| “ | A twin-headed, demon drake who rules over the tower. | „ |
| ~ Description from Ritual of the Night |
Valac is a recurring boss featured in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. It is a demon drake said to bring disaster, having nested high in a castle tower.
Origins[]
Valac is a demon described in the goetic grimoires The Lesser Key of Solomon (in some versions as Ualac or Valak, and in Thomas Rudd's variant as Valu), Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (as Volac), the Liber Officiorum Spirituum (as Coolor or Doolas), and in the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic (as Volach), as an angelically winged boy riding a two-headed dragon, attributed with the power of finding treasures.
Description[]
A gigantic dragon with two snake-like heads, one of them bearing a shard-like horn protruding over its snout, and the other bearing two horns over its head made from the same material. Each of these heads has their own partial torso and four pairs of arms (although they only use the uppermost pair, which are the most robust and toned), effectively giving them the appearance of two separate beings. Apart from their own mouths, each head has a long line of gigantic fangs underneath, which allows them to join with each other to make them appear as a single gigantic head, with said fangs acting as a giant mouth.
Valac's heads have the ability to breathe out large streams of fire. During battle, the heads often attack in tandem, complementing each other's moves. Some attacks even have them biting at the same time, where they both get their mouths entangled together for a brief period of time. Apart from their bites and fire breath, they can also use their arms to grab their prey.
Appearances[]
Ritual of the Night[]
Valac will ambush the player soon after venturing out onto the spiraling walkway of the second tower, one head appearing from behind and the other bursting in from the front. The player will be forced to constantly be on the move as Valac chases them with its left head (from the screen's perspective), while its curling body shuffles down the length of the tower. The boss will periodically pause to attack, although it is vulnerable at all times during the fight. Should the player be unable to keep up with Valac, they will suffer minor contact damage from the arm of the boss as the left side presses onward.
Valac has a variety of attacks on its side, which include biting, tongue-lashes, and breathing fire. It can perform solo and duo variants of these attacks to catch the player off guard. The bites will be telegraphed when Valac pulls back a head with its mouth agape before it lunges; sometimes they will alternate back and forth. Occasionally, both heads will open their mouths and the player must seek shelter under the head that is raised slightly upward to avoid a double bite. When breathing fire, the head will sweep the ground back and forth with its flames. If both heads attack with fire, the player must run back and forth in the safe space between the blasts until the heads relent. Whenever the heads open their mouths and wave their tongues, a whip-like lash from a tongue is about to follow, which must be jumped over. The double variant covers the entire floor for both heads. Valac's most powerful attack occurs whenever both heads have their eyes flashing red. What follows is a slam from both heads that covers a majority of the entire space. As soon as the eyes flash red, the player must quickly crouch down beneath the heads.
When Valac dies, it will attempt to take the player with it in a short cinematic, grabbing them in its claws and pulling them off the tower as the body falls. However, the dragon will shatter upon impact with the ground while the player survives, awarding them its shard, Inferno Breath. Like most of the other bosses, if Valac, while playing as Miriam, is defeated without taking any damage, an extra, purely honorary Boss Medal (the Valac Medal) will be rewarded.
In their campaigns, Bloodless instead lands next to a Blood Shard which contains the Blood Steal ability; Aurora instead, upon slaying Valac, is granted "the moon", which makes her grows back into an adult immediately, rendering her more proficient with her sword and able to sink underwater.
Curse of the Moon[]
- Nesting high in the castle tower, Valac is a grotesque demon said to bring disaster.
Each head has its own role and attack power.
One head spews poisoned offal, while the other uses its sharp fangs to finish off the weakened prey.
When they combine their scorching Pain Flame and Hell Flame, it becomes an eradicating blast capable of scorching the earth miles away.
—Official description[1]
At the start of the battle against it, Valac attacks with its two heads, one spewing poisoned offal, the other lunging at a nearby protagonist and both occasionally breathing straight streams of fire.
After both heads have been attacked enough to become inert, they fuse together into a larger, more powerful one and the rest of Valac's body is revealed as having "mouths" that periodically attempt to bite protagonists from beneath where they're standing.
Locations[]
Ritual of the Night[]
Curse of the Moon[]
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Sprites[]
.png "Valac's first form (boss).png (28 KB)")
.png "Valac's second form (boss).png (48 KB)")
Artworks[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Valac is the only Curse of the Moon boss that completely lacks a desperation attack; while, during a standard playthrough, Gremory also lacks such last-ditch attack, she does have one, which results in instant Game Over if not properly dealt with, while playing as Zangetsu without a single ally.
- Bael has an attack where he spits out from his humanoid head a tongue, which is, upon closer inspection, in truth the combined form of Valac from Curse of the Moon.
References[]
- ↑ Boss at the official Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon website.
External links[]
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night — Bestiary at GameFAQs