Chapter 9: Hidden Underground
Are you ready for a long-ass trek and a blisteringly hard boss fight? Well, you'd better be, because that's exactly what you're going to be getting in this chapter.
A few bits of item-related advice now that we're about halfway through the game:
1. You have probably made up your mind by now as to which weapons you prefer to use the most. We suggest not wasting valuable essence to upgrade weapons you don't plan on using often. Also, there's a weapon you can buy called the Wooden Sword which is useless at first, but it can become one of the game's best weapons if you're willing to pay for several upgrades. It's extremely expensive to do so, however, so you're probably better off just sticking with upgrading your other weaponry.
2. Try to keep as large a stock of Elixirs of Spiritual Life as you can. But don't hesitate to use them if you think you could benefit from a quick life boost.
3. There are a few more Talismans to be found in the game, but they are few and far between, and still very expensive to replace. If it comes to either using a Great Spirit Elixir or letting a Talisman activate, you're probably better off using the Elixir.
4. Check through Muramasa's shop again and make sure you haven't missed buying any technique scrolls or Ninpo. You should also strongly consider getting either a Bracelet of the Sun or a Bracelet of the Moon to boost Ryu a bit further.
So anyway, back to our primary quest. How the heck do we get ourselves out of this hellhole?
There's a Lives of the Thousand Gods left over from the boss, so grab that and use it to increase your life bar. You'll want to run back to the nearest save point afterwards, because you really don't want to have to do all of that again, now, do you? If you want, you can also head back to the Ritual Room (where you found the Holy Grail) to take on another 60-enemy challenge against a zombie horde. Your reward for successful undead extermination is another Lives of the Thousand Gods.
Heading back into the room where you sent the undead lizard back to its grave, you'll want to jump down and land right by its re-de-animated corpse. Take a bit of time to look around here - there's another Golden Scarab waiting for you. From here, head through the passageway. More zombies await you here - get used to them, because you're going to be dealing with them quite often for this whole chapter. Proceeding along, you'll come across a Muramasa statue, a save point, and a chest with a map of this area. Make good use of all of them.
In this next room, we have a very suspicious-looking suspension bridge. Don't cross the bridge just yet - nearby is yet another Golden Scarab and a Life or the Gods item, so get them first. When you do try and cross the bridge, you'll find yourself unceremoniously dumped into the room directly below. More enemies lurk down here, volunteering as victims for your slicing and dicing pleasure. On one side of the room is a door with a red eye on it, while a door with a blue eye is found on the opposite side. There's also a big, locked door, but it's of no use to use now, so let's worry about it later.
So which way to go? Let's get the tougher challenge out of our way first. Head into the blue-eye door and equip your bow and arrow. There will be an archer zombie waiting here for you, so get rid of him first. Look across to the far end of the room from here to see a platform with two more zombie archers and a big blue button in the nearby wall. You can take out these archers from afar if you want - you'll need to use your bow and arrows against them, and they can be a bit difficult to hit, but killing them off makes the next part a lot easier. (If you need arrows, there's an unlimited supply nearby.) Head back into the doorway through which you entered this room, but don't return to the previous area - Instead, turn back around to face the wall across from you. See the marking on the wall with a small, glowing blue circle? Draw your bow and aim for the circle to make a bridge of green, floating platforms appear. Now you can reach that ledge at the other end of the room!
It's not quite that easy, though - there are some swinging pendulums here that will knock you down to the floor below if they smack into you. (They'll also cause the platforms to disappear if this happens, meaning that you'll have to hit the switch with your arrows again.) Move carefully, avoiding all the pendulums, but don't take too long - the platforms will disappear after a while. When you reach the end of the platforms, you'll need to do a wall-run across the left wall in order to reach the ledge where the big blue button lies. Once there, walk up to the strange contraption and give it a good press. That's one down.
If you were fortunate enough not to get knocked down there before, you should definitely take a bit of time to check around the bottom level of this room. Besides a treasure chest with some restoratives, there's a Golden Scarab on the ground right underneath the ledge where you pushed the blue button. Backtrack to the room with multiple exits, and this time take the red-eye door.
