You'll be attacked by madmen and critters throughout the first areas of this stage. Later on, you'll have to deal with an endless stream of rolling eyes while you climb ropes upward; there will be invincibility crosses to help you. In the final areas, you'll have to make really difficult jumps onto wedge platforms--onces in which you'll have to jump right at the very ledge of each wedge--while fending off the erratic bats. The end of the stage is not far beyond.

You'll start in a series of narrow caves then soon run into the extremely annoying Punaghuchis. You'll travel downward through more caves filled with bats, punaghuchis and falling platforms; then you'll cross some bridges littered with rolling eyes that explode when hit, leaving holes in the bridge--some of them too wide to jump over, so be careful. It's mostly downward from there, with a split path right at the end: One leads back to another part of the stage, and the other leads to the boss.

You'll first have to destroy the screw-like gears that make the ceiling and floor come together; you'll then make your way up a really long scrolling shaft while the spiked floor starts moving up, chasing you to the top. You'll encounter many difficult jumps and many annoyingly-placed enemies on the way up. When you reach the top, you'll have to make your way leftward through another long shaft while the rightmost spiked wall will start moving towards you. If you can escape all this madness, you'll travel up a rope to do battle with the stage guardian.

First you'll have to watch out for knights that pop out from the background to attack with their spears. You'll then have to get by a Zeldo and Gobanze to enter. When inside, you'll face more punaguchis before having to jump from moving platforms in rooms lined with spikes. What follows is a couple of rooms with spike-tipped platforms that shoot out from the walls--some of which you must jump on top of to climb up. Finally, you'll have to fight past four Gobanzes in the last leg of the castle. The Count is just beyond the last Gobanze.