Monolith

Monolith

Type	Construct
Location	Floor 6
Health	25000
Scrap	0
Music	'Monolith'(1st & 2nd Phase) 'End of Monolith'(3rd Phase)
Bestiary Entry	"And so history repeated itself. A brilliant, white flash engulfed the planet. And a million souls have lost their home."

"Hmph. No mercy. You've come too far to give up now."

Monolith is the boss of Floor 6 on hard mode, and is considered the true final boss of the game. Monolith appears as a white, rounded, diamond-shaped construct with a red orb in the middle, large wings of white fire, and a series of runes behind it, arranged in a circle, that quickly orbit it. Monolith is the form that Null takes after killing Machine and claiming Power Eternal. Monolith is one of the few bosses that opens up room in the HUD, allowing for more screen space during the fight.

Attack Patterns

Monolith has three distinct phases, each with several attacks, a few attacks of which from phase 1 are copied and significantly upgraded in phase 2. Many of Monolith's attacks mimic the functions of weapons that can be used by the player's ship. Some weapons were added after Monolith, and do not have attacks corresponding with their functions. Attacks for phase 1 are chosen randomly from a pool of attacks, while attacks in phase 2 are semi-random (explained further in that section), and phase 3 has a pool of attacks that are ordered and loop until halfway through the phase, after which another unique attack begins and continues until Monolith's death. Monolith does not deal contact damage.

The fight with Monolith is incredibly fast, each attack often taking only a couple seconds to finish and to transition to the next attack. Monolith is also incredibly agile, dashing across the screen constantly for most of the battle.

Phase 1

After a short cutscene, Monolith explodes upward and begins a rapid ascent of the corridor the player would normally see on the death screen.

Description	Video
Monolith quickly dashes back and forth across the top of the screen and fires several streams of bullets in bursts through each dash, the streams slightly changing angle throughout the attack, leaving small gaps each time Monolith dashes until the final burst when Monolith becomes stationary and the angle change of each stream slightly accelerates until the attack ends. (Revolver)
Monolith fires 4 random bursts of bullets from random locations in the screen that they dash to toward the player. The bullets of each burst have slightly varying speeds, and each burst slightly overlaps due to how they are distributed. Monolith then fires several large fireballs in randomized directions toward the player that generate tails of fire, and bursts of fire as they land at the edge of the screen, some of which are destructible. (Revolver, Fireball)
Monolith fires several evenly spaced bursts of neatly spaced vulcan projectiles, each of which phase from one edge of the screen to the opposite once. (Vulcan)
Monolith fires two separate sets of bursts of bullets toward the player, each of which are evenly spaced, but at different speeds, rates of fire, and bullet count (4 and 5 each) per time each set fires. (Vulcan)
Monolith travels to the top of the screen and fires six legs of thick sprays of charge shots in a spiral formation that eventually forms a circular bullet cloud as it travels outward. (Charge)
Monolith telegraphs a giant laser and aggressively tracks the player, and then fires, traveling back to the top of the screen and firing several overlapping spirals of vulcan bullets. (Laser, Vulcan)
Monolith telegraphs and fires several evenly spaced lasers across the screen from one of the top corners of the arena, along with angled streams of bullets that form the shape of diamonds as they travel outward. (Laser)

Phase 2

After Monolith reaches 2/3 health, the death corridor breaks open with smoke falling from the top of the screen, into the sky above the city situated on top of the facility, with the spires in the intro cutscene of the game in the foreground. In this phase, Monolith switches between different "weapons", which determine the attacks it can use. The 12 attack patterns in this phase are split into 4 groups (the "weapons"), each with 3 patterns. At the start of the phase, Monolith does a brief weapon-equipping animation and then does 3 attacks from one of the groups, though they don't have to be 3 different attacks. After the third attack, it equips a new weapon and does 3 attacks from a new group, continuing this pattern until phase 3. It's worth noting that the weapon-switching analogy is used somewhat loosely; the attack patterns in each group often use different weapons, such as one group containing a sword, razor, and runic attack.

Weapon Group	Description	Video
Group #1	Monolith fires two separate sets of bursts of bullets toward the player, each of which are evenly spaced, but at different speeds, rates of fire, and bullet count (6 and 7 each) per time each set fires, and shortly after the beginning of the attack, Monolith fires two long, dense bursts of lasers directly toward the player through the vulcan projectiles. (Vulcan)
	Monolith fires many long, evenly spaced bursts of neatly spaced vulcan projectiles, each of which phase from one edge of the screen to the opposite once. (Vulcan)
	Monolith's runes take a horizontal oval shape as they travel to the top of the screen, and the runes fire many vulcan bullets directly downward, more often near the edges of the screen. (Runic)
Group #2	Monolith fires 4 random wide bursts of bullets from random locations in the screen that they dash to toward the player, the bursts with slightly varying speeds of the bullets, and each burst heavily overlapping due to how the bursts are placed, each burst spreading out to approximately 180 degrees. Shortly after, Monolith fires several large fireballs outward at random angles that leave a trail of fire behind them, and create a burst of fire bullets as they explode at the edge of the screen, along with a ring of fire directly outward from itself. (Revolver, Fireball)
	Monolith telegraphs 3 evenly spaced storms of bullets around itself that rotate at rapidly increasing and decreasing speeds, which then begin firing alongside a series of rings of 7 evenly spaced bullets that travel slower than the other streams of bullets. (Charge)
	Monolith telegraphs and fires several evenly spaced lasers across the screen from one of the top corners of the arena, along with 2 series of angled streams of bullets that form the shape of diamonds as they travel outward, the second angled slightly different than the first. (Laser)
Group #3	Monolith fires a giant laser outward and gets close to the edge of the arena, circling the arena and making turning the laser accordingly to face the edge. The laser generates a thick, random spray of bullets outward from where it is currently landing at the edge of the arena. Monolith circles the arena once during this attack. (Laser)
	Monolith telegraphs a laser towards the player before locking onto a location and then circling out and around Monolith into 6 telegraphed lasers, then firing the lasers, which after vanishing generate a line of bullets where they were before, each stream altering the angles of the bullets to generate spirals. (Laser)
	Monolith travels to the center of the arena and charges up, and fires small rune circles to their sides that shortly after fire lasers directly downward, a single vulcan projectile directly toward the player, and a burst of vulcan projectiles upward. Monolith fires a different amount of runes each time they fire them. (Runic)
Group #4	Monolith summons a giant sword and swings back and forth at the top of the screen, generating bursts evenly spaced sword bullets that alternate back and forth with each layer of each burst, along with each burst overlapping heavily and having heavily varying speeds. (Sword)
	Monolith fires 6 evenly spaced giant razors around itself several times that bounce off of the edge of the screen twice each. (Razor)
	Monolith begins firing a series of 6 bullets evenly spaced outward from itself at varying speeds, and throws several rune circles upward at random horizontal locations that then fall back downward and fire walls of projectiles outward horizontally, with a small safe zone where the rune circles are. (Runic)

Phase 3A

After reaching 1/3 health, Monolith rises further into the sky with smoke falling from them for a short moment, revealing an arena that appears as a landscape of bright clouds illuminated by the sun in the sky. A unique music track plays for this phase separate to the one that plays in phase 1 and 2. The attacks in this phase are always in the order shown, and cycle endlessly until a low enough health threshold is reached.

Description	Video
Monolith fires a messy 8-legged spiral of bullets outward alongside 6 legs of slightly larger bullets, shortly before layering 8 copies of thick storms of vulcan bullets outward in the form of several ovals per leg that collapse in on themselves and then spread back outward.
Monolith sprays many dense bursts of blue bullets outward with small spaces to dodge through equally distanced through the bullets, alongside a wall of vulcan bullets aimed directly at the player that continues being for a short time with a gradual increase in bullet speed.
Monolith fires several legs of vulcan bullets that sweep slightly back and forth in opposite directions to the streams adjacent to them, along with small walls of blue bullets along the vulcan streams, and a thin spray of bullets outward in all directions.

Phase 3B

Halfway through phase 3, Monolith ends the previous cycle of attacks and begins another screen-filling attack that continues until Monolith's death.

Description

Video

Monolith clears the screen of bullets and their runes fly outward and beyond the arena. The entire arena is filled with warning indicators, and slow blue bullets all across the screen with random trajectories generate periodically, and disappear as another series of blue bullets are fired, with a thump resembling a heartbeat sounding each time and the attack speeding up as Monolith's health drops. The runes return from outside of the arena and travel further inwards as Monolith's health drops, firing a field of vulcan projectiles outward at an incredible speed.

Cutscenes

When the player triggers the boss fight for floor 6 on hard mode, the room is instead empty, and without a boss fight. When the player descends to the next floor and enters the room where the conduit to Power Eternal would normally be, a short cutscene begins instead where the player finds Null on the other side of the arena, upside down. Shortly after, they flip over, and a large shell forms around Null and runes circle in from beyond the arena as the screen subtly rumbles. Null explodes upward and gains wings of white flame, and the battle begins.

After Monolith's health reaches 0, Monolith's shell falls away to reveal Null again, and both Null and D-13 (or whatever other ship) fall downward. If the player doesn't have the Integer Overflow cartridge, the player will be returned to the room they found Null in, and can continue to the next room, where D-13 finds the conduit and destroys it, the screen cutting to black as D-13 shoots at the conduit and then showing smoke billowing from a hole in the ground. Afterwards, credits roll, showing many of the enemies and bosses from the main 6 floors, and finally D-13 at the end, who instead of falling past the bottom of the screen, dashes upward and beyond the top of the screen. Another music track plays, and D-13 is shown inspecting the corpse of Null, D-13 shortly after shaking and falling to the ground beside Null. The two pan downward, showing the city beyond them a bright, cloudy sky, with souls rising from the ground and into the sky. Null and D-13's bodies vanish into smoke, and their souls rise upward as well.

If the player defeats and ends the run at Monolith while playing as D-13 and gets an Exalted rank (S Ranks in all categories) on the results screen, an extra scene of dialogue will play between two people:

• 1: Hey, have you zoned out again?
• 1: Jeez.
• 2: Sorry, I was just thinking.
• 1: First time for everything I guess.
• 2: Hey!
• 2: I'm trying to be serious here.

(A short pause)

• 2: Say.
• 2: What do you want to do after the war is over?
• 1: I don't know.
• 1: I've never given it much thought.

(A short pause)

• 1: It's strange, now that I think about it. I never thought I'd see it end.

(A long pause)

• 1: Heh.
• 1: I think I have an idea.
• 1: After we take the facility, let's get up those spires.
• 1: We can watch the sunrise.
• 2: Hahaha. That's so tacky.
• 1: Well?
• 2: That better be a promise.

(A long pause)

• 2: Wait, I know. You can hold onto this for me.
• 1: Huh, is that a watch?
• 2: Don't worry, it doesn't work. And it's not like I'd need it anyway.
• 2: It's more of a family heirloom.
• 2: I thought you could keep it for, I don't know, good luck?
• 1: ...
• 2: Just come back safely OK?

(A short pause)

• 1: Yeah.
• 2: Heh. Now you zoned out.
• 1: N-No, I'm just tired. I should really get some sleep.
• 1: You too. Tomorrow's the big day.
• 1: I'll see you later.

(A long pause)

• 2: Goodbye Null.

After this ending, the award table in the hub will have a gold watch hanging off the side of it from under the trophies. The extra dialogue will not play if you achieve a floor 6 exalted run with another character, but you will still be granted the watch.

Notes

• Monolith is widely considered to be the hardest boss fight in the game even by veteran players, even after the addition of two more superbosses in the first DLC.
• Monolith also has the highest HP out of all of the bosses in the entire game.
• Despite being the game's namesake, Monolith was not present in the initial release of the game, but was added shortly after in an update.
• Monolith has been theorized, and eventually confirmed by the devs to be the titular Star of Providence described by the Trader during his monologue in the hub.
• There are two unique music tracks that play during the fight with Monolith, named "Monolith" and "End of Monolith", in order of their appearances.
• It is suggested through bestiary text of Monolith and Machine that the appearance of Monolith is a cyclic prophecy.
• Monolith is foreshadowed by a variety of content in the game, some of which are listed below:
  • The fight with D-13 in the Tutorial resembles the scene of D-13 approaching Null before their transformation into Monolith, and the motif of the music in this fight is also referenced in Monolith's fight theme
  • An emblem on Grinder's chest
  • An emblem on the side of the hull of Behemoth
  • In the background of the fight with Armor Tac, an emblem can be seen
  • Emblems on the top of the turrets of Firewall
  • Genesis during the Nightmare fight vaguely resembles Monolith
  • Ornate stonework in some of the backgrounds of Sanctum
  • Machine's original form vaguely resembles Monolith

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