Chapter 18: TheCore
The first things you'll notice here is that Hayabusa isn't looking too good. Doku's curse has already begun to alter him physically. We'll need to do something about that, won't we?
First things first - you're going to be overwhelmed by a school of those nasty ghost fish almost from the very start of this stage, so equip the Flails and go to town on them. Chop all of them up and then pick up the statue of the Raptor God. You'll now be able to exit this area.
There's a save point here, so don't neglect to use it. To the far, far right is a treasure chest you can pick up if you want, but your real destination now lies westwards. You'll see a bridge leading to the castle, but don't bother with it for now. A few fiends will also assault you along the way. You can fight the enemies if you want, but they'll disappear after you get out of a certain range, so it's up to you.
Eventually, you'll reach an area with a large gate surrounded by more of those fish. Your goal is to get through those doors - killing off the fish-fiends is optional. Press on through to see a dying member of the Black Spider Clan. He'll give you a Key of the Decayed Soul in his last breaths. Now you can backtrack, cross the spiraling bridge, and enter the last castle!
Hold off on that for just a moment, though. From this area, you can return all the way back to the streets of Tairon. There are no shops anywhere in the castle, so if you want to stock up on items, this is the only way you'll be able to do it. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but it's better than being left in the middle of the tower high and dry with no restorative items.
Now you can run back and finally enter the tower. Climbing to the top of this area is actually a pretty simple process you'll repeat a couple times:
-Enter a large room and kill all the enemies inside.
-Approach the area in the center of the room and use one of your statues.
-Exit through the door that just opened.
-Climb the spiral staircase leading to the next level, fighting off the fish zombies as you ascend.
-Go into the next room and repeat the process.
Between the third and fourth floors lies the last Golden Scarab - there's a ledge next to door leading into the fourth room that you can jump from. You can land on another platform from here, and the Golden Scarab awaits at the end of it. If you've managed to get all of these bugs, you can trade them in to Muramasa to get a very cool new weapon!
At the top of the Palace's central structure lies an area with a Dragon Statue (do we need to tell you to use this?), a Team Ninja logo to restore your health and Ninpo, and a couple of treasure chests with Great Spirit Elixirs inside. There's also a portal, which leads you to the Hellish Depths and another boss rush.
Boss Rush: Marbusand Friends
Marbus won't take you on directly at first. Instead, he'll send various minions out to try and take you down. Here's the order you'll fight them in:
-Group of standard fiend enemies
-Stage 6's tentacle monster boss
-Another group of standard fiends, only with Marbus chucking fireballs at you from a distance
-Yotunfrau from the Ice Caverns
Managed to get through all of that relatively unscathed? Good, because now you're going to be dealing with Marbus himself. Marbus himself is pretty easy to avoid, but he has the ability to summon an infinite number of fiendish reinforcements to distract you. Try to ignore these guys as much as possible, blocking their attacks when necessary.
Marbus has the fireball projectiles he used on you earlier, which should be a cinch to avoid by now. He's also got a swift fly-by strike that can either be blocked or dodged. What you really want him to do, however, is use either his spinning kamikaze attack or his flying punch. When he misses the dive attack, he'll need a few seconds to recover. Smack him with some nice, hard attacks and then get the hell away from him! Same things goes for the flying punch strike, only the window for your attack opportunity there is much smaller. Take advantage of both these vulnerabilities and you'll emerge the victor. Take the Devil diety statue, then return to the top of the spire.
Oh, wait, you thought you were done with this stage? Nope, we've still got another boss to take down. Save your game, and if need be, backtrack all the way back to Muramasa's storefront to stock up on Elixirs, Talismans, ammunition, and any other goods or upgrades you might need. This is the last opportunity you'll have to do this, so we strongly suggest making the lengthy trek to and back from the store and going hog-wild with essence spending while you're in there.
Back at the top of the tower, use the Devil statue to unlock a gate, revealing a huge flight of stairs you can climb. After you begin to ascend the steps, you'll be suddenly stopped and shown a very strange cinematic sequence before being whisked into a boss battle.
