Vazdah

Vazdah
Race	Supreme Evil Deity
Gender	Male
Relatives	Vigoor (Yidam/created from)
Affiliations	The Fiends
Rank	Archfiend
Title	The Supreme Archfiend
First Appearance
Debut	Ninja Gaiden II

The Archfiend Vazdah (邪神ヴァーズダーJashin Vaa Zudaa; Evil Deity Vazdah) was one of the Archfiends, he is featured as the main worldly threat and the final boss of Ninja Gaiden II and its expended version Ninja Gaiden II Sigma. Each Archfiend formerly rules over a Sect of Fiends at the top of a pantheon of Greater Fiends who rule over armies of fiends. Vazdah's Sect of Fiends consists of Alexei, Volf, Zedonius, Elizébet, and their respective fiendish minions.

Appearance

Vazdah has two forms, his first form and a true final form.

The first form stands roughly at 50 feet tall, this form resembles a brown grey bug-like monstrous creature with a deformed humanoid head in a turtle like shell. Along with armored arms and legs, bone ribs protecting a large orb in his center, large demonic wings and a long skeletal tail.

His true form is roughly the same size, but vastly differ for being much leaner, menacing and demonic. He now resembles a gigantic black devil with a slim figure, orange highlights and golden patterns all over. His head is decorated with large patterned antlers and horns, with a face of two cyan glowing eyes and no mouth. He has thin arms and long digitigrade legs, demonic spiked wings and a fleshy long tail. His hands and feet are armed with fierce claws, with three fingers on each hand and five digits on each foot, which also consist of a raptor styled hook claw and a back claw to attack his enemies with.

Personality

Vazdah is a power hungry entity and the embodiment of greed and immorality. While his revival would mean doom for the majority of the human race, unlike the Dark Dragon, Vazdah does not wish to bring about the destruction of all life, but rule over all unquestionably, only killing those who refuse to submit to his will.

History

Vazdah was born from the body and mind of Vigoor in the ancient era, right after Vigoor's defeat by the 13 Dragons. However Vazdah laid dormant, sleeping past the slaying of the Dark Dragon by the Dragon Lineage, only to be awaken by a titanic power struggle. During this time the Evil Deities known as the Four Fiend Rulers fought each other with vast armies for dominion over the regions of earth, and the human race whom they enslaved and corrupted into fiends. The massive armies clashing and power unleashed by these conflicts caused the earth to become a hellish world, awakening Vazdah. As Vazdah rose from his slumber, a human philosopher Dagra Dai would happen upon Vazdah's midst, and the very evil glare from the Archfiend onto the philosopher was enough to drive the human mad, filling him with immense evil power and turning him into a Greater Fiend. It was then that Dagra Dai became the Infernal High Priest, a devil emperor of the Fiends. Vazdah then focused his attention to the battles that stirred his slumber, forcing the fighting Greater Fiend Rulers to submit and unify under his rule.

Under Vazdah's rule, the fiends ruled as the early humans did their bidding, and worshipped them as gods. Humans who refused to submit were massacred, while the humans who submitted suffered. The strong were forced to give up their souls and humanity, becoming fiends, while the weak served and were sacrificed to feed the fiends. It was during this time when the Dragon Lineage took it upon themselves to end the reign of the Evil Deities. They fought for generations, until Vazdah and his servants met their end at the hands of the Dragon Lineage's descendants, the Dragon Ninja. The Greater Fiends were sealed into eternal slumber where they stood, while Vazdah himself was sealed in Mt. Fuji, through a portal that only appears when the earth and hellish realms merge.

Sometime after Gogohn established the Vigoor Empire, he went to the dark caverns in the Amazons of South America, and built a shrine dedicated to freeing the Archfiend. The ritual required Dagra Dai's fiend princess Elizébet and the use of the Demon Statue, but Gogohn died at the shrine before he could awaken the Archfiend.

Plot

Ninja Gaiden II

Many millennia later, the fall of Vigoor and the Vigoorian Sect of Fiends at the hands of Ryu Hayabusa resulted in a void of power among the Fiends that would naturally be filled by Vazdah and the Vazdah Fiend Sect. Filling in this niche left behind by the disposed Vigoor Emperor, Dagra Dai takes his place as ruler of the fiend race and assigns Elizébet with a mission to retrieve the Demon Statue, and awaken the Greater Fiends of Vazdah throughout the world, as only their awakened hearts would allow entrance through the monolith gates sealing Vazdah deep in the Underworld. With help from the Black Spider clan, Elizébet is able to steal the Demon Statue guarded within the Castle of the Dragon and heads off to complete her mission.

Upholding his sacred duty as a Dragon Ninja, Ryu Hayabusa pursues Elizébet to retrieve the Demon Statue, but Elizébet manages to free the Greater Fiends who quickly overrun the human race with their fiendish armies. Not long after Ryu Hayabusa massacres the fiend hordes, killing every fiend he comes across and slaying Greater Fiend after Greater Fiend in his pursuit for Elizébet.

Elizébet sends armies of fiends at Ryu, all while keeping one step ahead of him, until she meets up with Dagra Dai at the Archfiend Shrine known as the Temple of Sacrifice, home to a Vazdah worshipping sect known as the Order of the Necromantale. An evil place situated in caverns deep beneath the Amazon jungles. Where they perform demonic blood rituals, sacrificing innocents to pry open the way to the Archfiend at Mt. Fuji on the other side of the world. As the earthly and hellish realms started merging within the Volcano, creating a pathway between the two realms. Dagra Dai then orders Elizébet to stay behind and stop Ryu, as he heads off to awaken the Archfiend in hell.

After entering the underworld and passing the monolith gates sealing the Archfiend, Dagra Dai and his minions commence a demonic enchantment to awaken their slumbering lord. While there they chanted for hours, lord Dagra Dai growing more and more incensed that no amount of sacrifices were great enough to free his liege, but before they could finish Ryu Hayabusa had slain all the hellish denizens in his path and arrived to put a stop to their demonic ritual. Dagra Dai himself tries to kill Ryu Hayabusa, but after a long hard battle he finds himself no match for the Dragon Ninja. In final desperation the Infernal High Priest offers himself as the final sacrifice to awaken the Archfiend Vazdah.

Archfiend Vazdah in his first form.

The anti-god acknowledging his loyal followers offering, begins to dig his coils into Dagra Dai's flesh and blood. Vazdah absorbs the remaining power of his Infernal Priest back into himself and emerges from his eons long slumber. Now alive and awake, the 50ft tall Archfiend tries to climb his way out of the Underworld through Mt. Fuji, as Ryu rushes up to confront the penultimate Evil Deity to prevent it's rise. Vazdah sees Ryu as a tiny pest obstructing his way towards freedom and world domination and tries to crush the Dragon Ninja as he climbs. Swiping at Ryu with his hands, emitting large blasts of demonic energy from his mouth, conjuring up ethereal demonic skulls, and vomiting his own putrid friend blood as he is damaged by Ryu. The mighty Dragon Ninja realizes Vazdah's weak spots throughout the battle, he fully charges up his arrows with his essence and shoots them at Vazdah's head, then at the hellish lord's Central Orb, weakening the Evil Deity. In the aftermath Vazdah had managed to climbed up a few levels, but Ryu ultimately stops him, and a dying Vazdah falls to the bottom of the dormant volcano, lying motionless. With Vazdah dead the gates to hell in Mt. Fuji starting to slowly disintegrate as the hellish reality defused from the living world, having dispersed into luminous dots of lights, signifying the eventual severing of the ties between the earth and demon realm. However during the battle Ryu's left arm had been wounded by the Archfiend's attack. While he escorted Sonia out of the volcano, a few drops of blood fell from his arm, dropping past all obstacles and landing on the dead outer carapace of Vazdah. The blood of the Dragon Ninja had an unexpected reaction with the Archfiend, awakening his true power.

Vazdah now freed and in his true form, open his wings and propels himself at super sonic speeds towards the surface world. Seeing this threat, Ryu quickly heals his arm as he jumps hundreds of feet upwards towards Vazdah. On the summit of Mt. Fuji the Dragon Ninja and the Archfiend faced off against each other, with Vazdah still out sizing Ryu by a significant factor. However Ryu is armed with two legendary weapons, the heavenly True Dragon Sword and Genshin's evil Blade of the Archfiend. With both a divine and an demonic skein in hand, Ryu battles Vazdah who unleashes his full fury, raining hell down upon the young Dragon Ninja. The summit of Mt. Fuji lit up with explosions of brilliant lights and rumbled loudly as large energy beams blasted the area to rubble, hellfire meteors rained down and the area illuminated in electrical bolts. In the epic clash Ryu fought back with all his strength, ninja skills, ninpo and swordsmanship, while Vazdah smashed their arena whilst flying around, and blink teleporting to evade attacks. The long and difficult battle drew to a close when Vazdah, weakened by Ryu's relentless onslaught started to tire and lower his guard. Ryu seizing this opportunity brutally finished off the Demonic God in a flash of lightning fast obliteration attacks ending with a deadly ultimate technique to Vazdah's head. Vazdah then exploded as large amounts of dark energies commingled within his body until violent release signifying his death, this second deadly explosion atop Mt. Fuji being the capstone severing the connection between Earth and demon realm, closing the gate to hell as flying shattered boulders buried the area in rubble and large debris.

Powers & Abilities

• Agility: Slow and sluggish in his first form, he is fast and agile in his true form and able to teleport instantly and move way faster than light speed.

• Strength: Vazdah's strength is at an immense level, almost limitless.

• Durability: Vazdah's durability is at an immense level, nearly limitless, having also unlimited regeneration and almost complete immortality, can be slain with only the True Dragon Sword.

• Power: in its true form Vazdah has virtually unlimited power and complete control of all elements except purity, able to affect the world on a universal scale, resulting in the distortion of reality, time and space in the world.
• Conversion: Being an Archfiend Vazdah could turn beings into fiends by merely looking at them, much like he did to Dagra Dai.

First Form:

• Ghost Skull: Vazdah will summon blue flaming Ghost Skulls to follow and home in onto his enemy.

• Melee: His main melee attacks are arm slam, arm swipe and a tail swipe.

• Demon Beam: A high damage attack, a large energy beam will blast out of his mouth.

• Blood Vomit: Throughout the battle Vazdah will vomit up blood and guts, usually right after he is damaged.

True Form:

• Flight: Unlike his first form, in his true form he is able to agilely fly through the air. Since he doesn't flap his wings it's assume to be psionic powered flight.

• Lava slam: While clinging on the cliff, he can slam his fists into the ground to damage his enemy with either the impact or lava bursts created below his enemy by his slams.

• Grab and Smash: Vazdah quickly grabs his enemy while clinging, then smash them into the ground heavily and throw them away, doing massive damage, followed by him climbing onto the ground to try and do further damage by trampling.

• Trample: Vazdah will sometimes try to dominate his enemy by ultilizing his towering size, landing on the ground and strutting towards them in heavy, menacing steps, in an attempt to kick, trample and stomp on his enemy with his massive clawed feet, followed by whipping of his tail.

• Flying Charge: While flying, Vazdah can charge at full speed to crash into his enemy on the ground, or damage them with a trail of lava left by his feet clawing on the ground as he charges.

• Teleport Instant :Vazdah can teleport to a location to another as he wants, can disappear and appear in a wink in a mist of darkness.

• Hell Fire: When flying, Vazdah can summon meteorites from deep within the volcano to rain down on his enemies.

• Lightning Bolts: When flying, Vazdah can create electric bolts that temporary electrifies a section of the ground.

• Demon Beam: A large beam of energy blasted from his forehead when he's clinging on the cliff, dealing massive damage, Vazdah is also able to sweep around for his targets with this attack.

Trivia

• Vazdah is mentioned in the Prayer of the Necromantale as being born from parts of Vigoor's body.
• Vazdah is so far the only final boss in the 3D Ninja Gaiden games to have two phases.

• In his first form, a white orb is in his abdomen and one of his eyes dangles out the socket.

• Vazdah will try to climb out of Mt. Fuji so the player has to kill Vazdah before he can get out.

• To beat Vazdah's first form in Ninja Gaiden II/Ninja Gaiden II Sigma without too much work, evade his attacks and charge up the arrows without aiming, Ryu will automatically aim the arrow where it needs to go. Many players find this easier than trying to aim it manually themselves.

• Vazdah's first form resembles Demon, Deity of Destruction, possibly because he was born from the body parts of Vigoor.

• Vazdah's True Form resembles Devil, Deity of Immorality.

• Vazdah is the only main boss that can be killed with an Obliteration Technique, whereas his Greater Fiends cannot.

• Vazdah has some unused but largely finished animations in his true form, including some attacks supposedly used when he has landed on the ground, like a foot stomp attack, a tail whip attack (both of which with valid hitboxes), and a side turning animation. Other unused animations include different hurt animations for both hands while clinging on the cliff, suggesting mechanics that may involve attacking and breaking different body parts of him. These suggest that the boss fight was originally planned to be more complicated and various, but sort of aborted due to either budget, the conflict between Tomonobu Itagaki and Tecmo, or both.

Gallery

Concept art of Vazdah's incomplete larval form.

Concept art of Vazdah's true form.