Master of the Valley

The Master of the Valley is the main antagonist of the Team Ico video game The Last Guardian. This mysterious evil entity rules over the Nest by controlling an army of Armoured Knights and Tricos.

History
The origins and precise nature of the Master are completely unknown. It may be a spirit or deity, perhaps even some manner of alien, but its true nature is unlikely to ever be revealed. The game's nameless protagonist (referred to as The Boy) is the only human who has seen the Master and did not establish any form of dialogue with it.

For an unknown period of time, perhaps centuries, the Master of the Valley has resided in the Citadel at the centre of the Nest. From there, it has manipulated the beasts known as Tricos into carrying out its bidding, sending them to abduct children from surrounding villages which are referred to as "Chosen". The abducted children are suspended and kept alive within a gelatinous substance inside the Tricos' bodies who then regurgitate the children upon delivering them to the Citadel. The children are then subjected to an unseen process, reduced to some form of glowing green substance that sustains the Master.

The events of The Last Guardian begin with a lightning storm that knocks one of the Master's enthralled Tricos out of the sky. The lightning strike destroys the mask adorning the Trico's head, breaking the Master's control over it. To keep the beast contained, the Master's Armoured Knights imprison Trico within a deep chamber in the Nest, keeping it chained up. However, Trico regurgitates the Boy within its belly who then awakes and helps Trico escape.

The Boy and the free Trico work together to try and escape the Nest, but Armoured Knights continually impede their progress, as do various traps and talismans scattered throughout the valley. Eventually, the Boy and Trico reach the Citadel where the Boy encounters the Master and Trico is attacked by his own kind. As the enthralled Tricos attack their free brethren on the top of the tower, Trico's tail is severed and falls through the skylight into the Master's chamber. The Boy climbs down into the chamber, and using the mystic mirror in his possession, shines a beam of light upon the Master's cage. Trico's severed tail reacts and fires a blast of lightning at the cage, destroying it and killing the Master. With the Master destroyed, the armoured Tricos become disoriented as they are cut off from the Master's control and the Armoured Knights fall apart or simply become motionless.

Appearance
The Master of the Valley appears to be a strange black sphere covered with glowing green runes similar to the Boy's tattoos. Surrounding the sphere is a cage-like structure made from an unknown metal. This cage is likely part of the apparatus seen atop the Citadel tower that broadcasts the Master's control signal to the Armoured Knights and Tricos.

Powers and Abilities

 * Immortality - The Master has existed for an unknown span of time, sustaining itself by using human essence as sustenance or fuel. As long as it continued processing chosen children as it had done, the Master likely would have lived indefinitely.
 * Control - The Master broadcasts a signal via antenna-like apparatus that allows it to control the Armoured Knights and Tricos as extensions of itself.
 * Shield - When the Boy encountered the Master, it conjured a shield of dark energy to repel the Boy. The beam of light from the Boy's mirror disrupted the shield long enough for the Boy to climb up the Master's cage and it offered no protection at all from Trico's tail lightning.