Death Ruins

Death Ruins is a stage in Shadow the Hedgehog. Death Ruins is one of the five fourth stages and can be only reached by completing the Hero mission of Circus Park.

Story
After helping Tails pilfer Dr. Eggman's ill-gotten rings, Shadow follows the Black Arms into the forest, where are cut off from their reinforcements. Despite all the assistance Shadow has given G.U.N. in this and previous levels to reach the Pure Hero path, the Commander remains unswervingly convinced of the hedgehog's evil intent, and instructs his soldiers to use all tactical weapons in hunting him down.

On arriving in the heavily terraformed Death Ruins, Shadow runs into Rouge, who is putting her secret agent duties on hold to join the regular G.U.N. army in fighting the aliens. The Black Arms appear to be on the run, but Doom's Eye tells a different story: their retreat is simply a tactical withdrawal off the surface now that the Arms' planetside objectives are complete. The alien leader commands Shadow to simply join his troops in evading the human counter-offensive. The player then chooses to either escape with Doom's Eye or help Rouge eliminate the Black Creatures.

Regardless of which path Shadow takes, Doom makes his first hints at his final plans for humanity at the end of the stage, and the associated "Ritual of Prosperity", at the end of the stage. He then releases the Black Bull upon Shadow.

Key locations

 * 1) Use the pulley after the first save point and use the spring to reach the extending grass. When the extending grass stretches over the platform with the key, hit the jump button to get off.
 * 2) Grind the vine after the 3rd Checkpoint and jump down to the first ledge on the right. From there drop down to the left of the spring to a platform with a spring leading to a second vine and jump off the vine before the speed ring to land on a ledge with the key.
 * 3) After Checkpoint 5 you will see red slime and a spring. Destroy the wall to the right of the Spring to get the key.
 * 4) In the triangle jumping section after Checkpoint 5, you need to start by standing on the sand bags to get enough height and in mid jump Dash while Triangle jumping, Get the key.
 * 5) In the area with five Black Arms Soldiers, destroy one of the walls in the back to the right or left and get the key on the platform in the back.

Dark
Annihilate the GUN forces!

Guide: Doom's Eye

Objective: Reach the Goal Ring.

Tips: Although it will affect your final score, defeating Black Arms will fill your Hero gauge, allowing you to use Chaos Control. You should also use the Triangle Jump whenever possible.

Ranking:

Leads to: Space Gadget

Normal
There is no Normal mission for Death Ruins.

Hero
Drive off the black aliens!

Guide: Rouge

Objective: Kill the 50 Black Arms in the stage.

Tips: At each checkpoint, you should have these many Black Arms defeated: Rouge will occasionally alert you when there are Black Arms off the beaten path.
 * Checkpoint 2: 06/50
 * Checkpoint 3: 10/50
 * Checkpoint 4: 19/50
 * Checkpoint 5: 36/50

Ranking:

Leads to: Lost Impact

Boss: Black Bull
Boss's Affiliation: Black Arms

Guide: Rouge

Tips: As in Lethal Highway, Black Bull's weak spot is the eye. Kill a Black Arms soldier to take its gun, then jump on a spring up to the rail. Shooting at Black Bull will fill up the Hero gauge quickly, allowing you to slow time with Chaos Control.

Ranking:

Behind the Secret Door
A room that contains grindrails. Grinding along the rails enables Shadow to get rings and other items such as extra lives, once the player reached the end of the path there will be a warp hole that teleports the player back to the Secret Door.

Trivia

 * Part of the music can be heard in one of the (Blur Studios) CG scene trailer for Shadow the Hedgehog.
 * At one point. a G.U.N soldier says, "Mr. Yuji Naka is all right," as a reference to Yuji Naka, the former head of Sonic Team.