Okay, I'll admit it: I'm the kind of Nightfarer who sees a demonic merchant offering a deal and immediately starts sweating. In Elden Ring Nightreign, Libra is exactly that kind of problem. He's a Nightlord, but he also shows up as a random world event during other expeditions, and when he does, the whole run suddenly gets a lot more complicated. You get the purple fog, the notification that a demon has cursed you, and—worst of all—a chunk of your maximum health locked away in the upper-left corner of your screen. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to abandon the run and go play something less stressful. But here's the thing I wish I'd known sooner: paying Libra off doesn't just remove the curse. It can also set you up for a free buff, and that changes the entire calculus.

Here's how it normally works. To clear the curse, you have to find where Libra has spawned and pay him. The price is 15,000 runes or 35,000 runes, depending on the day. That's a lot. In a game where every rune can mean the difference between a clutch upgrade and a sad death, handing over that much feels bad. But once you pay, the curse lifts, and you also get a buff. That's the baseline trade.

Now, a Reddit user named UnfortunateWednesday pointed out something that feels almost too good to be true. If you pay off the Libra event, you can interact with him again and buy a free buff. They wrote: For 15k/35k runes, you can get any of the available merchant buffs by talking to Libra again without any of the downsides. Eventual greatness activates instantly, the flask doesn't remove levels when you drink it. Feel free to kill the demon on day 2 if you're prepared enough, but ONLY AFTER you pay off the curse and get the free buff.

That last part is important. If you kill Libra before paying, you lose the chance. If you pay first, you can still fight him later if your squad is strong enough, but only after you've secured the buff.

Normally, those merchant buffs come with a trade-off. YouTuber Garden of Eyes catalogued all the possible buffs and side-effects, and they range from extra flasks to stat boosts, usually at the price of some immediate cost to your person. Maybe you lose a little maximum health. Maybe you get a timed stat debuff. It's a Faustian bargain, and sometimes the downside is worse than the upside. With this specific Libra event, though, you can get the possible pay-off without the recursive consequences. The Faustian bargain becomes just a bargain.

Here's a quick breakdown:

It's really, really important to note that this only applies to the specific instance where Libra spawns and curses your squad. If you find Libra hanging out somewhere in the world, sans curse, you won't be able to spend the 15,000 or 35,000 runes, and thus won't get the follow-up freebie. Also, you won't be able to pull this off if you attack and fight the merchant. So maybe hope that your teammates are on the same page as you when it comes to dealing with the devil.

Why does this matter? Because any advantage helps when you're facing down some of the more terrifying Nightlords in Elden Ring Nightreign. The game has eight Nightlord bosses, and some of them can end a run faster than you can say 'where did my health bar go?' A free buff—especially one that activates instantly, like Eventual Greatness—can be the difference between a clean win and a heartbreaking loss. And if you're already paying to fix your health bar, why not get a little more?

If you want to test it yourself, you could try rolling for the right seed to spawn the Libra event, then find out whether the power is worth the price. It's a fairly specific buff, but specific advantages are still advantages. I've seen squads ignore Libra, kill him on sight, or pay the curse and then forget to talk to him again. Don't be that squad. Pay the demon. Talk to him again. Then decide if you want to fight.

And if you're still working on unlocking the two locked Nightfarer classes, the Revenant and the Duchess, or figuring out how to change characters, this trick won't solve those problems. But it will make your next cursed run a lot less miserable. In 2026, with the meta settled and most players chasing the toughest Nightlord challenges, a free buff is still a free buff. Take the deal—just make sure you read the fine print before someone in your party swings a sword.