Crystal Guardian

The Crystal Guardian is an optional boss in Hollow Knight. The Enraged Guardian is its second,  stronger and faster form. Both forms have to be beaten to unlock its Journal entry.

Lore
The Crystal Guardian is part of the miners of the Crystal Peak who died from the the Infection and were reanimated by it. It appears larger than the other husks, has crystal growing on its back and encasing both its arms and head. It also has more mastery over the crystal's light than the Crystallised Husks.

While encased in crystal, the Guardian shrieks similarly to the Radiance although at a higher pitch. When cleared of it, it has a normal bug voice. Like the other miner husks, it is obsessed with the light, but has grown too tired to mine it relentlessly as they do.

Hollow Knight
The Guardian is first found on a bench outside shacks in the middle of the Crystal Peak. It appears seemingly dead but keeps the Knight from resting. Striking it wakes it up and it engages the fight. If the Knight is defeated and returns, the Guardian will have regained its place on the bench. Upon defeat, the Guardian's crystal growths shatter. Still animated by the Infection, it stands up and escapes by jumping through the ceiling.

The Guardian can be followed to the room above its abandoned resting place using the Monarch Wings. There, it has regained its crystal growths, but its first defeat made it mad with anger, triggering its second form, the Enraged Guardian. Defeating it a second time breaks again its crystal armour and definitely kills it. This also gives access to a Mask Shard within a large crystal deposit.

Behaviour and Tactics
The Crystal Guardian has three following maneuvers:
 * Laser Beam: shoots a beam of crystal energy from their hand. It targets the Knight with its arm, firing a beam where they were when it started its attack. The beam is dangerous for only about half a second.
 * Scream: the Guardian screams, and up to four beams of crystal energy simultaneously shoot down from the ceiling throughout the arena. These beams trigger at different times each and stay dangerous for about half a second. This attack can happen in conjunction with the Guardian's Beam attack. Each beam can be at a different angle between plus and minus 15 degrees of vertical.
 * Hop: hops to move within the arena, randomly on short or long distance.

It is possible to damage and defeat the Crystal Guardian before triggering the boss fight by having Defender's Crest or Dreamshield equipped.

The Crystal Guardian telegraphs every beam with a thin beam of light (or multiples in the case of the Sky Beam Attack). Pay attention to where the lasers are directed during the Scream attack. A combination of the Scream and Laser Beam attacks limits safe movement the most.

The spells Desolate Dive/Descending Dark and Vengeful Spirit/Shade Soul are useful. The spell Howling Wraiths/Abyss Shriek is less useful because the Crystal Guardian is rarely above the Knight. One strategy is to slash at the Guardian with the Nail a few times in between Laser Beam attacks. Another strategy which is not mutually exclusive to the previous is during a Laser Beam Attack, jump and dash over the Crystal Guardian to avoid its attack and to safely strike it.

The ability Shade Cloak trivializes the fight, but it is rare for the player to find it before fighting the boss. If The Knight does have the item however, the player can simply strike the boss until the Laser Beam attack is used. Then, simply dash through the boss. Rinse and repeat.



Location
The Crystal Guardian can be encountered for the first time in the bench room in the centre of Crystal Peak.

Its second encounter (Enraged Guardian) is directly above the original room and is only able to be encountered if the first encounter has been cleared. Reaching the Enraged Guardian requires Monarch Wings.

Trivia

 * If the player happens to be standing close to the Crystal Guardian, it will sometimes shoot a laser straight into the ground, but this is most likely a targeting glitch.
 * The name Enraged Guardian was coined in the Godmaster content pack, prior to which it was commonly referred to as simply "Crystal Guardian 2".
 * Beating the Crystal Guardian's first phase in Godhome will not contribute to unlock his Hunter's Journal second entry.

Кристаллический страж