The horn's mournful, unholy note echoed through the valley, a death knell for the quiet life of Ordon. For a moment, an absolute, terrified silence fell, the world holding its breath. Then came the sound. It was not a roar or a battle cry, but something far more chilling: the rhythmic, synchronized tramp of a hundred iron-shod boots on the earth, moving as one. The legion was advancing.
Inside the small house, the light of the Master Sword cast long, dancing blue shadows on the walls, a stark and holy contrast to the blood-red gloom filtering through the windows. Link turned from the door, his face a mask of cold, grim purpose. He looked at Ilia, who was huddled by his mother's bedside, her face pale with terror.
He could not speak the words, but his eyes conveyed the command with absolute clarity. Bar the door. Do not open it for anyone. Stay with her.
Ilia, seeing the warrior who had replaced her childhood friend, could only nod, her eyes wide. She dragged a heavy wooden chest in front of the door just as Link slipped out into the night.
He stepped into the village square. His home, the place of his happiest memories, had been transformed into a nightmare. The crimson light of the Blood Moon painted the familiar, gentle cottages in grotesque hues, making them look as though they were bleeding. The air was unnaturally cold, thick with malice and the scent of ozone.
And they were coming. From the east and the west, the Gloom Knights advanced. They moved in two silent, disciplined phalanxes, their black armor seeming to absorb the already faint light, their polished shields held in a perfect, interlocking wall. Their red, glowing eyes were fixed forward, devoid of passion or rage, filled only with a cold, empty purpose. They were not a horde. They were an army of ghosts, come to execute a sentence.
Link stood alone in the center of the square, a single, small point of green and blue defiance against the encroaching black tide. He was the shepherd, and this was his flock. He would not let the wolves have them.
The first wave of knights reached him. They broke formation, their movements fluid and coordinated, attempting to encircle him. The first one lunged, its blackened longsword a blur aimed at his heart.
This was not a desperate spar against a single monster. This was a true battle. Link's training, all the grueling hours in the forge, all the lessons of the mountain, all the instincts of his two bloodlines, came together in a perfect, deadly fusion. He met the attack, his own blade a flash of holy light.
CLANG!
The Master Sword did not just block the Gloom Knight's blade; it attacked it. Where the two swords met, the holy power of Link's weapon erupted, causing the corrupted steel of the knight's sword to sizzle and smoke, a brilliant blue light running up its length. The knight let out a hissing gasp, not of pain, but of spiritual agony, as the divine energy assaulted the shadow that gave it form. Link pressed his advantage, his movements economical and precise, and drove his blade through a joint in the knight's armor. The creature did not bleed. It dissolved, its form collapsing into a cloud of black smoke and sorrow, its red eyes fading into nothingness.
He was a whirlwind. His feet were rooted to the earth, Korgon's lessons giving him an unshakeable foundation. His body was a blur of Hylian speed, a ghost in the firelight that the knights' slow, powerful swings could not find. And his sword was the judgment of the Goddesses themselves, its blue light a terrible, beautiful thing in the crimson night. He fought with a cold, focused fury, the vision of his burning home the only thought in his mind. He would not let it come to pass.
The sight of their small, silent hero fighting with the power of a legend was a spark in the villagers' terrified hearts. A shutter was thrown open. A hunting arrow, fletched with goose feathers, shot out and sank into the neck of a Gloom Knight, causing it to falter for a crucial second. Fado and the baker, their faces grim, emerged from the inn, armed with heavy wood axes. "For Ordon!" Fado roared, his voice a desperate, defiant cry.
They were not soldiers. They could not fight the knights head-on. But they were not helpless. They fought like the people of the valley they were: clever, practical, and stubborn. They created barricades from overturned carts. They threw lanterns from rooftops, creating pools of confusing fire. They were a militia of shepherds and smiths, bakers and weavers, and they would not let their home die without a fight.
But the hope was a fragile thing. The Gloom Knight commander, a taller figure with a horned helmet, observed the battle with cold, tactical appraisal. He saw that Link was the heart of the resistance. And he knew how to crush it.
He issued a silent, telepathic command. The knights changed their tactics. They stopped engaging Link directly. A wall of shields formed, holding him at bay while other squads ignored him, breaking off to assault the barricaded houses directly. They moved with a singular, brutal purpose, smashing down doors, their swords flashing in the bloody moonlight.
Link heard a scream from the general store. He spun, his heart lurching, and cut down a knight that was about to strike the baker, but in doing so, he had to let another two break through the defenses around the mill. He was everywhere at once, and it was not enough. He was a shepherd trying to defend his flock from a hundred wolves at once. For every one he drove back, another found a weakness, another lamb was taken. The weight of it, the terrible, impossible responsibility, began to wear him down. The Blood Moon seemed to mock him, its crimson light fueling the shadows, causing the knights' wounds to seal with wisps of black smoke.
Then, the commander came for him. He strode through the battle, his own blade, a greatsword that pulsed with a faint, purple light, held ready. He was a corrupted hero, his movements a perversion of the noble fighting style of the Hyrulean Royal Guard. He was fast, powerful, and utterly without honor.
They met in the center of the square in a clash of holy light and corrupting shadow. The commander was stronger, his experience vast. He fought with a cruel intelligence, using the screams of the villagers to distract Link, aiming his attacks not just at the boy, but at the people cowering behind him.
Link, his body already pushed to its limits, was forced back, step by step. He parried a blow meant for his head, but the commander's armored boot lashed out, kicking his legs out from under him. He fell hard on the stone ground, the Master Sword slipping from his grasp.
The Gloom Knight commander stood over him, a towering figure of black steel and absolute victory. He raised his greatsword for the final, killing blow. The villagers cried out in despair. Ilia, watching from the window of his house, let out a choked sob.
It was over.
And then, from the western edge of the village, a sound ripped through the night, a sound so loud and so full of pure, geological fury that it drowned out the very sounds of battle. It was not a scream. It was a roar. The roar of a mountain.
A colossal shape, moving with the speed of an avalanche, crashed through the line of Gloom Knights that formed the outer perimeter, sending their disciplined ranks flying like broken dolls.
Korgon had arrived. He stood at the edge of the square, his massive war hammer held high, his fiery eyes blazing with the rage of a betrayed world. He let out another defiant roar at the blood-red moon, a challenge to the encroaching darkness.
Hope, for a fleeting, terrifying moment, had returned.