Absolute Radiance

"The light, forgotten. The plague, the infection, the madness that haunts the corpses of Hallownest... the light that screams out from the eyes of this dead Kingdom. What is the source? I suppose mere mortals like myself will never understand."

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 attacks are also almost identical to the Radiance's but come at a much faster pace. She also has an altered final phase. Her fight contains the following attacks with any modifications stated:
 * Beam Burst: Absolute Radiance fires near instantaneous sets of beams fired back to back.
 * Sword Burst: Absolute Radiance now summons two sets of swords instead of one, the second is rotated from the first.
 * Sword Rain: Absolute Radiance's swords fall faster and at a shorter interval in Phases 1 and 2. Sword fall speed is the same in Phase 3 but the interval is slightly shorter.
 * Sword Wall: Absolute Radiance's swords travel faster but only in 3 sets in Phases 1 and 2. Sword speed and total sets are the same as the Radiance's during Phase 4.
 * Wall of Light: Absolute Radiance's wall travels faster.
 * Orb: The colour and visuals of the orbs are more vibrant, they travel twice as fast, and take much tighter turns to home in onto the Knight. Absolute Radiance summons these about 1 second apart. She summons 3 to 4 of these orbs.
 * Spike Floor: Absolute Radiance's spikes spawn every 6 to 8 seconds.
 * Big Beam: The beam is slightly thinner and becomes dangerous within half a second. The beams also come every 1 second with each beam starting just as the last one ends.
 * Orb Barrage: The only new attack features slower orbs but are constantly fired every 2 seconds. These orbs behave much more like the Radiance's orbs and will disappear if lead off-screen. This attack is only used 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 Absolute Radiance is spawning, so use this time to hit her with nail attacks or spells. From here, Absolute Radiance uses 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. As the attack 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
Absolute Radiance continues using the same attacks, but now creates 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 switches 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. 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
Absolute Radiance floats in the centre of the platform, places spikes at the edges and endlessly rains 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 to heal before the start of phase 3.

Phase 4
Absolute Radiance resumes using all of her normal attacks but is now fought on a field of small platforms over the Void. To the Knight's advantage, they can gain a lot more distance from Absolute 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 Absolute Radiance for the offense, 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 Absolute Radiance flees again. Her only attack in this phase is the Big Beam. Upon reaching Absolute Radiance, jumping onto one of two platforms triggers phase 6.

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 only uses the Orb Barrage attack; she pauses for a second to summon one Orb and then teleports 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 usually causes the Knight to run into an Orb.

It is possible to continuously Nail-bounce off of Absolute Radiance until she is defeated. Doing so causes the orbs she summons to de-spawn offscreen as they attempt to home in on the Knight. It is important to be mindful of where she teleports next, so that the Knight can dash forward and continue Nail-bouncing. Incorrectly predicting where she will teleport can cause the Knight to fall into the Void.

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

Trivia

 * Absolute Radiance has no proper Hunter's Journal entry. Defeating her unlocks instead the Radiance's entry if it was not already unlocked.
 * During phase 4, when Nail-bouncing on Absolute Radiance when she is at the very top of the screen, it is possible to cause the Void to rise up and fill the screen completely, resulting in continuous damage and death. This is a glitch caused by the game being programmed to start the ascending phase (phase 5) if a certain height is reached. Staying away from the top of the screen during phase 4 will prevent this glitch.

References

Всевышняя Лучезарность Spledore Assoluto Absolutna Światłość