Lewiatan

Advanced Weapon Platform

Portside Cannon

**Lewiatan** is the Boss of Stage B3. It is one of four Bosses in the *Sky Force* series that is operated by the mysterious sentient AI.

## Appearance

The Lewiatan is a heavily-armored rigid airship (aka zeppelin) that is driven by propellers at the rear and has wings on either side. Its fuselage is painted in a dark grey livery that presumably allows for enemy camouflage at night. The airship also possesses three engines that rotate around the airship and discharging flame behind them.

## Armaments

### Pre-Battle Phase (Jet Fighter swarm)

There will be a few large waves of Jet Fighters you will need to tackle before the Lewiatan rises up from beneath the fog.

### 1st Phase

3x Converging Chain Guns

* Each chain gun fires three medium-duration waves of bullets at a time, accompanied by a slight spread. The bullets travel straight before slowing down and converge toward your Plane, hence adding on to the tracking feature of the guns themselves.
* Although each gun pauses momentarily between each wave of bullets, all three of them will fire in a back-to-back order that results in a long, continuous stream. Applied to *Insane* and *Nightmare* difficulties.

### 2nd Phase

6x Radial Cannons (Green)

* Two columns of Radial Cannons with three on each. Each fires six blue bullet orbs, three pairs of two bullets moving in perfectly opposite directions, which form a hexagonal shape (similar to those of *Sky Force 2014*). There is a chance of the cannons dropping a Health Restore item when destroyed.

### 3rd Phase

Advanced Weapon Platform

* One of the most dangerous weapons the Lewiatan has. It discharges a radial bullet swarm (In 12 directions, each consisting of five bullets) four times before thin but powerful laser beams are shot in the same number of different directions. The laser beams' direction is in between the directions of the two bullet swarms, but they may overlap due to Lewiatan's flying pattern.
* Energy Shields that are active at that time will be shattered if hit by the lasers.

### 4th Phase

11x Portside Cannons

* On the left and right side of the Lewiatan airship, housings containing portside cannonball guns can be opened. Each cannon releases a long and high-speed barrage of six cannonballs. The cannons fire in waves right after one another in random order.
* The Lewiatan will rotate itself sideways until its left side is facing your Plane. The set of portside cannons on this side will be revealed and they begin to attack. As mentioned in the Enemies page, those cannonballs are powerful themselves and can shatter an Energy Shield, so be careful about this segment of the battle.
* Note that as all the cannons themselves are mounted in one system, they will be destroyed together rather than one after another. For the best speed, you can hover your Plane directly over the cannons to safely deal damage, like how something similar is done for the laser beam cannon on The Scarlet Heart.

## Combat Routine

### Pre-Battle Phase (Jet fighter swarm)

Nearing the start of the battle, the Lewiatan can be seen swooping downward from the left of the screen. After you have taken care of the numbers of Jet Fighters, the giant black zeppelin will rise from beneath the thick fog.

### 1st Phase

The Lewiatan will reveal its first weapons at the rear, the three converging chain guns. The chain guns each fire waves of bullets rapidly. The bullets will stop moving midway and flash as they aim at your Plane's position. One good skill would be to slowly move your Plane across a circumference but not too slowly to avoid those bullets which have a high-intelligence tracking feature.

The guns will wait for their turns to fire, creating longer streams of bullets. On high difficulties such as *Insane* or *Nightmare*, the high fire rate will create an inexhaustible stream of bullets until all three guns reload simultaneously, but there will be a small gap for the Plane to pass through after one of the guns is destroyed.

### 2nd Phase

After destroying the chain guns, the Lewiatan will slow down to allow the six green radial cannons to align in their positions to attack. All of the cannons fire their bullets in hexagonal patterns at the same time. Staying clear of the bullets is easy, so use this as an alternative unless you have a prodigious attacking technique that having Power-ups like Lasers and Mega Bombs in handy allows, which is quite hard to make that the case since many would have been consumed for battling intense enemies in the Stage earlier on.

This is possibly the easiest phase of the Boss. The player may even take their time here to regenerate their health if Card 19 is unlocked.

### 3rd Phase

After the radial cannons are cast out, the Lewiatan once again slows down, this time to align the Advanced Weapon Platform in position. Four waves of multi-directional bullet swarms will be fired, with the laser beams discharging for a second right after. As there is a very small margin between the laser beam and the stream of bullets fired in the fourth wave, it is hard to evade getting seriously damaged. In addition, the Lewiatan sways from side to side while moving through the air due to turbulence. As such, converge your position facing the Advanced Weapon Platform to keep the risk of damage as minimal as possible. After firing the laser beams, a brief pause for recharging will take place. Use this opportunity to open fire and deliver as much damage as possible.

### 4th Phase

After the destruction of the Advanced Weapon Platform, the Lewiatan rotates itself such that its left side faces your Plane. The eleven portside cannons will emerge from their housings to initiate a high-speed cannonball barrage. To keep clear of the cannonballs, find any space where the cannons' range cannot reach, which can be on the left, right or even at the top of the screen. If the Plane is trapped in the middle of the screen, find the small gaps between cannonballs due to their firing delay and move the Plane through them and get behind the cannonballs. On mobile, release the fingers to slow down gameplay to buy time for reaction. As mentioned, the Lewiatan will sway left and right due to turbulence and winds, so where a space would be available can vary as well as how large it is. In fact, you can hover your Plane directly above the cannons to blow them down (All destroyed together) and be completely out of range from the barrage, similar to how you quickly drain health off from the powerful laser cannon of The Scarlet Heart while being completely unaffected by the laser.

After taking down the portside cannons, you can obliterate the Lewiatan and finish the Stage.

## Difficulty

As the difficulty rises, this boss can become challenging and it's possibly the longest and hardest boss to ever face in the game. In the barrage section, the cannons reload much faster and there is little time to attack the portside. You can however attack while you're on the top, but it only do a little damage since you only hitting them with the drone gun, not the main gun and neither the wing cannon. If you're extreme enough, you can stay between the two cannons so that the main gun will actually hit the target, but it's almost impossible to do so, especially when the cannons active and make sure to don't get hit on close.

## Trivia

* This Boss does not come with trophies or official names.
* If you manage to data mine the game files, you can actually reveal the full model of the boss and its hidden name.
* After you defeat the boss, it will be lost in the thick fog, similar to the end of the Nasty Owl boss fight in *Sky Force Anniversary*.
* The boss has the same name as a Polish supermarket company that goes by the name "Lewiatan".