Absolute Radiance

Absolute Radiance is the final boss of Godmaster in Hollow Knight. She is the perfect form of the Radiance and sits at the peak of the Pantheon of Hallownest.

Behaviour and Tactics
Absolute Radiance's fight contains the following attacks with any modifications stated:
 * Beam Burst: Near instantaneous sets of beams fired back to back.
 * Sword Burst: Now summons two sets of swords instead of just one.
 * Sword Rain: Swords come at quicker intervals and faster speeds.
 * Sword Wall: Swords travel fast enough to be jumped over instead of needing to dash.
 * Wall of Light: Absolute Radiance spends a very short period of time idle while the wall is summoned and can quickly perform another attack as soon as the wall reaches halfway point of the arena.
 * Orb: The colour of the orbs is much more yellow, they are much faster and take much tighter turns to home in onto the Knight. Absolute Radiance summons these about half a second apart which can lead to multiple crowding the screen. She summons up to 4 of these orbs.
 * Spike Floor No changes.
 * Big Beam The beam is slightly thinner and only flashes for a few milliseconds before fading instead of lingering. The beams also come at faster intervals with each beam starting just as the last one ends.
 * Orb Barrage The only new attack features slower orbs but are constantly fired as soon as one fades. These orbs behave much more like Standard Radiance's orbs and will disappear if lead off-screen. This attack only happens in Phase 6.

Phase Breakdown
{{CollapseTable|More...| In general, panic heals are more costly here than in other fights; as SOUL is limited and damage intake is high for mistakes.

Phase 1
There is ample time when The Radiance is spawning, so use this time to hit her with nail attacks or spells. From here, The Radiance will use her attacks one after the other with ample time between, all while hovering above the floor and teleporting. The hardest attacks to avoid are typically the horizontal walls of swords and the homing projectiles. And as the attacks interval shrinks, it is important to be mindful of Shadow Dash cool-down for Wall of Light. With proper timing and spacing, all attacks (save homing spheres) are good opportunities for healing, though the safest options are the third salvo of the eye beam and a break in Spike Wall where the next wave requires no jump to avoid.

Phase 2
The Radiance continues using the same attacks, but will now create spikes across alternating halves of the platform. The restrained space makes it much harder to manoeuvre and to stall out the cooldown of the Shadow Dash. She will switch the location of the spikes every 5 seconds, outlining their new location with a golden glow for about 2 seconds as a warning before they actually emerge. Be sure to use the warning and not panic; take the time to avoid any in-progress attack before moving to safe ground. Keep in mind the spikes can be despawned by entering their hitbox, which can be done without taking damage if utilizing invincibility frames. However, these Spikes only deal one mask of damage, so if forced to take damage between these and other attacks, it is better to hit the spiked ground.

Phase 3
The Radiance will float in the centre of the platform, place spikes at the edges and endlessly rain down swords from above. This is generally not a good time to heal as the spikes come down in fairly short intervals. It is better to get through the phase as there is ample time before phase 3 starts to heal.

Phase 4
The Radiance resumes using all of her normal attacks but is now fought on a field of small platforms over the Void. To the player's advantage, they can gain a lot more distance from The Radiance to heal, as all attacks have a lot more ground to cover before reaching The Knight. Wall of Light is an especially good opportunity to heal, as the attack's sound can be heard when it is off-screen, making it easier to know well ahead of time when it is possible to heal. Though when it comes to approaching The Radiance for the offence, several things have to be taken into account: if she is off-screen when she is prepping her next attack, there is limited time to react appropriately, making it more likely to be caught mid-jump by an unexpected attack. In this case, it is much better to maintain distance and wait for the next opening.

Phase 5
The last phase involves ascending by jumping up platforms as The Radiance flees again. Her only attack in this phase is the Big Beam. Upon reaching the Radiance, hit her one more time with the Nail to end the fight and trigger the final sequence.

In the final sequence, The Radiance is bound by Void Tendrils and the shade of the Hollow Knight appears, tearing open a weak point on her face. The Knight bursts out of their body and becomes their Shade. Attacking causes the Shade to repeatedly whip The Radiance's weak point with long tendrils until it's defeated and dragged into the Void below.

Phase 6
Absolute Radiance's new phase happens only on two small platforms that must be navigated between to score hits. During this phase Absolute Radiance will only use the Orb Barrage attack; she will pause for a second to summon one Orb and then teleport to another portion of the screen to summon another one and the process is repeated. For this phase, it is best to focus on dodging the orbs and only attack Absolute Radiance if she teleports within reach. Although she can only teleport between three locations (left, right and centre), it is hard to predict her exact patterns and chasing her is fruitless as it will usually cause the Knight to run into an Orb.

After all her health has been depleted she will teleport to the middle position and continue to spawn orbs while staying stationary. However, she still requires another additional hit from the Nail to finish the fight. }}