This is going to be a very short post. I believe I know what is going to happen in terms of the final boss of the Erebonia arc. The answer may (or may not) surprise you.

First, the obvious truth: The Sen games seem to actively hate the concept of a proper final dungeon and boss and proper climaxes generally. Both games have a fake final boss and accompanying dungeon, followed by the actual final boss (and dungeon in Sen II) anywhere from a couple of hours to 10+ hours later. Annoying? Sure, but I think there’s a brilliant reason for it.

If we set aside The 3rd for now as it’s sort of an unusual case, the final boss battle of each story arc has essentially been one of the Sept-Terrion itself, acting through a human host. Angel Weissmann was Aureole fused with the Professor and Azure Demiourgos… well, it’s right there in the name really. So we have reason to expect that the Erebonia arc will do likewise.

Now, this clearly hasn’t happened yet, the closest we’ve gotten is End of Vermillion and that is clearly not the result of the full power of a Sept-Terrion or its awakening (and separating it from its power source) would have been Vita’s plan instead of something she was explicitly trying to avoid. But there’s no reason to think it won’t happen and that’s where this gets interesting.

Near the end of Sen II (in NG+, thanks Falcom) Thomas discusses his research into the mystery of the TWO Sept-Terrion, meaning that we have more than one to account for. If the pattern is to hold, shouldn’t that mean we have… two bosses, one for each treasure? You see now how Sen and Sen II’s structure is actually brilliant? It’s getting us used to the idea of multiple ‘final’ boss fights for when the really important ones come along.

And now the specific prediction: Per my Erebonian mega theory, I believe that the Divine Knights are being powered by one of the two Sept-Terrion (specifically, the Sept-Terion of Fire). I think that one of these final bosses will have to be fought in the Knights and the other will be fought on foot. This tracks with both prior games having one battle entirely on foot and one involving a Divine Knight and it would allow Falcom to use both sides of the combat system instead of limiting us to just one. And with the second game having a multi-Knight party, I think they’ve set the stage for a final battle where we’ll get to control multiple Knights once more, maybe even all seven.

I presume the boss to be fought in the Knights will be the one that isn’t directly powering them, or you get a situation like in Slayers where you’re asking the godlike entity to please help us kill you. Rather, we’ll fight that one on foot and second, since that will allow the final-final battle to include the entire cast rather than just the Awakeners. So, one fight in the Divine Knights against the embodiment of Time Itself (per my other theory) and then a second battle on foot against the embodiment of Fire.

I’ve done my part in making the prediction. Falcom, where’s our game?