Nioh 2 Corpses and Ice Walkthrough

Corpses and Ice is the 8th main story mission in Nioh 2. This walkthrough will guide you through all areas of the Corpses and Ice Main Quest.

Corpses and Ice is unlocked when you complete A Way Out.

Recommended Level: 44
Region: Shadow
Requirement: Complete A Way Out
Reward: Gesture FIRE!, Taro Tachi (WATER), Water Omamori, Highest Quality Leather Platelet x3, 13400 Gold, 7824 Amrita

Shrine 1

From the first shrine, you should immediately see a shortcut ladder to the right you can drop down later. Head down the left path, and speak to Mumyo to have her join your party for the start of the level. There will immediately be an enemy in the house just to the left, and a body around behind it to search. Continue forward slightly and kill the two enemies by the broken bridge, then go up the path leading to the right.

Just ahead you can climb up the right guard tower for an item, the go into the small building to find a Scampuss on the right side. Head into the courtyard area, and there will be one enemy on ground level, one on the rooftop on the right, and one way up on the left in the guard tower.  If you go in the white building to the left there will be one enemy along with a large chest. Just forward past the buildings there will be four more enemies on the incline leading up.

At the top of the steps don’t head out to the left yet. Keep moving clockwise in this area and you’ll reach a Darkness Zone. Coming in this side you will see a Skeleton Archer to the right, and a Yoki walking the path in front of you.  Just left of the path where the Yoki is will be two Gaki by a body, and a Skeleton Gunner on the cliff above.  Head down the hill out the other side of the Darkness Realm and you’ll find two human enemies, along with the ladder on the left that you can kick down back to Shrine 1.

Head back into the Darkness Realm and go up the stairs leading right. At the top wandering in and out of the house you will see an Enki, and killing it will dispel this Darkness Realm.  You can look inside the house to find a chest, then at the edge of the area by the trees you can find Kodama #1.

Go back the way you first entered this Darkness Realm area and go out the gate to the right, leading down a set of wooden stairs. At the bottom of the second flight going down, you should see a group of boxes. Break these to find Kodama #2.

Continue down the stairs and go across the bridge, being careful dealing with the Skeleton Soldier in the middle so that you don’t fall off. There are two lying down that will shoot at you when you get near them towards the middle of the bridge, as well as some Gaki on the level below that you can get to from a ramp at the end of the bridge.  After the bridge you can head into the building on the right for a small chest, then go to Shrine 2 where Mumyo will leave your party.

Shrine 2

From Shrine 2 you’ll have a shortcut door to your right, and the only way to go currently being up the stairs to the left. At the top don’t go into the building yet, go around the corner of the balcony and climb up the ladder. Follow the balcony around to the end and you’ll find Kodama #3 behind a group of crates.

Go back down and enter the building. The first enemy walking around will have a horn, and if he spots you and you don’t kill him quick he’ll call all other humans in the area towards you, which can make the enemies in the immediate area somewhat easier to deal with if you have a large weapon like a switchglaive because all the enemies just bunch up and run at you.   Heading out the side of this building you can now go open the first gate through if you wish, then you should go upstairs and head into the building with the Darkness Realm.

On the top floor will be a Skeleton Soldier you can kill, then on the lower floor will be a Mitsume Yazura which is what controls this Darkness Realm. There is also one more Skeleton Soldier on the left that I would advise shooting, then you can drop attack the Yazura and deal with it relatively easily. Note if you get spotted by the Yazura you can just run back into the other building to get it to lose track of you and move back to its prior spot making the drop attack easier.  Once it’s dead you can head down to the lower floor to find another Skeleton Warrior and a Rokurokubi by a body. When they are dealt with you can head up to the top floor by the second Skeleton Warrior and open the chest to find an Onmyo Mage’s Locks, then continue into the next building.

In this building there are 4 enemies: one guy on the balcony to the left, one guy in the middle looking at the body, and two on the floor looking at another body. There is also a fifth just outside the door on the lower floor who has a horn and will alert the others if you get noticed. If you backstab the guy in the middle first, then the guy on the balcony, you can then drop attack the two on the lower floor and then kill the guy by the door. On the lower floor of this building will be a chest in the corner. Once all the enemies in this building are dead, there are two more just outside to the right by the stairs. Before heading up those stairs you should get the rest of the items in this area. Across from the building you were just in will be a Yokai Fog in front of a chest, which spawns another Yazura.

After grabbing that chest go back in the building where you had the five human enemies and go out the path leading up to the large building on the other side. You should see an enemy by a Sudama on the other side which you should shoot before going down. On the lower look into the room on the left, where you will see a human enemy wielding an Odachi, with another human enemy sitting on the floor beside him.  Shoot him with whatever powerful ranged weapon you have, then climb back up the ladder. He will attempt to follow you, but what you can do here is just smack him when he climbs to the top of the ladder, then do a drop attack onto him. Head into the other room and kill the other enemy, then open the nearby chest.

Continue into the next room from here and there will be an enemy wielding an axe on the stairs, then another guy just above him who will shoot at you if he spots you. On this lower floor, go into the corner under the stairs to find Kodama #4.

Go up the stairs and go across into the building in the area before. In the corner between the wall and the stairs, you will find Kodama #5. You can then continue again into the very first building you were in on the ledge in the corner to find a small chest, which will contain Ninja’s Locks.

After grabbing those items, go back to the front of this large building and look to the right where you should see a narrow path going up with a building at the end. In this building you will find a Yoki along with a chest. From there, take the right path and you can find an enemy standing in front of a Benevolent Grave. Take the left path, and you end up in the building you were in before on the walkway where the Sudama is. Head forward across to the far room and you can find a chest.

After you’ve picked up everything here you can go through both gates on the lower floor into a courtyard on the other side. There will be one enemy in here wielding a spear. If you want a very easy time with him, shoot him in the head first before really entering the courtyard. This will stun him, then you run over and get in a ground attack. This should take off most of his health in one go, making it a trivial fight. Head through the next gate and you will be at Shrine 3.

Shrine 3

At Shrine 3 do not go across the bridge yet, instead go into the building to the left of it. Break the boxes in the left corner to find Kodama #6.

You now need to cross the bridge, going through the giant Yokai in the middle. This Yokai is called a Namahage, and primarily attacks with swipes of its large sword, or by trying to grab you. If it sticks it’s sword into the ground it will fling rocks at you in a similar manner to the One-eyed Oni. If you want t decently easy time dealing with it, shoot it in the head first to break its horns and take off a huge chunk of stamina. After it’s dead you can go across the bridge, then go underneath to take out the two Skeletons and a Yokai, then grab the items underneath. Continue down the main path after that.

In the area just ahead you will find a Yazura wandering back and forth. Kill it, then instead of heading up the stairs go out onto the broken bridge section on the left. At the end on the right if you look off the edge you will see a part you can carefully drop down too. Make sure you are at full health, then drop down to the ground level off the side.

Go just underneath the bridge section and you will find Kodama #7.

After grabbing that you can head along the ground path. Grab the item off the body on the way by, then when you get near the end of the area watch for a Blob on the ground before the Bloody Grave.   Head up the ladder and you will be at the Hot Spring for this mission, but don’t use it yet as this one is positioned right before the boss.  There is also an NPC Benevolent Grave off to the left in the corner.

From in here you can pull the tag off the back of a Nurikabe to get out. If you go directly left from there you will go to the boss room, but you shouldn’t do that yet. First head to the right, killing the three human enemies in the way. Foward up the path you will enter a Darkness Realm, but this one is unique in that it is the first one in the game where the Darkness Realm is held there by the large blue crystal in the middle of the area. If you destroy this crystal, then the Darkness Realm is dispelled, unlike all prior ones where it was after killing a specific enemy. Since you’re coming in the back way this one is easy to destroy, and you don’t have to run through all the enemies in the Darkness Realm to get to it. Note that when you go near it two Oni-bi will spawn from the left, so better to take them out first. The crystal will also gradually heal when you aren’t damaging it, so you have to be in and actually attacking it.

Once the crystal is destroyed it will kill all small Yokai in the area. The Namahage potentially won’t be, so kill it if you didn’t already so it’s out of your way. Head over to the left and open the gate, so that you can quickly get back here from Shrine 3 if you need. From there head around to the right side of this area where the Darkness Realm was and go up the slope, then across the walkway onto the rooftop. Just behind a small plank you can find Kodama #8, the final one for this mission.  After that, you can go into the building through the front to find a locked chest that is now open.

When you are ready, you can now head over across the bridge you went by before to get to the boss room. Make sure to rest in the Hot Spring before going if you left it before.

Magara Naotaka Boss Fight

Magara Naotaka is an ice giant boss. He has the most health of any boss so far. Single hits of him don’t do too much damage but he does lots of combos, any one of which can kill you if you’re not careful. Luckily, all attacks are easy to evade – simply keep running to the left at all times! Having light armor (below 30% equipment weight) helps to boost Ki (stamina) recovery speed so you can keep running. Find the sweet spot where you are close enough for him to attack, but far enough away that he can’t hit you. Run in a circle around him to the left, and by the time he’s done with his combo you will be behind him or to his side and can land 1-2 mid-stance hits (if you can manage to attack from behind you do double the damage!). Again the spear comes in handy here due to its extended reach – just use one or two spear pokes in mid-stance. In this fight you must dodge a lot so it’s best to stick to mid-stance which has good defense and doesn’t use much Ki on dodges. Don’t use high-stance, it consumes too much Ki and the dodges are too slow for this boss.

Don’t try landing long combos on him, he’ll just hit you. Play it safe and whittle down his health one hit at a time. The fight takes a while but as long as you stick to the 1-hit rule (2 at most) you will be relatively safe. If you are wearing heavy armor you may get in trouble with Ki recovery speed, so switch it for light armor to get below 30% equipment weight.

Also, there’s a hot spring before the boss. It’s behind the hidden wall left side before the boss, where 3 samurai enemies are standing. If health is an issue for you, hop in the hot spring before the fight to get health recovery for some time. Also find all Kodama in the region (7 in first main mission and 8 here). Every 5 Kodama in the region gives +1 free Elixir slot on respawn (8+7 Kodama in region so far = 15. Means you’ll start out with 6 instead of 3 Elixirs!). This gives you more starting Elixirs when you respawn = more heals during the boss. Also use Rejuvenation Talisman (Onmyo Magic skill), it heals you continuously over time. With this you should have plenty of extra health.

Beware that this boss learns new moves from the first time he enters Dark Realm mode. Especially his red charged combo has many strikes and the last hit has super long range. Outrunning the last hit of the combo often fails, that’s why you should block the last hit instead (but not the hits before it), or even better try to Burst Counter it if you feel your timing is on point. He also starts casting ice spikes from the ground later in the fight, but these can easily be outrun when you stick to the rule of always running left at all times.

 

This finishes Corpses and Ice main mission in Nioh 2. Now the mission Bird in a Cage becomes available.

For all other Mission Walkthroughs, check out our complete Nioh 2 Walkthrough.