Yaksa

Yaksa (ヤクシャ) is a secondary antagonist in Saiyuki: Journey West. He is the one of the first spiritual entities to join the Devil Eight and was formerly a god of the spiritual realm before he became a Devil.

Role in Game
When Sanzo's party venture deep into the volcanic depths of Firetop for the Guardian, Yaksa tries to assault them from afar. His ambush failing, he makes the same demands as Mahoraga regarding the Guardians and staff. Losing his patience with the monk's hesitation, he attacks the travelers directly. Upon his defeat, he claims to have gone easy on them before he teleports away.

As he was recovering, Yaksa happened to eavesdrop on Deva peacefully conversing with Lady Kannon. He rats out Deva's secret to Asura, expecting a severe punishment, yet is upset when this doesn't occur. Instead, Yaksa is ordered by their leader to create a trap for the monk's arrival at Thunder Temple. Before the monk arrives, the Devil thrashed the entire city and massacred every resident within the area. An illusion is placed on the city to make the ruins look peaceful. With the monk in their snare, Yaksa shifts into his true self to destroy his prey. He is beaten to the point where he can't return to the Devils' hideout, which disappoints Asura gravely. Yaksa is teleported back to Heaven and doesn't appear again for the remainder of the story.

Personality
Malevolent and brutal, Yaksa is a violent upstart who doesn't believe in pity. He doesn't trust Deva to follow Asura's plans with gusto and criticizes the former's loyalty. Arrogant with his powers, he believes he can take down anything with might alone.

Fighting Style
The first encounter with Yaksa separates Sanzo and his/her party members. Sanzo will be on the west island while Kikka, Ryorin, and Hakkai take the east island. Goku and Gojo are stranded on land as they face a horde of monsters on the eastern side. A moving rock will float across the lava dividing everyone but it only moves once per turn. Players may want to time when they want the four stranded members to cross the boiling river. Additionally, due to the heat, they will suffer a decrease of ten hit points each complete turn cycle.

Yaksa will remain in the highest corner of the map, rarely moving unless characters wander within his range of movement. He likes to cast Rock Drop or Rock Guard, but the damage shouldn't be too bad. His physical attack also has a relatively poor hit percentage, so the greatest obstacle of this fight is reaching him and dealing with his minions. With enough patience, he should go down without too much trouble.

His true form possesses attacks that can randomly paralyze, poison, or petrify those within range. However, he continues to not be very powerful so they'll be easy to recover from. Yaksa's normal attack will hurt more than before though, so he might be a damaging adversary to close-ranged fighters. He isn't a particularly difficult opponent and his life will go down easily.