both worlds. This makes it the second obtainable item to remain the same between both worlds, the first being the Egg.
  • Since the BlackShard is the only sword to keep its AT stat in the Light World, it has by far the highest AT of any Light World item.
• If the BlackShard is obtained by file editing in Chapter 3, it does not deal increased damage to the Knight despite the latter being a dark-element enemy. This is because the SlayDark effect works by providing a damage multiplier to specific enemies, namely the Titan and its Spawns.
• The BlackShard only shows the SlayDark ability in the equipment menu in Chapter 4 or later. It does not show this ability if equipped in Chapter 3.