Hellmaster Fibrizo (Japanese: 冥王 フィブリゾ, lit. herumasutā fiburizo and romanized as Hellmaster Phibrizzo in English, Runic: ᚠᛁᛒᛦᛁᛋᚫ Fibrizo[1][2]) is the most powerful of the five subordinates in service to Ruby Eye Shabranigdu and the main antagonist for the last episodes of Slayers NEXT. He is voiced by Kazue Ikura in the Japanese version and by Vinnie Penna in the English dub by Central Park Media (Software Sculptors).
Fibrizo is one of the names listed on the Plane chart and is based on Astaroth in the Ars Goetia. Software Sculptors erroneously romanized his name as Phibrizzo. While it might be interpreted as an alternate translation, the plane chart has very clear runic writings regarding the names of the mazoku, and his translates plainly to Fibrizo.
Biography
Hellmaster Fibrizo was created during the Shinma War, and is over 5000 years old; he is the lord of the underworld, and controller of life and death. Hellmaster's priest and general were destroyed in the Kōma War, and it is assumed that to create new ones would deplete much of his existing power.
Placed at the center of five points according to the accepted cardinal positions of the Sorceror's Guild, Hellmaster has a bit of domain over his siblings, so much so that he was granted Greater Beast Zelas Metallium's only servant, Xelloss, during the run of Slayers NEXT. Capable of destroying a fellow lord like Chaos Dragon Garv with but a snap of his fingers, Fibrizo is possibly the greatest force of chaos to be reckoned with on the immediate plane shy of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu itself.
He was the one who ignited the Kōma War, which at first was a conflict between humans, to use the horrors of the war to awaken the piece of Shabranigdu in Lei Magnus, a legendary great sage. He apparently succeeded, turning the war into one of the greatest conflicts of all time. However, in the end, Lei Magnus-Shabranigdu was sealed into ice, and Fibrizo's ultimate goal wasn't achieved.
Hellmaster's beast form
Seeing his failure, he thought of a new plan: He decided that he would use the power of the Lord of Nightmares, who he believed was a ma-ō even above his master, to return the world into chaos. However, as a mazoku he was unable to call upon her power directly, so he waited for a thousand years, until he found someone who could do this instead: Lina Inverse.
To force her hand, Fibrizo kidnapped Lina's friends and threatened their lives, compelling Lina to cast the perfected version of the Giga Slave spell. Once she finished the incantation, Fibrizo tried to destroy her body before she could fire the spell, convinced that her death would break the control over the Giga Slave and allow the chaos energy to consume the entire world without restraint. Instead, the Lord of Nightmares entered Lina's body in full, and, much to Fibrizo's surprise, didn't immediately cause an apocalypse.
Believing Lina's will alone was holding the Golden Lord back, he channeled every ounce of his power into obliterating Lina's physical body. That proved to be his fatal mistake, as the Lord of Nightmares, far from playing along, effortlessly destroyed him, granting Fibrizo, in his final moments, the very destruction he had been after.
Personality[]
I’m in the form of a child, anyway. I can take any form I want, but this one is the most convenient. Humans are such interesting creatures … they let their guards down around children, which allows me to play all kinds of great tricks—Hellmaster Fibrizo, to Lina's Party, Dragon's Peak, Slayers volume 8
Fibrizo was proven to be very calculating, sinister and sadistic. He had a fascination with pain and destruction that, in human terms, would be considered borderline psychotic. The latter is not particularly noteworthy as all mazoku instinctively possess a desire for destruction, but the objective of destroying the world was not just a goal for Fibrizo: he became completely obsessed with it and was shown to be absolutely exhilarated by its apparent success.
Despite his power and eagerness to fulfill his master's goals of destroying everything in existence, Fibrizo rarely involved himself in the day to day matters of the world; being more of the scheming type.
He proved to be an extremely intelligent, conniving and devious manipulator who orchestrates complex, multi-layered plots, immediately altering them according to changes in plan. Hellmaster was equally an expert in predicting people's actions to string them along, and an exceptional actor, able to impersonate a sweet, innocent looking human boy flawlessly. He was known to patiently wait for hundreds or even thousands of years, and when everything was in place, unleash his plan to the most devastating effect.
He is notably one of the vilest and most sadistic characters in the series, best illustrated by the act of killing all of Lina's friends one by one in front of her eyes in order to get her to cast the Giga Slave, all the while showing extremely cruel pleasure and delight in her suffering. However, once Hellmaster's plans had backfired with the appearance of the Lord of Nightmares, he had a breakdown and literally went mad.
In contrast to his powers and appearance, Fibrizo manifests as an adorable young boy in the novels and anime. Of course, this is all a scheme, matching his conniving personality. His appearance is very androgynous, which was played upon in the manga where instead of manifesting as an effeminate young boy, he kidnapped a young girl name Erina and took control of her body. His beast form, on the other hand is amorphous, with no anthropomorphic qualities.
Abilities[]
Hellmaster Fibrizo holds everyone's life in his hands.
Second only to the ma-ō, Fibrizo is otherwise the most powerful high-ranking mazoku in existence. He possesses all the typical powers of such a being, best illustrated by the way he "resurrected" Sairaag, recreating the city and its inhabitants as part of his physical projection.
His title, Hellmaster, has a very literal meaning: Fibrizo has power over the souls of dead, and can take the life of any human just by crushing a small golden marble which represents that person's life essence. He has also demonstrated the ability to encase a living being's body in a crystal like substance - if that crystal were to break, the person would die. This power was replicated by a spell created by Rezo the Red Priest, although for much less lethal uses.
The spells Ragna Blast and Ragna Drive call upon Fibrizo's power.
References[]
- ↑ Slayers NEXT filmbook #6, page 78
- ↑ Mazoku (slayers universe 4.1)