Illyria is a fictional recurring character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Angel, portrayed by Amy Acker.

[2] Illyria is one of the legendary Old Ones, original pure demons from the Primordium Age who ruled territory that included modern-day California.

As pre-ordained, Illyria's sarcophagus is teleported to the general area of Los Angeles, but due to continental shifting, it ends up outside the United States of America.

Knox, Illyria's self-fashioned high priest and the mastermind behind her resurrection, has the sarcophagus delivered to Fred Burkle at Wolfram & Hart's science lab.

Illyria's spirit acts as an infection, liquifying Fred's organs, hardening her skin, and allegedly consuming her soul.

After hours of agony, and despite Angel and Spike's efforts, Fred's body is completely taken over by Illyria, who also absorbs her memories.

Despite the best efforts of Angel, Spike, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, she fights off all three and opens the portal to her army, only to discover it long since destroyed.

In the process, she destroys eleven torture units, two troop carriers, an ice cream truck, eight "beautifully maintained" lawns, and "rendered useless" dozens of Wolfram & Hart employees, according to Marcus Hamilton.

Angel, with foreknowledge of her outbursts, calms Illyria down, and Wesley uses a device to extract a large portion of her power, effectively ending the threat.

Illyria is brutally beaten and humiliated by Hamilton, which fuels the Old One's rage and motivates her to join the final battle against the Senior Partners.

Filled with unexpected and uncontrollable grief, Illyria violently dispatches his killer, Cyvus Vail, shattering his head with a single punch, before meeting the others and declaring a strong desire to "do more violence."

In volume one of Fallen Angel Reborn (2009), set in season 5, Illyria is transported to the dimension of Bete Noire where she attempts to reclaim her lost power; flashbacks depict her battle with the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart as well as other Old Ones; in the present day, she faces the series' heroine Liandra.

Illyria is established as the Demon Lord of Beverly Hills, and working with Spike saves innocents by placing them in Connor's care.

Throughout the series, Illyria features temporary reversions to her Fred state as the hell dimension causes her powers to go out of control.

Later, when Gunn (now a vampire) kills the last of her memories of Fred, these stop, and she reverts to her primordial form and begins savaging Los Angeles.

Drawn to a gem on the wall, she touches it and is magically enlightened to her new place in the world, unaware that she has accidentally released a former rival old one, Arsgomor.

Subsequent to the above story, the rights to Angel characters were transferred from IDW to Dark Horse Comics, which publishes Buffy.

In a confrontation with the season's villain, Severin, Illyria is stripped of her powers—including her ability to time travel—leaving her mortal and stuck in Fred's physical appearance.

Drawing on her personal experiences in Angel, she convinces Severin—whose powers threaten to rip a hole in time itself—to create a new seed, which will restore magic to the universe.

Her skin is a hardened shell, providing her body with a heavy armor capable of withstanding blows from forged weapons, such as swords or axes.

In the episode "Time Bomb", she managed to single-handedly kill Spike, Wesley, Lorne and Angel in a matter of seconds, a testament of her prowess in combat.

[citation needed] Illyria is aided in combat by her ability to selectively alter time, which allows her to easily dodge both attacks and bullets; she can accomplish a goal and leave an area before her opponent even realizes she has moved.

[citation needed] Illyria retains the insights from her experiences as an Old One, which enable her to effectively analyze the power dynamics, personal motivations, and emotions that influence those around her.

[citation needed] In her/its natural form, Illyria is a massive genderless cephalopod-like monster, similar to Lovecraft's Cthulhu, with inhuman size and numerous tentacles, with all of her powers at full capacity.

Early in the series, she was shown to hold herself unarmed against a grown dragon at full strength, enduring a blast of fire from its mouth and being swallowed by it without visibly losing her taste for the fight – all this while sporting a stab wound to the torso from Angel which seemed to only offend and irritate as opposed to hurt her.

[7] Her ability to alter time, while removed by the Mutari generator, seems to have at least partially returned as a result of the aftermath of L.A.'s relocation to hell.

Subsequent to this, she appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine (with blue-and-black hair) and comments on her full powers having been restored.

She later loses her abilities in the same arc, and appears physically identical to Fred Burkle once again, albeit dressed in her standard leather costume.

Later, in her own IDW miniseries (Illyria: Haunted), Illyria visits the Deeper Well and finds a blue gem embedded in a wall of art depicting her true form that causes her to undergo a transformation; her hair is now completely blue, as are her eyes (as opposed to merely her irises), and all her powers are seemingly restored to her.