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Space and time were both severely damaged when the "lost hour" came back. The hole created in space at that time—the figurative "eye" of the Chaos storm—That is this labyrinth. It's thought to be a holy land, a place of God, beyond human imagining.

Hope Estheim

The Ultimate Lair is a bonus dungeon located in the Dead Dunes in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. The dungeon can be accessed on the "extra day" via a new Cactuar statue that appears outside the Ruins East Gate, as well as via Teleport. The only hint to its existence prior to its appearance is the NPC called "Crystal Legends Student" in Ruffian.[1]

The Lair is full of Last Ones, and is imperative to visit if the player wishes to complete a certain side quest, as it is the only location during a regular playthrough where Meonekton Ω will spawn due to having to kill a prohibitively high number (65,535) of the regular monster otherwise. If Lightning already drove a particular species into extinction, those specimens do not appear.

Within the Ultimate Lair, the game clock does not stop, even during battle, and Chronostasis is disabled. Lightning must keep moving to reach the deepest level. After defeating the enemies on each level, she gains access to warp devices that lead to lower floors. With a higher battle score, Lightning can jump several floors deeper.

Story[]

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)

Even in this dying world, plenty of people still believe in God. They believe they are special, and that God loves them unconditionally. They believe he is looking out for them. Gods exist all right. But they've got their own agenda. They sure didn't make this world and put people in it because they love us. They just wanted to create new tools.

Lightning, upon conquering the Ultimate Lair

The Lair is an anomaly in time. With Lightning having saved so many souls in the twelve days after her awakening as the savior, a break in spacetime causes the lost thirteenth hours of the previous twelve days to be reinstated as another day.

The lair shares architectural similarities with the Temple Ruins beneath the desert and the Temple of the Goddess. The lair came into being in the epicenter of the Chaos that distorted spacetime and erased two hours from the previously 26-hour days. As Lightning moves further into the domain, Hope tells her that the Chaos readings are off the charts, and Lightning speculates that God himself may be residing in this place outside of time.

Erishkigal-defeated-LRFFXIII

Erishkigal defeated.

Lightning theorizes that Bhunivelze may have been attempting to make a replacement for humanity in this place. Because humans are made from Etro's blood and Chaos, they are innately unclean and impure to Bhunivelze. Lightning is led to believe Bhunivelze does not have the best intentions of humanity at heart, and that like the fal'Cie, sees men as tools to be used and discarded. In this place, the God of Light was seeking to create a more powerful species, tools to be used that would bend to his will and were not weak like humanity. To this end, Bhunivelze's ultimate creation is Ereshkigal.

Lightning's defeat of Ereshkigal is testament to the strength of man, and Bhunivelze's underestimation of mankind, but Lightning wonders if everything she's been able to accomplish was only because of the power bestowed by the gods, and if she even has the right to be called human anymore.

Spoilers end here.

Layout[]

Most floors contain Last Ones with most dropping accessories. The dungeon is a chain of chamber-to-chamber rooms connected with cactuar waystones. Depending on the battle rating on the current floor, the player will be able to skip as many as three floors. Last Ones that have already been felled by driving their species to extinction do not appear.

Floor 1
Floor 2
Floor 3
Floor 4
Floor 5
Floor 6
Floor 7
Floor 8
Floor 9
Floor 10
Floor 11
Floor 12
Floor 13
Floor 14
Floor 15
Floor 16
Floor 17
Floor 18
Floor 19
Floor 20
Floor 21
Floor 22
Floor 23
Floor 24
Floor 25
Floor 26
Floor 27
Floor 28
Floor 29
Floor 30
Floor 31
Floor 32
  • Enemy: None
  • Treasure: Recovery Item Ether
Floor 33

Citations[]

  1. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Crystal Legends Student: The fourteenth fruit of the tree of life.
    Crystal Legends Student: There is a hypothesis that a "vanished labyrinth" lies somewhere in this world. But the name itself would imply that it does not—wouldn't you say?
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