> better to try and kill as few as possible until you kill the boss
Which would free them all and remove the enemies from the area, right? That's what happens in Draknor in my experience. Why would I assume differently?
> Using star knightess is also not cheating, and if you restrict yourself to never using it that's an additional optional challenge.
Feels like a crutch I should never feel so forced to use all the time just because I didn't upgrade and learn the perfect skills for 1 encounter 50 days in a row - but regardless, even if it's not 'cheating' it IS rather 'costly' with its corruption.
That said, your corruption limit also raises quite significantly through the game. If someone was using it quite often, it would be very very easy to just Star Knightess up and then throw it at like 15 or 20 late game bosses. But if we did that, things that IMO have poor balance would never face enough criticism to actually be altered.