Water Mill Walkthrough
Once this lot is cleared, continue along the main path past the graveyard to another string of red wooden blockades, and skirt them to find a Mibu Balloon of Soul at a small shrine.
Watch out as you reach the house up on the hill – there are a few grabby Mibu Villagers you need to avoid, and then you can plunder the house to find Divine Confetti and Yellow Gunpowder. You can also climb up to the roof of the house and look on the other side to find several red banners with a platform on top you can use to reach a Pellet
Now you can cross the bridge next to a mill to find the Water Mill Sculptor’s Idol. Rest up, and you’ll notice that Jinzaemon has appeared up the road – and seems to be on death’s door – but at least he’s found the source of the haunting melody from the shamisen player that’s right up the road.
Mini-Boss Battle – O’Rin of the Water
As you reach the clearing ahead, a woman softly players the shamisen by a grave, and her face is covered. Speaking to her, she’ll start crying about her missing Lord Sakuza who won’t answer her letters. Whatever your response, she’ll get mad and immediately go to attack you. Even if you just try and run past her, she’ll get mad at you for ignoring her and become hostile.
O’Rin likes to dance around like a spiraling flower petal in the wind – all before darting in and attacking with incredible speed. She’ll often leap slowly into the air, and then rapidly twirl towards you and alternate strikes from each side in her spins.
Depending on her range, she may float up close for a quick hit, followed by a fast three-hit combo, before pausing and delivering a final cut. If you see her start rapidly twirling up to you from the side, be ready for three alternating hits on each side before ending in a low unblockable sweep – which she can also perform after a single jumping hit. Sometimes she may come in on the left for four alternating hits on each side of you, ending in a unblockable low sweep – but there’s a rare chance she may go to grab you instead, especially if she breaks your posture – and it will do massive damage. Watch for her glinting blade to see if its a sweep – if not, move away!
It can be hard to get a bead on her – especially as she disappears when jumping back to retreat or strafing left or right. When she becomes more ghost-like, your attacks can’t even hit her, making it unwise to pursue her. She’ll just phase through your attacks as she back-steps and materialize to punish you. However, because she is an apparition – you can use Divine Confetti to deal additional damage to her. It’s not a massive boost, but it is a sizeable increase if you have some to spare.
She does have fairly low posture, and it won’t regenerate all that fast even at high health. Let her come to you can deflect his strings of attacks, all while punishing her sweeps and swings back after her hits land and before she can jump away. She may be able to deflect a lot of your attacks, but you can still do some posture damage, and hold block as she floats away to recover your own. Once you learn her combos – it comes down to a waiting game of letting her come to you until her posture breaks, when you can seal the deal.
Defeating her will earn you a Prayer Bead and a skill Breath of Life: Shadow – which will further increase the amount of health you gain back per Deathblow on top of the Breath of Life: Light skill. If you let Jinzaemon get this far, she’ll call out to him, and you can hurry back just in time to have him thank you for uniting the two, as he gives you Jinza’s Jizo Statue and breathes his last.
As you head up the path past where O’Rin stopped you, you’ll find a small narrow bridge way above the stream below. Off to the right you can find a Lump of Fat Wax. As you try to cross, a ghostly Ashina Elite Samurai will appear on the other side to lock you into a narrow 1v1 match. Take the match slow, wait for his thrust or overhead strikes to parry and counter, and then follow up but don’t get too greedy.
When the spirit fades, look down into the river below, and you can spot a chest hiding in the waterfall. Jump down into the water and check it out to find Divine Grass, then look for grapple points to get back onto the bridge.
Up the bending path, you can spot the Head Priest’s house, where several Mibu Villagers have gathered in front, including a Taro Troop Bell Brute. Take him out first or Puppeteer him and let him go crazy on the rest, then eavesdrop on the door to hear what the priest is up to.
You can’t enter through the front door, nor can you find a way to get around back – so instead look for a crawlspace under the porch to sneak under. Move all the way to the left until you reach a dead end, and you’ll find a Shinobi Shortcut Secret Door panel to revolve into the house. Inside, the Head Priest is drinking himself to death trying to become a “citizen of the palace” to apparently no avail. Search the building here and you’ll find Divine Confetti on an altar, and a Red Lump in the corner behind some urns.
Head out through the broken wall and cross the river to hop onto the roof of a nearby hut where you’ll find a Light Coin Purse. Be sure to also check around the back of the shrine for Adamantium Scrap, and finally look up at the roof to grapple up and find an altar in the attic with Spirit Emblems and a Prayer Bead for the taking, and a Heavy Coin Purse out on the roof.
Boss Battle – Corrupted Monk
As you head up the path past the Head Priest’s house, you’ll come to a large clearing with a stone entrance to what looks like a large cave. But before you can get close, the ghostly visage of the Corrupted Monk will appear.
This enemy is big, and wields an even longer naginata weapon that can be used to swing and thrust many many times. Similar to O’Rin and the other apparitions, Divine Confetti can help you do a lot more damage here – and possible even lower her health long before her posture.
Otherwise, if you lack the Divine Confetti or you don’t want to start farming it from the Ashina Elite samurai in the Ashina Castle Upper Tower, you’ll want to use Gokan’s Sugar and turn this into a battle of posture.
The Corrupted Monk doesn’t always block (though it can be hard to tell when she is) but likes to use many sweeping combo attacks that you’ll have to get a rhythm down for deflecting each hit. In particular, watch for a sweeping 5-hit combo attack that constantly comes in circles, or a four hit alternating swing that will end with either thrust to Mikiri Counter, or a low sweep to jump over.
If she points her long blade at you – she’ll prepare for a long floaty jump towards you ending in a powerful slash you’ll need to deflect that sends you flying back – but you can throw out a Shuriken while she’s in the air to get some extra damage.
If she goes for an angry upswing, be sure to watch closely for a quick unblockable sweep as he retreats backwards – this is a good time to heal up or re-apply Divine Confetti/Gokan’s Sugar as needed. Since all of her strikes do a good amount of posture damage, you need to be holding block whenever she moves away to reset yourself – if you get staggered in the middle of her multi hit swings, you’ll likely meet your end.
A lot of this fight comes down to managing your posture wisely, and learning the difference between her thrust and swings – based how she angles her weapon before attacking. If you get everything down, you stand to raise her posture fairly fast, and damaging her vitality using the Divine Confetti can make this even easier when she gets to around half her health.
Thankfully, the Corrupted Monk only has one health bar, and there’s no tricks for this fight – when she’s gone, she’s gone. You’ll receive the Memory: Corrupted Monk, as well as the Mibu Breathing Technique Skill. Wait, what?
That’s right – all those ponds and rivers you swam across, all those times you were attacked by fish below the surface – now you can dive down and hunt them all down, and find new treasure in the process!
Before we do that, commune with the Wedding Cave Door Sculptor’s Idol, and head inside the ominous cave to find a creepy ritual altar and a wedding palanquin, below a giant hole in the cave’s top where water falls alongside a giant straw hand of some sort.
Check the altar for the Shelter Stone – the fragrant item that’s another piece of the Fountainhead Aroma’s incense you seek. Be sure to also check the inscription on the altar:
“Shelter stones such as this are an auspicious omen, sweetly scented for a bridal offering. The palanquin awaits with open arms.”
Going into the palanquin does nothing right now, so it’s time to head back to Lord Kuro… except, all of the Sculptor’s Idols in Ashina Castle have been deactivated somehow. Something is wrong, and to find out what we’ll need to make our way back to the castle – but first, a bit of cleanup.