Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree might be the hardest thing FromSoftware has ever made⁠—or at least its bosses are. It took the entirety of a single, sweaty, stressful day off for me to beat the expansion’s mega hard final boss, but the challenge runners are already putting him to shame, with no-hit, level one, and potentially even more deranged takes on the battle.

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss below.

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Estus OJ on YouTube lays claim to the world’s first no-hit run against Promised Consort Radahn. I don’t know if there’s some board or sporting commission clearing that, but with a June 22 upload (just one day after the expansion’s release), I’m inclined to believe it.

They used an interesting build to do it, with a fire-infused Miséricorde dagger and the Wolf Crest Shield with Carian Retaliation parry. In a similar fashion to Malenia, parrying three of Radahn’s attacks leaves him open to a critical hit, while the Miséricorde has the highest critical modifier (so among the highest potential critical damage) in the game⁠—Estus OJ headed off dodging through Radahn’s more laborious combos to just chunk through his health bar after slapping his sword away three times.

Ongbal, meanwhile, has been one of my favorite Souls challenge guys since Elden Ring’s original release. They’ve uploaded three different Radahn no-hit videos, but by far the most impressive is a no-hit, no blessing, level one fight. For this one, Ongbal’s rocking a heavy-infused Cleanrot Knight Sword, seemingly one of the best weapons that’s still usable with a level one character’s limited stats.

Ongbal mostly just relies on flawless play to get through the fight, but they do show off one old mariner’s trick you might consider bringing to bear against Radahn yourself: the Raptor of the Mists ash of war allows for a clean, easy way to dodge Radahn’s holy nuke attack if you don’t have time to run away.

There are a ton of other people uploading other no-hit or RL 1 fights, but I’m more interested in the future of ridiculous Radahn challenges. MouseInATutu specializes in level one, no hit, no rolling boss victories, solely relying on spacing and sprinting to avoid bosses’ attacks, a level of self-denial that puts snooty spirit ash abstainers to shame. MouseInATutu and this guy I knew in college who played Dark Souls 1 windowed at 20fps on a MacBook Air with WASD to move and arrow keys for the camera may be the only people who have ever truly “got good.”

So far, MouseInATutu has given this treatment to The Dancing Lion, Rellana, The Golden Hippopotamus, and Midra from the DLC⁠—it’s not even clear if it’s even feasible to beat Radahn no-hit, no-roll, but I’m eager to see if MouseInATutu can manage it. 

Speaking of future Radahn challengers, after a three-hour struggle for his first Radahn clear, Elden Ring folk hero Let Me Solo Her would like to get a no hit run against him someday. And on the opposite end of all of this, there’s making the tankiest build possible in order to pull off a no dodge, no block, “all hit” fight against Radahn.