Byakue—or the Hundred Defilements, if you like the formal title—is the persistent bane of anyone trying to max out their gear in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. This big axe-wielding, white-furred beast doesn’t like to stay dead and keeps spawning in main and optional encounters throughout the course of the campaign. You need a massive pile of his Byakue Talismans to upgrade your Oni Gauntlet and Hozuki Pouch, and the game will not offer them that easily.
This guide will tell you where to find Byakue to farm his talismans and a few tips to defeat him without a hard time.
How Many Byakue’s Talismans You Need for Upgrades
Every Byakue Talisman you earn will be spent on high-tier character progression at the Spirit Mirror:
- Oni Gauntlet (Levels 1 to 5): Requires 34 Byakue’s Talismans in total, alongside 30 Malicite Masses, 55 Malicite, and 22 Dohatsu-ten’s Horns. Oni Gauntlet once maxed out to Level 5 will double your Oni weapon uses, making this upgrade non-negotiable.
- Hozuki Pouch: Awakening: Upgrading the pouch to Level 2 requires 3 Byakue’s Talismans.
Note: Boss version you’ll rematch in the Practice Ground do not award talismans. You must defeat Byakue in story missions, side quests, or open world Genma Rifts to get Byakue’s Talismans.
How to Defeat Byakue, Hundred Defilements
Byakue hits like a runaway cart, but his aggressive, linear AI makes him predictable once you get the hang of the timing. His wide axe swings have pronounced wind-ups, giving you plenty of time to set up a deflect or parry, as deflect knocks him completely off-balance, which opens a safe window to unload your best blade combos. Whenever Byakue gears up for his full-arena bull rush, fight the urge to panic roll and wait until his conclusive stride, then side-step through his flank as he’ll take a few seconds to brake and turn around, leaving his exposed back wide open for free damage.
Focus on Byakue’s stamina bar as the main thing you’re aiming for in this fight. Once you drain it, cash in with a lethal Issen counter that shreds a massive chunk of his health. You can’t let off the pressure when he is gassed, though—giving him breathing room will let him disengage and regen the stamina, so stay glued to his hitboxes.
When you run into him later on in battles, Byakue will coat his cleaver in Malice and throw an airborne slam with an expanding shockwave. To counter this, you’ll want to slot Prayer Beads into your charm list to buffer the Malice’s damage-over-time tick, and dodge a split second before his feet hit the ground to escape the shockwave.
Byakue Locations in Story and Side Missions
Byakue drops a talisman upon defeat. You can collect a lot of them simply by clearing his scripted encounters across the campaign:
- The Curse of Kiyomizu-zaka Slope: Your introduction to Byakue, where he guards the rift at the top of the slope and must be killed to complete the objective.
- What Lurks in the Shadows (Underground Laboratory): Drop down the trapdoor into the lower basement. Kill the other Genma in the room first before engaging with Byakue, and then when you duel him, blast the explosive barrels placed around the room to delete his health bar.
- The Roots of All Evil (Kiyomizu-dera Temple): Found in the northern sector of the map. Use Oni Strength to break the Malice Barrier blocking the path and fight him out in the open courtyard where you will have room to dodge.
- An Ugly Business: A side quest that unlocks after completing To Live is to Suffer. Byakue will burst out of the Gemna Rift inside the cramped workshop grounds at the mission’s end.
- Okuni’s Kabuki Dance: Taking this mid-game river quest pits you against two separate rifts on the sandbars—one houses Byakue, while the other will put you against Dohatsu-ten.
- The Demon on the Mount: Mt. Oe includes multiple Byakue clashes across its rickety scaffolding, mountain paths, and temple ruins as you sever the corruption threads.
- The Night Parade: In this Mystery of Kyoto, Byakue will appear in the main compound alongside a wave of Genma.
- In the Light of an Icy Moon & Ace Archer: Both quests will send you into the swamp waters of Arashiyama, where upgraded Malice-infused Byakue appear in the open cavern pools.
- The Way of the Sword: The final push through Shanoah Castle’s Second Layer will force you through a blooded arena with an endgame Byakue who will drop two talismans on death.
If you have spare Red Souls and want to shave off some grinding time, Yorimasa’s Monument sells a limited stock of Byakue’s Talismans for 5,000 Red Souls per item:
- Post-The Roots of All Evil: Unlocks 3 Byakue’s Talismans.
- Post-In the Light of an Icy Moon: Unlocks an additional 5 Byakue’s Talismans.
Always purchase these 8 pieces before you begin to hunt random spawns.
How to Farm and Respawn Byakue in the Endgame
After you’ve exhausted every story mission and purchased all talismans from Yorimasa’s shop, you might still fall a handful of talismans short of the 34 required for max Gauntlet rank. Though there’s a way to farm the Byakue boss as much as you want in the endgame, and that’s by hunting down respawned Genma Rifts in Eastern Kyoto.
Fast travel to the region and look at the sky for a thin plume of reddish-black smoke drifting above the rooftops, which gives a clue for the exact location of an active rift that you sealed previously during the main storyline.
Byakue emerges from these rifts between fixed positions across the map:
- East of Higashioji Street & The Northwest Sandbar Island: Go east through the residential street from the Higashioji Street Spirit Mirror to inspect the walled backyard lot, or head north toward Shijo Street to scope the isolated island in the riverbed, which has one of the highest chances to spawn Byakue instead of basic fodder.
- Gojo Street – West Spirit Mirror: Down near the southern outskirts, another rift regularly appears in the roadside courtyards.
Eastern Kyoto can have only one active Byakue rift at a time, so if the smoke leads you to a normal Genma swarm or a Dohatsu-ten instead of Byakue, kill them and close the rift anyway to collect the Malicite Mass and clear the board.
Once you seal a rift and absorb its contents, head to the nearby Spirit Mirror, fast travel to an outlying location like Arashiyama or Mount Oe, and immediately warp back to Eastern Kyoto. Alternatively, save at the shrine, exit to the Title Screen, and reload that save, where a fresh reddish-black smoke will appear somewhere on the map, letting you farm the boss in cycles until every last Byakue Talisman is checked off your Oni Gauntlet upgrade list.
