Valley of Defilement Walkthrough
The Valley of Defilement is one of the shortest stages in the game, but it can still prompt more than a few deaths if you're not careful in how you proceed. Most of those will likely come from drops into the abyss that serves as the stage's primary landmark, but you may also succumb to a number of other hazards.
When you first head forward from the start, you'll come almost immediately to a drop-off leading into the afore-mentioned abyss. Fortunately, there are some planks leading up to the left. You can investigate under those boards to find the Royal Lotus among some brush, then you should climb the boards to higher ground.
The boards will loop slowly around, ever ascending, with a pit stretching wide to the left. Keep climbing and periodically along the way you'll fight the goblins so common to this area. They carry burning torches that they'll swing toward you, but they're not actually all that difficult to defeat despite the elemental assistance. Just don't let them surprise you and you'll easily survive each of their attacks. Keep working around and you should come to a ladder, which you can descend to find a Morning Star weapon. Then you can climb up and continue along the upper level. You may have to break apart some debris as you proceed.
Walking along this area can prove extremely dangerous. Though the enemies aren't so bad, it's quite easy to slip over an edge and fall into that bottomless pit. In fact, it's so easy to tumble over the side that some of your enemies will do precisely that as you knock them around with melee attacks.
Keep working along the planking and you'll come to a rope bridge over a narrow gap, and beyond that some narrow boards. Cross these quickly, as there are enemies along the other side that may take advantage of your tenuous footing if given the chance. Then continue working along the boards until you arrive at the area's third ladder.
As you descend this ladder, you'll notice more enemies gathering around the base. When you get near, they'll jump up to club you. Since they don't actually inflict much damage, you're probably safe to just quickly descend and then clear them away quickly with sword strikes. If your defenses aren't so good or you don't have health-generating equipment to aid with recovery, you may prefer to take care of them from the area above so that you don't have to waste restorative items. Once you eliminate the threat and descend, you'll find yourself in a nearly enclosed area. From here, you have two options.
If you're feeling brave, you can head out along some planks to the left, then make a dangerous jump down to a ledge below. Be sure to leap from the end of the board, not the side, since a leap to the side is more likely to prove fatal. When you land, you'll find a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes. You may take some damage from the fall, depending on your dexterity rating, and some enemies will also attack you. Defeat them and you can drop down to the right and find more enemies guarding some Storied Soldier's Soul items. Then past those, there's a red blob that you can defeat from a distance (to avoid being poisoned). That critter is guarding the Blessed Mace +1.
All in all, that's quite the haul! Now you can look along the left side of the area to find an upright board. Approach it and you can press 'X' to knock it down and cross over the gap. On the other side, you'll need to take care of some rats with projectile weapons or magic so that you don't have to get close to them and risk catching the plague. Equip the Ring of Disease Resistance before you approach, if it's in your inventory. You should also skip the next four paragraphs of this walkthrough, which detail an alternate route that you'll not be following on this particular trip through the stage.
Your other path from that enclosure where the enemies gathered at the base of the ladder leads across some planks and to the area's first fog-covered door. Cross over and enter it. On the other side, you'll find yourself walking around toward more wooden planks. Another monster will attack here. Once you tend to him, you can proceed down a slope and you'll notice a bridge ahead and some brush to the left. There are glowing items there (an Unknown Hero's Soul and some Faintstone Ore), but approach cautiously. As you get near, the corpses lying around will animate. It was a trap! Fortunately, a few quick strikes can take care of both of the monsters, leaving you free to grab the items.
Now you should continue your slow descent, crossing the bridge over the pit to reach a wider area on the opposite side that branches left and right. If you head left from here and descend some planks, you can find a host of items including a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes, Saint's Boots, Saint's Gloves and a Saint's Robe.
You can grab those items, then backtrack to the bridge and this time start toward the right. Pass through an opening here for what may be your first encounter with some strange red bulbs. If you slash them, they'll burst into dangerous clouds of poison. You're better off hitting them with projectiles. Then when they're gone, you can follow the ledge around and descend to find a filthy woman who will sell you items if you have sufficient souls. She stocks black turpentine, Stone of Ephemeral Eyes items and some powerful armor, along with other stuff that you may find interesting.
Buy anything you need from the merchant, then descend some planks toward the area below where the merchant is camped. As you near the ground level, be ready with projectile magic. Several small rats will rush you.
They'll go down easily enough to melee attacks, but then you run the risk of catching the plague from them. You'll be safer if you play the coward and eliminate them from afar. This is the room where you will appear if you took the dangerous jump that led to the Blessed Mace.
Once the rats are gone, you can proceed along planks through an opening to the left. Be careful, though; when you start forward along those boards, some rocks may fall from above. Now head across but be ready for a fight. The monster that approaches you here is much larger than his brethren and able to inflict significant damage with each swing of his powerful arms. When you get near, you want to slash the heck out of him and hopefully he'll go down before he can attack you. Note that he's also joined by a smaller one of his fellows, so be ready to block any attacks that come from that less noticeable companion. There is a ladder just before the bridge at your left. It will lead to another fight with a large monster and some treasure. You'll need to backtrack to the ladder to continue advancing toward the end.
When you continue through the opening after fighting the larger monster, you'll find yourself in an enclosure with straw scattered across the wooden floor. Here you'll be attacked by several more of the smaller goblins wielding torches. Slash them apart quickly, before they can inflict much damage, then go ahead and climb the boards leading upward along the edge of the room. These lead to a room with more of the poisonous red bulbs, which you should again kill from afar. From where you enter, target the two on the right first with your magic, then when they're gone you can step over to their remains and turn to safely fire at the one that is closest to the planks that you used to enter the room.
Look off to the side now and you'll seen an opening that leads toward another bridge. There are enemies on this bridge, but they likely won't start forward just yet. You can actually hit them with projectile magic before they even begin to advance, which makes avoiding damage pretty simple.
Once those enemies are gone, start across the bridge and you'll cause a larger one of the guys to start toward you in quite a hurry. Hopefully, you have magic and can weaken him from a distance, then finish him off with sword strokes as he gets closer. Remember that you can also backtrack to the larger room so that you're not forced to fight him on the bridge. Once he goes down, you can safely cross the bridge to arrive at a shack on the far side. There's a plank leading downward here. At the base, you can investigate behind some planking to find Full Moon Grass. In the same area, there's a wall of fog that leads to the area boss. Prepare yourself with any necessary spells, then step through to the encounter.
>Boss Battle: Leechmonger
When you first appear in the arena, you'll witness a sequence as your enemy arrives from the murky soup that fills his arena. Then you'll find yourself positioned along a ledge. Though common sense would suggest that you should run forward, this is actually a very bad idea. You'll almost immediately fall to your death as you plunge over a ledge toward a bottomless pit.
Instead of a suicide dash, then, look toward the left. There, planks lead down along the outer wall of the cavern. Since you're far too high to possibly harm your opponent, you'll need to start following the planks down and around the outer edges of the region. As you do, the boss will regularly send three-way leech balls flying toward you.
Be careful as you proceed. You have two choices now. One is to head all the way to the bottom (quite the hike) and to step through the swampy soup to use melee attacks on your opponent. If you go with that route, make sure that you have good armor and gear that will regenerate health as you fight, even if it's only a little bit. You'll want to be ready to heal yourself periodically as you hack away at your opponent.
If you have powerful magic, a wonderful alternative is to descend only to the point where you're positioned along a long, flat stretch of planking and can press 'R3' to target your foe. Then you can just dodge back and forth to avoid leech balls while you hurl fireballs with the Fire Spray spell. You'll likely take only limited damage, especially since the spell also seems to fry the leech balls before they can hit you in most cases. Just keep using that strategy to drain away the boss's life meter and in no time at all you'll emerge victorious.
When you defeat the boss, you'll be free to gather the sparkling items along the swampy floor of the cavern. After you've grabbed what you want, including a Great Club from near the base of one of the planks, touch the archstone along one side (it's positioned in a narrow passage) to receive the Wriggling Demon's Soul. Then touch it again to return to the Nexus.