Senpou Temple, Mt. Kongo: The Immortal Severance

Your guide to Senpou Temple, Mt. Kongo in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Discover items, enemies, and secrets as you navigate this challenging area.

Alright, let's get started with Senpou Temple, Mt. Kongo. As you try to head outside, that wall scroll will chime in with some commentary – thanks, scroll! Exit the door and take a sharp right. Look around the building for a Gachiin's Sugar.

From there, head back past the entrance the other way. You can drop down to some lower ground. Check near the wall of the house for Scrap Iron x2, then go talk to the man sitting nearby. This is Kotaro. For now, he'll be crying about being left behind, but he'll eventually mention "red and white flowers spinning" and a "pure white flower". Keep his location in mind for later.

Now, jump down to a lower area where a monk is facing away from you. These guys are enemies, so you can get a stealth backstab on him while he's on a broken bridge.

Jump down again, this time to the area below the bridge. You'll see a midget and a kite just kind of sitting there. We'll use these two later, so just remember this spot for now. Kill the midget, and then go under the bridge to find a Mibu Balloon of Spirit and another Gachiin's Sugar. Head left of the kite to find a spot to grapple up.

From here, we're heading up the path to the temple. You'll encounter a lot of monks. The regular ones here use punches, kicks, and can even leap up for multiple roundhouse kicks. All of this can be deflected, and they don't have much health, so you can often rush them down or rush, deflect, and then kill them.

As you go up, use the high grass on the right to sneak past two monks, then go back and take them out one by one. There's a small guardhouse with a third monk; again, you can use the grass to go around the house and get him. Nice!

After that, head left of the shack and follow the left edge of this area to find two people who have been bound and killed. Grim stuff. You can grab Mibu Balloon of Possession x2 near them. If you turn back to the small guard shack, you can jump on the roof and grab a Light Coin Purse.

Leading up to the temple, there are a ton of monks – five or more, with another up at the top. These guys can be tough, but you can sneak-kill one and then run back to the guard shack to deal with the ones who chase you. I had three follow me, but the staff user was slow, so it wasn't too bad. Speaking of staff users, they do thrust attacks, and a Mikiri Counter can nearly break their posture, so do that when you can. Once you divide and conquer, you can go back and stealth-kill whoever's left.

Now, let's explore this area. On the left side going upwards, there's another patch of land with a Pellet. Follow the wall up in the corner (near more dead bodies) for a Purifying Agent. Down the middle of the path, you'll find an Ako's Sugar, and up on the temple itself, there's a Fistful of Ash. Finally, go to the far right as you ascend. You'll eventually be able to jump to a section of land with three items around a tree (and, of course, more dead people). Loot these for Antidote Powder x3 and a Light Coin Purse. You can also grapple up twice from here to a higher ledge with a Heavy Coin Purse. Very nice!

Head back to the temple and look to the upper left to find a grapple point. This leads up to the temple attic area where a bunch of crickets await. Take them all out and grab the Ako's Sugar here. Go down the steps, killing any crickets you see, and look into the room. Three monks are meditating, and one is watching the stairs from the left, ready to catch you.

This part can get hectic as at least three monks come at you. Fight them while retreating up the stairs, using your Shinobi tools (like fire or firecrackers) to create some breathing room. Once they're dealt with, you can sneak back down and stealth-kill the monk who stayed behind (I only had one not follow me) and a GIANT behind the altar area (he looks a lot like Kotaro). Loot this area for a Gourd Seed by the idol (YES!), a Lump of Fat Wax behind the altar, and some Gokan's Sugar and Ceramic Shard x4 in the corner.

The way out of this room is a nearby window. Jump through it and take a right to find a Mibu Balloon of Spirit around the corner. Nearby, a lady will tell you about a "fresh fruit", pointing towards a cave beyond the canyon. Good to know!

Further on, there's a huge tree you can grapple to. Go ahead and do so for a ton of Spirit Emblems. You can climb the tree to find a Light Coin Purse on one of its limbs.

From there, drop to the bottom of the tree. Note the monk facing it on the far side. You can sneak around him and kill him, then jump up to the walkway on the nearby house and follow it around to the back, killing another monk. Around the corner, some Ungo's Sugar is waiting.

Next up is a tricky part: two strong enemies I'm calling "Enhanced Monks". They're near the destroyed bridge ahead, one at the bottom of some stairs and one on the bridge itself. They wield a dual-bladed staff and are very mobile. Watch out for them flying at you (block/deflect the attack) and their spear vault slams. You need to be on your game, deflecting a lot while also dealing your own posture damage to take them out. Needless to say, you'll want to fight them one at a time.

However, there are more soldiers here too. If you move back towards the tree and grapple up to the house roof, you can get a lay of the land. There's a patch of high grass with a patrolling man (with flames... lovely...) and an archer looking away.

What I did was kill the flame soldier and sneak-kill the archer. This made both Enhanced Monks chase me, so I lost them by heading back to the house roof. Near the bridge is a small grapple point you can use to get behind the first Enhanced Monk. So, when they lose you and go back, you can use that to stealth-kill one. The second one I ended up using a Gachiin's Sugar and stealth-killing as well (you can tell I prefer stealth to actual fighting!).

With them dead, you can find a Gachiin's Sugar on the bridge. If you go down the steps from the bridge to the back and look to the right, you'll find an Antidote Powder in the corner. From the bridge, look left and below to find two more soldiers. You can kill the non-shielded one from above and use your axe to finish off the shielded one easily, letting you grab the Pellet they were guarding.

To continue, head back to the bridge and look to the upper left. We can grapple to a cave area from here, which spits us out on a cliff ledge with the Sculptor's Idol: Shugendo nearby. Rest and replenish!

Keep going now, using the narrow ledges and tree branches to grapple up and head into a cave (note: the lower branch doesn't lead anywhere). Inside, you can find some Mibu Balloon of Spirit x2. Inch forward, and a midget will drop down and walk away from you. Easy kill! Further ahead, you can grapple out to a chunk of land and kill another midget. This is worth it for the Gachiin's Sugar behind the tree up ahead. Go back (grapple to the lower right) and kill the midget on this piece of land before following the planks upwards (if you stealth land, you can kill him easily).

As you head up, you can get a Spirit Emblem from behind a tree. Further up, grapple to a branch above you. This lets you stealth-kill a midget below, but as you go... there are two paths. The first is where we are, and the second is a grapple point below you in the distance. Yeah...

BEFORE you do this, read ahead. You can do a running jump towards that grapple point, use it, and GRAB THE LEDGE as you fall. Use this ledge to go left, dropping and grabbing another one, then dropping to the ground. All of this is to grab the item down here: a Heavy Coin Purse. That's not all, though... we need to use the grapple point onward to get to some more ledges (grab it!) and go left, finding a spot you can climb up to an area with two high walls. Take out the two geckos above you, then jump up against both walls to get up above.

Up here on the cliff ledge, you can find the White Pinwheel. Very nice! Jump across to the next area and watch out for geckos as you go up the planks to the building. There's a door here, but before opening it, look to the right for a space with two items: some Monkey Booze (yeah...) and a Heavy Coin Purse. Go back and open the door to find a creature on the wall. These things have claws on their fists and feet and throw explosive items. I killed this one mainly with shuriken the first time I saw it (which worked pretty good), but be ready to guard their swiping attacks. Kill it and grab the Black Gunpowder in the room.

There are two paths from here: one to the left and one straight ahead. Go straight ahead first to find the Sculptor's Idol: Bell Demon's Temple. A fitting name, as a giant bell is nearby. If you ring it, the game actually goes into "HARD" mode. I'm struggling enough as it is (mainly with bosses), so I will not be ringing this. I hear you get more items if you do, however, and you can unring it. Still, only bother with this if you're truly skilled!

Now, we can check out that left path with the wall door, but it leads to another mini-boss where you'll need Divine Confetti, so let's put a pin in that for now...

Instead, head back to the Shugendo Idol and make your way back to where you made that brave jump to the ledges. Instead, head upwards now, climbing the wall and making your way up to a skinny building. Before you go inside, go left and up the cliffs with all the pinwheels on them. In the back, you can find the Red and White Pinwheel, which we may use later.

Head inside the building now, and we'll face a mini-boss!