Medusa guards the Ossuary of the Innocents, a flooded ruin where Rose fights from small raised platforms over the water. The whole fight rewards height and patience. Keep off the floor line, use the golden grapple ring, and hit her face in the air after her lunge bite.
Quick answer: Stay on the high platforms, grapple to the golden ring to clear her eye beam and late beam barrage, stay up when she dives into the water, then strike her head with aerial whip combos after a swipe, bite, or dive.
The Ossuary of the Innocents arena
The encounter unfolds in waterlogged stone ruins, threaded with enormous green loops of Medusa’s body. Rose can move between two low platforms, positioned to the left and right. Over the space between them hangs one golden grapple ring, while purple grapple crystals are placed near the platforms. Water covers the area underneath. Medusa takes position on the pillar at either side.
Her health shows as one red bar labelled MEDUSA, with no segments. It drains smoothly as you land hits, so there is nothing to track beyond keeping the pressure on between her attacks.
Medusa’s attacks and how to counter them
Read the wind-up, move to the right spot, and you get a free opening afterward. Stay high on the platforms unless the counter below tells you to drop down.
Swipe
Medusa draws one claw behind her as her hair coils up, then sends a blue crescent sweeping across the upper level. Avoid it by leaping to the opposite platform or grappling away.
Eye beam
Medusa bends forward as yellow-green light builds across her face. She follows with a broad, straight beam that cuts across the upper platform. Get clear by grappling to the golden ring or dropping below the beam’s path to the lower level.
Water dive with tail sweeps
With a splash, Medusa plunges into the water, then her body or spiked tail surges across the floor beneath the surface. Stay above the sweep on a raised platform or suspend yourself from the golden ring. You can also try dodge-rolling through the tail.
Medusa submerges, remains below the surface for several seconds, then reappears atop the pillar across the room. Keep clear of the low platforms during her dive; once she resurfaces, make your way to the walkway on that side to get back within reach of her face.
Lunge bite with hair snakes
Medusa draws back, bringing the snake heads in her hair forward in coils, before lunging along the top platform. Leap over her charge, then whip her face as she stretches out.
Late beam barrage
Later in the battle, the snake heads spread out from Medusa’s hair and turn yellow before unleashing several beams together. Find a safe space between the beams, or grapple to the ring to get completely clear of the floor-level path.
Flying snake heads
Later in the fight, little snakes launch from Medusa in your direction. Grapple to the other side of the room to evade them, then move back in to attack.
Tail sweep with falling rocks
In the later stages, her spiked tail emerges from the water in the gap between the platforms and cuts across the lower ledges, throwing up a white splash of spikes. Once it has passed, rocks drop from the ceiling throughout the room. Avoid the tail by remaining on the upper walkway or gripping the golden ring; afterward, check overhead and move clear of any rocks falling toward you.
How to beat Medusa
Water separates two squat stone ledges, positioned at the arena’s left and right edges. Above each ledge, a grated route spans the space; a pink grapple diamond marks the end facing inward. Suspended centrally between the routes is a gold grapple ring. Medusa perches on a pillar at either extreme of the room, changing which side she occupies as combat goes on.
Her face is reachable only by using the elevated walkway on the side where she is. Jump up, point your aim upward at the pink diamond, and grapple using the right mouse button on PC. Once on the walkway, head to its tip nearest Medusa and strike her face.
If she relocates to the opposite pillar, use a pair of grapples to get across: leap and aim upward at the golden ring, grapple onto it, then target the distant walkway’s pink diamond and grapple there. You can use the ring to escape both her eye beam and the barrage of beams she unleashes later.
Her tail attacks sweep across the lower platforms; staying on the walkway or suspended from the ring keeps you clear. A fall into the water won’t end the encounter: Rose returns to a platform, and the fight continues.
Once a swipe or lunge has passed, or when she emerges after diving, land an attack. Then clear the area before her next warning. Her offense grows more crowded as her health bar shrinks:
- After around one-quarter of her bar has been depleted, she brings in the late beam barrage and airborne snake heads.
- Past the halfway point, her tail sweeps also bring rocks down from the ceiling.
- Near the end, even more rocks fall.
Once her bar reaches empty, a black-and-white slash delivers the finish. A prompt follows for the Absorption phase: hold E (R1 on PlayStation). Continue holding until absorption is complete; releasing after only a few seconds won’t do.
When to punish Medusa
After a swipe, bite, or dive, Medusa is briefly vulnerable. Jump toward her and use aerial whip combos against her head and body to reduce the bar. You can also hit her with a card-ability spell cast while airborne. The finishing hit plays a slash sequence in monochrome.
How to reach the Serpents’ Lair
The lair sits at the end of the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery. The map objective while you travel reads UNLOCK THE GATE TO THE CATACOMBS, and spirits along the way leave clues about The Prophetess, including the Roman Baths clue “Guardian’s Gaze” warning about her eyes.
Shortcut: drop through the fountain
You can reach Medusa without taking the long route to the Serpents’ Lair. On the Fountain of the Innocents’ lower floor, enter the fountain; Rose falls through its concealed base and arrives in the lair. The Ancient Sewers Mirror of Life sits to the right of the lair’s location.
Medusa: health and damage
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health | 1,500 |
| Experience | 500 |
| Rewards |  Petrifying Gaze spell (The Prophetess card), The Prophetess’s Key |
| Immune to | Freeze, petrify; Chains of Justice, bleed and burn work |
| Damage figures assume DEF | About 23 |
The damage numbers below assume Rose has roughly the DEF shown in the table. With less DEF, attacks hurt more: at 20 DEF below that benchmark, they deal about 1.7 times as much damage. Extra DEF is less helpful; 20 above the benchmark reduces damage by only about 10%. Rose gains 1 DEF per level and per DEF UP book read. More on this in how damage works.
Medusa opens with close claw work and tail sweeps from the water, then layers in a late beam barrage from her snake heads as the fight wears on.
- Each claw swipe and lunge bite deals 24 damage.
- Tail sweeps from the water: 24 damage per hit.
- Eye beam: 24 damage per hit, and it petrifies Rose.
- During the late snake-head beam barrage, each beam hit deals 24 damage.
- A falling large boulder deals 19 damage; a small one deals 10.
The eye beam cannot be parried or dodged: get out of its line. The late beam barrage cannot be parried. If petrified, mash any button to escape sooner.
Freeze and petrify have no effect on her. Chains of Justice can still affect her, unlike most bosses, and bleed and burn are effective.
Rewards for beating Medusa
When the bar empties, the trophy “Snakes speared in the ruins” pops. A prompt then appears: “During the absorption phase, hold down R1 to absorb the power of the Arcana” (PC: E).
The Prophetess Arcana card, with the spell Petrifying Gaze: “Petrify enemies in front of Rose.”- THE PROPHETESS’S KEY is one of the three keys required to unlock the sealed door leading to the Catacombs.
- The trophy “Snakes speared in the ruins”.
The room past the fight holds a new weapon pair, the Rusted Harpè and Aegis.
