The dawn that greeted Link at the summit of the Needle was the first dawn of his new life. The trials were over. The boy had been tested, and he had been found worthy. He stood beside his master, the Blade of Evil's Bane a cool, solid, and impossibly heavy weight in his hand, and watched the sun begin its slow climb over a world steeped in shadow.
There were no grand speeches, no final words of wisdom. Korgon, the Unbreakable, had done his work. He looked at Link, at the child whose spirit he had hammered into a weapon, and saw not a student, but an equal. A fellow warrior about to walk a path he could not follow. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a small, perfectly honed whetstone made from the finest obsidian of Death Mountain.
"The blade is divine," the Goron's voice rumbled, a sound of finality. "But it is still steel. Do not dishonor it with a dull edge."
He pressed the stone into Link's hand. It was his final lesson, his only farewell. Link took the stone and gave his master a single, solemn nod. It was a promise. He then turned, and with a speed that was no longer just Hylian agility, but something more, something born of purpose, he began his descent. He did not climb down. He ran, his feet finding impossible purchase on the sheer rock faces, a living arrow fired from the mountain's peak aimed directly at the heart of his home.
Korgon stood and watched until Link's small, green form had vanished into the vast, red expanse of the plains. He was alone once more, his sacred duty fulfilled. He thought of the dream, of the serene man in the field of twin suns. Your end is near, my old friend. For the first time, a grim, rocky smile cracked the Goron's face.
"That is for me to decide," he whispered to the wind.
He turned and strode back towards his forge. He did not bank the fires or put away his tools. Instead, he took his own colossal war hammer from the wall, its iron head gleaming in the morning light. He took a great, iron-banded shield, a relic of his days as a champion. The Great Deku Tree's vision had commanded him to train the boy. It had said nothing of what came after. His Goron honor, a thing far older and more stubborn than any prophecy, would not allow him to sit and wait while a child fought a war alone. He would not interfere with the boy's destiny. But he would be its shadow. Its final, unbreakable line of defense. He set off, his heavy, thudding footsteps following the same path as Link, a secret, silent guardian on the road to war.
As Link raced across the plains, a desperate, impossible marathon fueled by love and fear, the world began to break. The shadow, having gathered its strength in secret for a decade, finally moved, and the sky itself shattered.
It began as a tremor in the deep places of the world. In the sacred Zora's Domain, Captain Lyra watched in horror as the pristine, life-giving waters that flowed from their sacred spring began to cloud, a dark, oily Malignance seeping up from the depths, turning the river's song into a mournful, gurgling dirge. The Great Sickness had reached the source.
In the hidden sanctuary of Iris, Princess Zelda was deep in meditation, the simple ocarina Link had left her held gently in her hands. Suddenly, her eyes flew open with a gasp, a terrible, violent vision overwhelming her senses. She did not see a vague premonition; she saw a village of innocents consumed by a legion of knights forged from shadow. She saw fire and ruin, and she heard the screams. "He's begun," she whispered, her face pale with terror and resolve. Paya and Elwin rushed to her side, the three of them now prisoners in a sanctuary whose enemy had just declared open war.
Over the great castle of Hyrule, a storm of unnatural and violent proportions gathered, the sky turning a sickly, bruised purple. Black lightning, devoid of thunder, spiderwebbed across the clouds. In the throne room, King Rhoam stood before his war council, the air thick with fear and indecision. A terrified Royal Guard burst in, his face ashen. "Your Majesty!" he cried. "The stars! They are vanishing from the sky!" High above, a creeping, magical darkness was literally consuming the constellations, a veil of shadow being drawn across the heavens. In the corner of the room, a high-ranking councilor, a man trusted by the King for twenty years, allowed a small, cruel, triumphant smile to touch his lips.
And on Death Mountain, the great volcano that had slumbered for a century began to rumble, a deep, angry groaning from the heart of the world. Goron elders watched as ancient, forgotten runes on the walls of their city began to glow with a faint, sickly purple light, an omen not seen since the last great Calamity.
The world was breaking. The age of whispered fears was over. The age of open war had begun. And the first battle was for the soul of a single, small village.
Link ran for a day and a night, an impossible feat of endurance, his body a finely tuned engine of Goron strength and Sheikah spirit. He did not feel fatigue. He did not feel pain. He felt only the burning, desperate need to get home. As the sun set on the second day, he crested the final, familiar ridge. He looked down into Ordon Valley.
And his heart broke.
He saw his vision made real. The sky above his home was the same sick, swirling purple as the one in his dream. The village was not yet a ruin, but it was a battlefield. A perfect, disciplined perimeter of black-armored knights, their forms an obscene mockery of the Hyrulean Guard, surrounded the valley, ensuring none could escape. Their red, glowing eyes were cold, merciless points of light in the deepening gloom. Within the perimeter, the first fires had been set. He could hear the distant, faint sounds of screaming, the clash of steel, and the defiant roar of his father.
He had come as fast as he could. But he was almost too late.
He stood on the ridge, the last rays of the setting sun at his back, casting his small shadow long and terrible before him. The grief, the fear, the rage—it all fell away, burned to ash by the cold, clear fire of his purpose. He was not a boy anymore. He was not a student. He was the only hope for the people he loved.
He drew the Master Sword.
As if sensing the concentrated, absolute evil below, the Blade of Evil's Bane awoke. A brilliant, holy, azure light erupted from the blade, humming with a divine power that pushed back the encroaching twilight. The Triforce crest on the back of his hand, dormant for his entire life, blazed to life in a flash of golden light, a searing mark of his divine destiny.
He was no longer just Link, the shepherd boy from Ordon.
He was the Hero of Hyrule, arriving at his first great battlefield. And his war had just begun.