After defeating Renoir in the Monolith, a series of story scenes play out. When they finish, a portal appears right in front of you. Walk through it to reach Monolith Peak. As soon as you arrive, look to your right to find Expedition Flag: Monolith Peak. Rest here before continuing.
Follow the path upward. Keep going until you reach a cliff area where The Paintress is waiting. There is a long story sequence here before the fight begins.
Boss Fight: The Paintress
This is one of the hardest fights in the game. It happens in two phases and you will need all five characters ready before you start. Make sure your whole team is fully prepared.
Phase 1
The Paintress has no elemental weakness in this phase, so use whatever works best for your team. Fire attacks are worth using here because they apply burn which keeps dealing damage over time. The key to this phase is learning her attack patterns and staying alive while dealing damage.
| Attack | How to Counter |
|---|---|
| Void Meteor | Watch the leftmost orb — parry right after it flashes, then keep the rhythm |
| Gradient Attack | Wait for the screen to turn black and white, then parry after about one second |
| Chroma Waves | Parry three times quickly when the sound cuts out, then wait for the fourth wave |
| Chroma Scatter | Listen for the “tsk” sound from the orb, then parry right after |
| Rock Throw | Watch the rocks pull back, then parry as they start moving toward you |
When The Paintress drops to about 5% health, a cutscene plays showing her summoning a giant statue of herself. Phase 2 starts right after.
Phase 2
This phase is harder. You are now fighting in front of the giant statue. Most of her attacks follow the same principle as Phase 1, watch the timing and parry at the right moment.
| Attack | How to Counter |
|---|---|
| Brush of Light | Parry as the brush moves toward you, not during the windup — three hits in a row |
| Flies into the Air | Parry when she swoops down, watch for timing changes as she gets closer |
| Rips apart the Reality | Wait for the projectiles to curve, then parry each one |
| Unleash | Seven hits on one person followed by one hit on everyone — memorize the pattern |
| Corrupted Chroma | Cannot be avoided |
When she reaches around half health, she will use Corrupted Chroma. This is the most dangerous moment in the fight. It does three things at once: it puts a death curse on your entire team that kills everyone in exactly two turns, it gives her nine shields you must break before you can damage her again, and it applies Powerless and Defenceless debuffs to your party.
As soon as this happens, look for black orbs floating around The Paintress. Target them immediately using free aim attacks. Each orb you destroy gives that character extra turns before the curse kills them. Use those extra turns to break through her nine shields as fast as possible. Successful parries deal extra damage and help break shields more quickly. A full team counter can take down three shields in one go.
If your main party dies to the curse before you finish her off, send in your backup characters straight away. They will get cursed quickly too, but those extra turns may be enough to end the fight.
Defeating The Paintress gives you the Painted Power Pictos, three Resplendent Chroma Catalysts, a Recoat, 8,520 Chroma, and 144,780 XP.
After the fight, a long series of story scenes plays out. When everything wraps up, you will start playing as a new character named Alicia and the Epilogue begins.