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This mission is a race against time to get to the Emperor's throne and save him before he is bound or destroyed by Shiro Tagachi. The mission features fights against large numbers of Shiro'ken enemies, the bound spirits created by Shiro. The sheer numbers of these can sometimes be overwhelming. To counter this, the mission offers players some extraordinary skills. The tactical part of the mission is to know when to use these skills as well as when to fight and when to simply run.

Before the fight begins, the party members should speak to Kuunavang, who will offer each player in the party a very powerful celestial skill to help them in this fight. This skill recharges immediately after killing a boss. So normally use this skill when you are fighting the room's boss. (In emergency, if your party is about to die, you might as well use the skill!)

Bug! Heroes do not get the Celestial skill although henchmen do.

After equipping the new skills, the party leader will be asked to choose two heroes to fight alongside the party. The choice is not simply a choice of henchmen but rather which part of the mission you wish to skip. Each of the six available heroes will (at one point in the mission or another) enable your party to skip a portion of the fight against the Shiro'ken:

Argo: Lets the party skip the very first fight and head straight to the Warrior boss.
Cynn: Lets the party skip the fighting before the bridges after the Elementalist boss.
Danika: Will close a gate on a large room full of Shiro'ken, allowing the party a faster trip to the corridor with the Ritualist boss.
Nika: Lets party skip the Ranger boss.
Panaku: Disables the Acid Traps in the corridor that leads to the Ritualist boss.
Talon Silverwing: Lets the party skip the fight after the Warrior boss and head straight to the Necromancer boss.
For each hero, there is a brief cinematic of their sacrifice, and the party moves on without them.

Note: Knowing when to run (and avoiding unnecessary fights) is one of the most important component of this mission. Use control flags so your henchmen run for the destination. Without the flag, Henchmen have pathing problems and do not break from a fight easily. In addition, they exhaust all their celestial skills at the first fight after the skills recharge.

As soon as the party leader chooses the two heroes, the timer will begin and an indicator in the top left part of the screen will show Emperor Kisu's resistance warning which determines how much time the party has left.

It is important to know where to go and also important to observe patrol movements and not aggro more than the party can handle. With the powerful skills the party has, the number of foes they can take on is obviously increased, but aggroing the wrong type of foes at the wrong time can be dangerous. The Shiro'ken Elementalists with their powerful Star Burst can wipe out a few members of the party if the monks are not prepared. Further, they use Sliver Armor which can take down your melee fighters quite fast.

At the end of each section in the palace will be a Shiro'ken boss. This would be a good point to gather large aggro and invoke the powerful skills of the party because slaying a boss will recharge these skills (nothing else will). The elementalist skill Celestial Storm is extremely effective at clearing out large groups of enemies and weakening the major bosses.

Follow the path on the map (adjacent). Try to proceed as fast as possible. Try not to aggro more than necessary.

Note that after the area with the bridges (Where Cynn will collapse a bridge if you've selected her as one of the heroes who accompany you) there is more than one gate that can lead you to the corridor (with acid traps that Panaku can disable), the gate that opens for your party will not always be the same gate.

When the party gets to the final bosses, there will be three of them in the area in front of the throne (a monk, a mesmer and an assassin). Upon slaying them, the mission will be completed. Use Celestial Storm when fighting each of the bosses. It recharges at the death of each boss!

Walkthrough
Please note that this walkthrough presumes throughout that you are using Talon and Danika as your assisting heroes. These are thought to be the best choices for making it through this mission as quickly and easily as possible. However, you should not be closed-minded about doing the mission in other ways should you encounter someone who believes they may have an effective strategy. Just be aware that you may encounter additional battles or even rooms not covered in this walkthrough.

Selecting Your Party
You absolutely must have is a couple of warriors to tank the Shiro'ken Elementalists. Although the mission can and has been done using only the healing from Mhenlo, Master Togo, and Danika, bringing two more healers (or a healer and a protector) is a very good idea. It is best to have a Minion Master in your party. While the high level of the monsters prevents a minion master necromancer from being a significant source of damage; the celestial skill compensates here. The real benefit is that a minion master provides ample quantities of undead cannon fodder to distract the monsters and their spells, giving protection to your party, and minions chew up the lesser enemy. Note: a warrior's celestial skill Storm of Swords also applies to the minions, making them a very potent damage source. The last 3 bosses can be cleared in a matter of seconds with enough minions up and Storm of Swords. So far that's 2 warriors, 2 healers, a minion master. For the last 3 party spots options abound. Heavy-duty area-of-effect damage is very useful for clearing the huge mobs, and is necessary if you want to beat the masters’ time limit. That means Fire Magic elementalists, Spiteful Spirit necromancers, barrage rangers, and other AoE damage dealers, are all particularly useful. Another useful addition is an interrupter to shut down the Shiro'ken Elementalists' Sliver Armor, the Shiro'ken Warriors' Healing Signet, the Shiro'ken Rangers' Troll Unguent, and anything else they can hit.

Although somewhat difficult, the mission is able to be done only with henchmen. It doesn't help that the game's best henchmen are unavailable here, (as you can select only two inside the mission). For the most part, how you proceed through the mission is the same regardless the henchmen you are using. Differences will be noted explicitly.

Room 0: Kuunavang
For almost any character build you might have, the celestial skill offered by Kuunavang is probably an improvement over one of the skills in your bar. Talk to Kuunavang to get your celestial skill. Once everyone who wants it has their celestial skill, the group leader should talk to Talon and Danika and select them as assisting heroes, after which the gate will open. Time spent in this room does not count against Emperor Kisu’s resistance timer. It’s unknown whether time spent in this room counts against the experts’ and masters’ timers, so it’s probably best not to linger here. Additionally, skills such as Charm Animal are excellent to select for replacement, because once in the mission the pet will stay regardless.

Room 1: Sword Ancient Kai
As you come down the ramp, use the control key (on your keyboard) to scan the monsters on the north and south platforms. If one side has more Shiro'ken Elementalists than the other, pick the other. The monsters on the platform are consisted of two mobs. If you are confident in your party's abilities to deal with large mobs, pull both at once from the bottom of the stairs. If you are using henchmen or are unsure of your party’s abilities, pull them one at a time from the bottom of the stairs. Pulling these mobs will accomplish 2 things: (1) it will get the slightly-faster-moving Shiro'ken Elementalists out in front where they are easy to target, and (2) it will enable your warriors to body block the stairs and protect the rest of the team. Target the Shiro'ken Elementalists first. Interrupt and kill them as quickly as possible. If they activate Sliver Armor, your warriors will suffer great amounts of damage. The longer they live, the more damage they inflict.

The monsters on the east side of the canal vary in their spawns. There will usually be two mobs in more or less the same spot – one consisting of a Shiro'ken Monk and Ritualist and the other consisting of up to three Shiro'ken Elementalists plus some additional Shiro'ken Warriors and Assassins. If you get a spawn like this, pull one group from as far away as possible, kill it, then pull the other and kill it. Make sure to take out the Shiro'ken Elementalists first when you take on their mob. Occasionally, there will only be one mob. Pull it and kill it. On rare occasions, there will be no monsters here at all. However, do not immediately head up the stairs towards the boss.

On the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs sits Sword Ancient Kai and a small mob of Shiro'ken Warriors and Assassins, plus one Monk. Patrolling the north and south second flights of stairs is a huge mob that usually contains several Shiro'ken Elementalists. Both mobs have extended aggro radii and will pull quite easily. The difficult part is pulling just one mob. Pull whichever mob you can get down to the bottom of the stairs (and perhaps a bit further) and kill it. If you got the Elementalists, kill them first. In any event, now is a good time to use your celestial skills. If you’re facing the boss, they'll recharge as soon as he dies; if you're facing the Elementalists, they can cause you far worse problems than the boss, so now is as good a time as ever.

Sword Ancient Kai himself is not a big threat so long as he is kept away from your casters. He can, however, take an annoyingly long time to kill if your party is skewed towards physical damage and is unable to interrupt his healing signet.

If you are extremely confident in your party's ability to deal damage quickly, you can aggro both groups at once and have your warriors block the bottom of the stairs. Just bear in mind that your warriors are probably goners if the Elementalists live long enough to activate Sliver Armor.

Continue up the stairs and through the door to the east.

Room 2: Doomed Ancient Kkraz
As soon as you enter this room, there will be a cutscene of Talon sealing off the portals to the north and south. It doesn't matter one bit whether you watch this cutscene or not.

With the endless supply of monsters from the portals shut off, this room is a breeze. Advance to the bottom of the stairs to the east and dispatch the mob that comes down the stairs to greet you. Continue up the stairs towards the boss, killing anything that gets in your way. It's best to kill the Ritualist that is with the boss first to prevent its spirits from healing. Doomed Ancient Kkraz himself is a total pushover. Use your celestial skills on either the Ritualist or the boss, since they will recharge once the boss dies.

Head through the door to the east.

Room 3: Two Bosses
Up the stairs immediately in front of you is a landing with Famished Ancient Brrne, a sizable pack of Shiro'ken Rangers, a single Ritualist, and three or four Warriors that will run down to attack you as soon as you set foot on the stairs. Because they are backed up by the Ritualist's spirits, these Warriors are more resilient than most of those that came before. If your party has adequate damage output to kill them in spite of this, kill them first. Otherwise, you will have to go for the Ritualist while the Warriors pound on you. Next comes the Ritualist, then Famished Ancient Brrne and his Rangers. Area-of-effect attacks work particularly well here, since neither Famished Ancient Brrne, nor his Rangers, nor the Ritualist will move out of them. Use your celestial skills here, since they will be recharged when Famished Ancient Brrne dies.

It matters very little whether you use the north platform or the south platform here. Both contain two weak mobs and you usually can't see far enough to note the location of the next two major mobs from the point where you must choose north or south.

Heading back into the center, you will find two large mobs of Rangers half-patrolling, half-loitering near the base of the north, south, or east stairs. Depending on your spawn, you will have to deal with them in different ways: sometimes one or both mobs will be close enough to pull from your platform. In which case pull them (one at a time if you can reach both) from the platform and kill them at the bottom of the stairs to the platform. Sometimes one or both mobs will be far enough away that you can go up the east stairs without aggroing them. In which case, don't aggro them. Most often, they will be just past the east stairs, but just close enough you can’t make it up the stairs without aggroing them. In which case you will have to pull them over to the base of the stairs you just came down (north or south) and kill them. Be very careful and stay as far away from the base of the east stairs as possible. The boss has a huge aggro radius and will attack if you get anywhere near them. Once you've cleared as many Rangers as necessary so that you can go up the east stairs, go near the stairs and the boss will aggro and come down to you. Go to both sides to clear the enemies just before koosun.

Star Ancient Koosun is by far the most dangerous boss in this mission. As soon as he aggros (whether you were ready for him or not), your whole party needs to drop whatever they were doing and throw everything they have at him. If he lives long enough to activate Sliver Armor, at least one fatality is almost guaranteed. If he lives much longer, several more are likely. Fortunately though, while he deals a tremendous amount of damage, Star Ancient Koosun is not very durable, and a concerted effort should bring him down very quickly. If there was ever a time to use your celestial skills, this is it.

As you continue up the stairs, scan the small mobs at the northeast and southeast doorways. Usually they are identical, but you might be able to avoid an Elementalist by scanning. If you want to fight the mob in your path, make sure to pull it into Room 3 without setting foot in Room 4. As soon as any member of your party enters Room 4, everyone needs to run!

Room 4: The Bridge
Run. Run like hell. Run to the bridge in the center (north-south-wise). Run east across the bridge. Run east across either of the two second bridges. Keep running east until the cutscene starts. Do not stop to fight anything. Run.

If your other party members don't run too, leave them. Leave them even if it means they die. Togo, Mhenlo, and Danika can't look after themselves so be sure they are close with you. The cutscene will revive everyone else. Having 15% DP, even on 7 party members, is a much smaller problem than you will have if you don't trigger the cutscene as fast as possible.

As soon as someone in your party entered this section, monsters started spawning at the north and south portals – monsters that will chase you no matter what, even past a cutscene. The portals will only stop spawning more and more of these pursuers when the entire party is past them. By running straight to the cutscene you can limit the portals to one batch of three monsters each.

If you stay to fight the spawning monsters from both portals you could end up killing time and maybe 50 more monsters! Choose your strategy carefully. The wise run through this room, saving lots of time and the emperor's life too.

Room 5: The Room After the Bridge
This room begins with Danika's cutscene. The first thing you will notice about the cutscene is that at least one Shiro'ken Ranger will probably be shooting at least one of your party members. This should incline you to skip the scene immediately. However, there are two things to be gained by watching the scene (or at least most of it) anyway: (1) You may be able to get rid of Danika, who will become a liability if she remains with you after the scene – which she definitely will if you skip immediately. (2) The large mob at the top of the stairs to the north often moves away from you during the scene and becomes less likely to aggro immediately than if you had skipped. Ultimately, you need to look at which party member is getting hit (the warrior? the monk? Togo?) and how many Rangers are hitting them and decide if it's worth having that person take some hits to get these advantages.

Your situation at the close of the cutscene is as follows: Your entire party is facing west with their backs to a closed door. Immediately to the south is a staircase that leads to a closed door with two Shiro'ken Rangers on it. They are already aggroed. Immediately to the north is the staircase leads to the next room with another two Shiro'ken Rangers on it. They are already aggroed. In these close quarters, the Rangers are a big problem, since your casters, particularly your monks, have no place to go to escape their energy-draining Debilitating Shots. At the top of the stairs to the north is a large mob of Rangers and Necromancers which may or may not be aggroed. If it's not, keep it that way. Approaching rapidly from the west is every monster that spawned from the portals in Room 4. If you ran like you were supposed to in Room 4, there will be six, including one Elementalist. If you did not, there may be many, many more. Finally, Danika may have remained with you, especially if you skipped the cutscene immediately. However, she is now neutral and will heal whatever needs it most, including the monsters. Initially, you will need it most, so this won't be a problem. But as the battle progresses you may come to regret not having ditched her.

The first order of business is to attack the Rangers on the south stairs. Try to kill one or both of them before the mob from the west arrives. This way your casters can huddle in the southeast corner in relative safety and get away from those debilitating shots before their energy is completely drained. As soon as the mob from the west arrives, kill the Elementalist immediately. Now, finish off the Rangers on the south stairs also if you didn't get them both killed before the Elementalist arrived. Next, take out the rest of the mob that came from the west, clearing an expanding safe patch from the southeast corner. Move on to the north stairs Rangers, and then finally to the large mob at the top of the north stairs. Although this room is very difficult, try to refrain from using your celestial skills unless absolutely necessary; you are still a long way from the next boss, and they will come in very handy there.

If Danika is still with you, just when you get down to a managable number of monsters and start to think you have the upper hand, the monsters may suddenly become more resilient. That's because Danika is healing them (because you have the upper hand... at least for a moment). If your party's damage output is high enough, you'll be able to kill the monsters despite her healing (in fact, it's quite possible you might not even notice her healing them). If it's not, you have 3 options, none of which is particularly pleasant: (1) You can continue to pound on the weakest monster till Danika runs out of energy, wasting a lot of precious time; (2) You can go aggro and damage more monsters at the top of the north stairs to spread her healing out to the point that she fails; or (3) you can stop healing your party (possibly in conjunction with aggroing more) so that you need healing more than the monsters do and Danika will heal you instead.

Once this battle is done, head all the way north, cross the little bridge east.

Room 6: Skipped
Thanks to Danika, you skipped this room entirely. Trust me, it was worth it. There are a lot of Shiro'ken Necromancers here who are very good at cutting down the number of exploitable corpses if your party has a minion master.

Room 7: Defiant Ancient Sseer
You must go east through this straight hallway. Run down the right (South) side. Do not run down the left (north) side. The Left side has two mobs patrolling, plus another two mobs that duck into and out of small rooms to the north. At the end of the hallway is the Ritualist boss, Defiant Ancient Sseer, and behind him is a closed door that opens when he dies. Throughout the hall are acid traps which do 20 damage per second if you stay in them. (Just run past these.)

Before entering the hall, line up yourself on the RIGHT side. Start running, simultaneously plant the party flag at the end of the hall, forcing your henchmen to run to the boss. Do not stop, do not fight. If blocked, side step and keep moving forward. Ignore the mobs, kill the boss quickly, and run out the door to trigger the next cutscene before the mobs catch up to you. Having a minion master along helps distract the mobs as the minions stop to attack. Defiant Ancient Sseer himself is actually quite weak and easy to take down, especially if you take down all his spirits first. In fact, a single warrior or elementalist with a charged celestial skill can almost kill him single-handedly.

If your party cannot be counted on to come with you, you will have to pull and fight some or possibly all four of the mobs in this room first. Since every mob has a Monk in addition to the protection of Defiant Ancient Sseer’s spirits, they can prove difficult and time-consuming to kill. If you must fight these mobs, go ahead and use your celestial skills here, since the boss himself does little damage and can be killed without them more easily than these mobs can.

If you do not flag your party, you get mixed results. The henchmen's record for running straight to the boss in this room is mixed. Sometimes all 7 of them follow you directly to the boss and attack him immediately. Sometimes they get distracted by the first or second mob. This leaves you facing the boss alone with two or even three mobs attacking you from behind.

As soon as the boss is dead, head east through the now-open door to trigger the final cutscene. It does not matter whether or not you skip. (With the exception of the very rare event that some monsters from this room followed you into the scene, in which case you should skip.) Do not fight the former mobs, just move into the new room and target/fight the new bosses.

If you want to disable all the acid traps, and have the self-healing to do it, go to the last room on the left closest to the Ritualist boss and spin the vase inside. (Note: The acid traps will be disabled but the funny looking rain will still be there though it will do nothing)

Room 8: Three Bosses
For a room with three bosses in it, this room is remarkably easy.

Head down the stairs to your right and straight for the small bridge that leads to the bosses. As soon as you near the bridge Silent Ancient Onata and a handful of Shiro'ken will charge you. Stop where you are and let them come. Then whack Onata with all those celestial skills that the last boss’s death just recharged. If you need to, follow up with a few more attacks to kill Silent Ancient Onata. All of the accompanying Shiro'ken should either be dead or close to being dead from all the splash damage. Quickly finish off any stragglers.

Go as far across the bridge as necessary to get Arcane Ancient Phi in range (all the way if you're a melee character). Hit Arcane Ancient Phi with all the celestial skills Silent Ancient Onata's death recharged. Then immediately fire off every area-of-effect spell you can squeeze in before he dies. The point is not to hit Arcane Ancient Phi, who is already quite doomed, but rather to hit the mostly-untargetable Untouched Ancient Ky with splash damage.

Finishing Untouched Ancient Ky is mostly a job for the warriors, since Untouched Ancient Ky hides behind Spell Breaker most of the time. Luckily, all offensive celestial skills are typed as Skills, not Spells, so Spell Breaker can't block them. After using their celestial skills, any offensive casters in your party should keep testing with cheap spammable spells till Spell Breaker goes down, then fire off their best stuff before Spell Breaker goes back up.

Once all three bosses in this room are dead, the mission is complete.

Additional notes and tips
If your two chosen heroes at the beginning of the mission die before they can help you, they will not be able to skip monsters for you.

The Shiro'ken Elementalist carry the skill Sliver Armor, and should be stripped or it can easily slay your tank.

Tanks are advised to carry heavy duty defenses. W/E using Armor of Earth and/or Stoneflesh Aura will eliminate the threat of Sliver Armor entirely.

Protection Monks are advised to bring Shielding Hands or Shield of Absorption to aid the tank against Sliver Armor

A protection monk with Protective Spirit is recommended to counter the high damage spells. The protection henchman at Raisu Palace does not spam this skill.

You MUST kill every boss in the mission to win. If you skip any of them, you must return and kill them before the mission will end.

For bosses, especially the Elementalist boss, use Pain Inverter, returning the full dmg of Sliver Armor to him. Other bosses are vulnerable too.

When going for Master's, it is useful to keep track of the time throughout the mission. Watch Kisu's health bar, it will give a fair indication of how long you've taken. At around 15 minutes, depending on where your party is, it may be a good idea to run past the remaining monsters and head straight for the boss. This applies to both the hallway before the ritualist boss and the groups of enemies before the second cutscene.

You may also type /age and it will tell you how long you've been in this map. Take note this time may be off by 1 minute depending on player loading times.

The skills available for capture from this mission, are the same as the skills used in Tahnnakai Temple, so it is not advisable to do this mission with the sole intent to capture.

Doing this mission in Hard Mode is entirely possible with a full henchman team if you are an E/Me, just use Echo or Arcane Echo to copy Celestial Storm. It makes the mission a whole lot easier. Otherwise, set up one necro hero with Spiteful Spirit and Barbs and set up the your other necro hero as a Minion Master with Order of Undeath and Heal Area. Healing may be a problem for the MM sometimes, so be ready for it.

A Minion Master is an excellent damage source, when there is a warrior or more in the party, since their celestial skill Storm of Swords also affects minions. If Storm of Swords is timed between warriors, getting Masters will be easy.

An alternate way using heroes and henchman is to have a Light of Deliverance monk, a E/Me nuker, and a Minion Master. With this you can kill everything quickly, and interrupt as well.

Bug! There is a very rare glitch where you can get more than 2 allies, though the extras do not give their bonuses during the mission. This can occur if the party leader loads slower than the second party member: the second player speaks to an ally and clicks "Accept" for that ally, then speaks to a second ally. When the party leader loads, he/she can speak to and "Accept" a third ally, then second player can still click "Accept" for the second ally.

Bug! Sometimes the Emperor dies during one of the cutscenes. When this happens, players can progress as far as the next boss, but then the mission will automatically fail.