Olympus, We Have A Problem

Move through the hallway here to the room with a small lever in the floor. Moving the lever will be problematic with all the imps, so climb the walls to destroy their nests before rotating it. When the grapple point comes down to you, jump to it and let the chains carry you up to the upper part of the floor here.

One hell of a difficult fight will ensue after you move on from here, so be sure to grab all of the magic and health from the chests. At the outset, you’ll face off against two cerberus’; these being upgraded versions that can spit out smaller versions of themselves. You’re not going to be finding any mana during this fight, and health will likewise be difficult to pick up (unless you have a fully upgraded Head of Euryale), so you’ll need to preserve your energy for the second and more difficult part of the fight. The one thing you will have in spades is Rage of the Titans energy, so feel free to use that on the two dogies here while avoiding their attacks as best you can. Each of them will have two O-prompts before they die; the first will release more rage energy. No minigames involved, just simple taps of the O button.

Trouble!

After you start getting an edge on the dogs, trouble starts. More cerberus’ appear, with up to four attacking you at any one time. To add to the mess, a pair of gladiators pop in, giving you up to six enemies fighting you at once, none of which can be knocked down. The dogs can kinda-sorta be stunned by weapon damage, while the gladiators will only be stunned when you knock some of their armor off.

Video Walk-through

This is a hell of a hard fight, with cerberus and gladiators coming at you. Here's one way to tackle it.
Watch It »

At this point, your tactics will depend on your remaining life. A good place to start would be to jump into the middle of the ring and bust out a level two or higher Cronos’ Rage or (preferably) a level two or higher Atlas Quake. Any area-of-effect magic will work, really, even the level three Typhon’s Bane spell. The Quake will be most effective on the dogs, which are what you want to take out first, anyway. It’ll also render you temporarily immune to damage while the animation plays, which helps, even if the gladiators will sometimes get free attacks if they’re in the middle of an attack animation when your Quake animation ends. If you have plenty of health, you can simply turn on Rage of the Titans and start mashing the square buttons; if you’ve upgraded Athena’s Blades to level four, then simply hold down the square button to filet any enemies near you. Granted, you’ll take damage doing this, but not as much as you would normally, and you can’t be interrupted by damage.

Regardless, your goal now is to hit the dogs and grab them when their O-prompts pop up. There isn’t much more to it than that. Avoiding damage will be difficult, so try to eliminate the dogs as best you can after hitting them with your powerful spells. When they go down, you’ll be left with the gladiators, who can take an excessive amount of punishment. Luckily for you, though, all of their attacks can be blocked, letting you dart away from them, hit them a couple times, block, then repeat, etc.

This is by no means an easy fight, but if you manage to survive the first couple of dogs with most of your health and all of your mana, then you should be able to eke out a victory in the end. Climb the ladder and save your game.

The West Auditorium

From the save point, jump across the gap that has the ladder in it. You’ll find more chests here, and can drop down to reach the red chests that you spotted at the bottom of the ladder. You’ll need to double jump from one side of the little hole to reach the upper platforms again.

Why are these guys even here if they don't want anyone to reach the Sisters?

Open the door near the save point and move on. You’ll spot a fate statue here; smash the blocks in front of it and pull it out of its little alcove. Kick or push it down the hall until you spot another gate. Flip the switch to witness the untimely death of the translator...for the moment. Push the statue here underneath the gate that you’ve opened; maneuver it around the little block in the floor and push it towards the book until it can’t move further any more.

If you want to do so, you can achieve the Gift of Health at this point. To do so, head into the hazy painting, then freeze time. Instead of running towards the translator that's about to kill himself, run backwards down the hall as quickly as you can and look into the the alcove where the fate statue was located. You should find a large chest there; bust it open and you'll receive the Gift of Health, which is an instant health bonus to you.

Now, when you’re ready to go back in time, head through the hazy-looking painting here. You’ll wind up back at the gate, which is prevented from closing by the statue. The translator will begin his suicide run again, so quickly hit L1 + R1 to flip on your amulet of fate and run up to him before he can jump, using R1 to grab him and drag him back to the book. After being persuaded to read from it, you’ll be granted the Warrior’s Skull.

Return To The Balcony

Time to get back to the large balcony that’s been your hub of adventure for a bit. Head through the unlocked door to reach a lever. If you rotate it, a steam vent will open, letting you coast up to a small alcove. Flipping the lever there will release more steam below, so drop down, rotate the lever again so that it’s fully opened, then double-jump and glide straight up to the handholds above you. Make your way across the ceiling until you reach another lever. Move it to be brought down to the balcony.

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