The Roots of All Evil Walkthrough in Onimusha: Way of the Sword

The Roots of All Evil sends Musashi down into a swamp flooded with red water, where Malice has taken root and Genma are waiting on every stone platform. The objective is short and blunt: find three rifts and shut them. Getting to them is the hard part, because the swamp is a tangle of winding paths, huts, and giant bone structures you have to wall run across.

Quick answer: Seal three Malice rifts. Hit each floating red rift with the Oni Bow or a melee strike to expose its core, then seal it — the objective under the mission name counts up from Seal the Rifts 0/3 to 3/3.

Musashi crouched behind a wooden barricade with the Seal the Rifts 0/3 objective on screen — The mission opens with the Seal the Rifts counter at 0/3. Image: CAPCOM

How the rifts work in The Roots of All Evil

A rift is a red mass floating above the ground, and you can’t seal it while it’s still covered. Shoot it with the bow from range or hit it with your sword up close, and the outer layer comes off to reveal a core. Only then does the seal prompt appear.

Clear the Genma standing around the rift first. Every rift in the swamp is guarded, and trying to line up a bow shot while a swordsman is swinging at you is how these fights drag on. Once the seal goes off, the counter updates immediately and the corruption in that pocket of the swamp visibly clears.

Note: the same red organic cores show up outside of rift arenas — there’s one on top of a bone structure near the first village huts that can simply be destroyed. Breaking those does not move the rift counter.

Wall running and Oni Power traversal in the swamp

Most of the swamp’s elevation is gated behind wall running. Oni Power lets Musashi run along specific surfaces — the yellow-glowing rock faces and the enormous bone structures arcing over the water. If a wall isn’t marked, it isn’t a route.

Wall runs aren’t purely movement, either. Enemies will contest you mid-run, and the game prompts L1 for a counter while you’re on the wall, so keep your defensive finger ready instead of just holding forward.

On-screen L1 prompt for countering while wall running as Musashi uses Oni Agility — The L1 prompt for countering while wall running appears during Oni Agility moves. Image: CAPCOM

Open the map often. The swamp doubles back on itself constantly, and the map is the fastest way to spot which huts you haven’t entered and where the next rift marker sits.

Map screen for The Roots of All Evil showing the Seal the Rifts objective and route markers — The map screen lists the Seal the Rifts objective alongside route markers and mission rewards. Image: CAPCOM

First rift: swamp descent and the bone bridge

Drop into the red swamp from the starting ledge. Enemies are already spread across the water below, so pull the bow and thin them out before you land in the middle of the group.

Clear the first stone platform. It’s a small group of basic Genma and a good place to get your parry timing dialled in before the swamp starts stacking enemies on you.

Wall run along the giant bone structure with Oni Power. It drops you near a wooden hut on the village outskirts, where another group is waiting.

Wall run back up the same bone to reach the elevated path. Check the map here — the elevated route is what carries you toward the rift marker rather than back into the water.

Follow the path to the floating red rift. Kill everything guarding it first, then break the rift open and seal it. The counter flips to Seal the Rifts 1/3.

Musashi approaching a highlighted red Malice rift in the swamp — The rift is highlighted in red as you close in on it. Image: CAPCOM

Second rift: village huts, the cave chasm, and the rooftop fight

Head deeper into the swamp and drop into the red water for the next fight. There are Prayer Beads on a glowing spot down here before you climb back out.

Wall run the long bone structure to reach the hut on the far side. Fight through the enemies inside and around it, then grab the Blessed Beads inside and open the chest for Tamahagane.

Wall run back across the bone, pick up the second set of Prayer Beads near the water, then climb the structure and smash the red organic core sitting on it.

Push on to the main village. A Lesser Might Talisman sits on a glowing spot on the way in, and a sizeable group of Genma is holding the clearing and the village centre.

Blue sealing effect on a Malice rift with the objective counter showing 1/3 — Sealing a rift plays a blue effect and updates the counter on the HUD. Image: CAPCOM

Loot the village before moving on. Sweep every hut for Prayer Beads, Leather, Unrefined Sake, Cotton Cloth, and a Heavy Restorative tucked behind one of the buildings.

Enter the cave and wall run across the deep chasm. This is the only way up to the cliff path, and it exits onto an elevated ledge above the village.

Climb the stone ledges above the cliff path. A Mild Restorative sits on the high ledge before you drop back down toward the rift area.

Climb the ladder onto the hut roof. Take the Prayer Beads up there, clear the enemies fighting you on the rooftop, then drop down and seal the second rift. The counter reads Seal the Rifts 2/3 and the corruption around the area lifts.

Sweep the cleared ground before leaving. A Greater Might Talisman is on a glowing spot nearby, a Greater Defense Talisman sits by a stone monument, and there’s one more Mild Restorative in the same stretch.

All items on the route to the second rift

Item	Where it is
Prayer Beads (x4 sets)	Glowing spots in the swamp water, near the bone structure, by a village hut, and on the hut roof at the second rift
Blessed Beads	Inside the hut across the long bone wall run
Tamahagane	Chest in the same hut
Lesser Might Talisman	Glowing spot on the approach to the main village
Leather	Inside a village hut
Unrefined Sake	Glowing spot inside a village hut
Cotton Cloth	Glowing spot in the village
Heavy Restorative	Behind one of the village huts
Mild Restorative (x2)	High ledge above the cliff path, and near the second rift after it’s sealed
Greater Might Talisman	Glowing spot after the second seal
Greater Defense Talisman	Beside a stone monument after the second seal
Tempered Iron, Fine Silk Cloth, Oni Stone, Honoki	Crafting materials picked up across the swamp route

If the rift won’t seal

There are only a couple of reasons the prompt doesn’t show up. The rift’s core is still covered, so keep attacking until the red mass opens. Or the Genma guarding it are still alive and pulling you out of position — clear them first, then commit.

You’ll know it worked without checking anything: the objective line under the mission name ticks up, and the red corruption drains out of the surrounding area. If the counter hasn’t changed, the seal didn’t land.

With two rifts down, the counter still sits at 2/3, so the last one is further out in the swamp. Stock up on the restoratives you passed on, keep the bow ready for anything floating out of melee range, and treat every glowing bone as a route rather than scenery.