The world had narrowed to the space between a demon's killing blow and a fallen hero's last, fading breath. Asmodeus stood triumphant, his shadow blade raised, savoring the final, perfect brushstroke of his masterpiece of sorrow. The crimson light of the Blood Moon washed over the scene, a silent, cosmic accomplice to the murder of a world's hope.
On his knees, his lifeblood pooling from the stump of his arm, Korgon watched. His mind, now a place of crystal-clear, silent clarity, replayed the final moments of his long life: the sad, knowing eyes of the sage in his dream, the Great Deku Tree's sacred command, the fierce, unbreakable spirit of the boy he had forged into a warrior. The boy who now lay dying at his feet.
His end was near. The sage had been right. But Korgon had been right, too. It was for him to decide how he met it.
He had been trained as a champion, lived as an exile, and found his purpose as a guardian. He would meet his end as a Goron.
A low, deep rumble started in his chest, a sound not of anger, but of immense, geological pressure. He pushed himself to his feet, a one-armed mountain of pure, defiant will. The cracks that crisscrossed his rocky hide began to glow, not with the embers of a forge, but with the white-hot, incandescent light of a volcano's core. He was calling upon the final, most sacred, and most forbidden art of his people—the Unmaking of the Self, the power to turn a Goron's very life force into a devastating weapon.
Asmodeus, sensing the sudden, colossal shift in power, turned from the dying Link, his expression of triumph replaced by one of irritated surprise.
"RUN!" Korgon's voice was no longer a rumble; it was a physical shockwave that ripped through the valley, a desperate, final command to the cowering villagers. "GET THE BOY! GET EVERYONE AND RUN! LEAVE THIS MOUNTAIN TO ME!"
He did not wait to see if they obeyed. He charged. He was no longer a warrior; he was a living meteor, his body blazing with a light so bright it challenged the Blood Moon itself. Asmodeus, in his arrogance, threw a wave of pure shadow to stop him. The magic sizzled and evaporated against Korgon's aura of pure, primal fire, like water on hot iron.
The demon's eyes widened in genuine shock a moment before the Goron crashed into him. Korgon did not strike. He grappled, his one remaining, massive arm wrapping around the demon lord in an unbreakable hold of living stone. Asmodeus shrieked, his elegant form struggling against the Goron's crushing strength, his corrupting magic useless against a being who was actively unmaking his own soul.
"My end is near, is it?" Korgon roared, his voice a triumphant, crackling explosion in the demon's face, his dream-words a final, defiant battle cry. "I AM THE END!"
The countdown had begun. The light from Korgon's body began to pulse, faster and brighter, the air around them warping with the sheer, unbearable heat.
While the two titans were locked in their final, apocalyptic embrace, a different kind of miracle happened. On the cold stone of the square, the Master Sword, which lay inert beside its fallen master, began to pulse. A soft, gentle, azure light emanated from the blade, a quiet song of defiance against the overwhelming red. The holy light touched the black, shadowy spear that pinned Link to the ground. The shadow could not endure its touch. With a final, hissing wisp of smoke, the spear dissolved into nothing.
Link was free, but he was unconscious, still lying in the heart of the blast zone.
From a broken barricade near the inn, Ilia watched, her heart a frantic, terrified drum. She had seen Link fall. She had seen the demon stand over him. And she had heard the Goron's final, desperate command. Her body was frozen with a terror so profound it had stolen her breath. But her heart, the heart of a girl who had known Link her entire life, who had seen his quiet kindness and his impossible courage, screamed at her to move.
And so she did. Overcoming a wave of fear that threatened to drown her, she broke cover. A single, small, determined figure running into the heart of a god's battle. She reached Link's side, the heat from the glowing Goron already scorching the air. She grabbed the collar of his tunic. He was so much heavier than he looked, an anchor of dead weight. With a desperate, choked sob of effort, she began to drag him, one painful, scraping foot at a time, away from the epicenter.
Korgon saw her. Through the blinding agony of his own self-destruction, his fiery eyes saw the small act of desperate, foolish, beautiful heroism. He saw the shepherd's heart, not just in the boy, but in the girl who would not abandon him. It was enough. He let out his final, triumphant roar and unleashed the full, untamed power of his soul.
There was no sound. Only light. A silent, white, all-consuming sun bloomed in the center of Ordon Village. It was the pure, sacred fire of a Goron's heart, a power of creation turned into a final, perfect act of unmaking. It consumed both Goron and Demon, their forms vaporized in an instant of absolute purification.
Then, the sound hit. A deafening, world-shattering BOOM that was not heard but felt, a physical blow that leveled what was left of the village's homes and sent a shockwave of super-heated air racing outwards.
Ilia had managed to drag Link just behind the solid stone wall of the ruined inn a second before the blast hit. She threw her body over his, shielding him as the world came apart around them.
The light faded. The roar subsided. The crimson glare of the Blood Moon, its dark power broken by the sacrifice, washed out of the sky, returning it to the familiar, peaceful dark of a normal night. In the center of the village square, where Korgon had made his stand, there was now a massive, glowing crater, its edges lined with a beautiful, deadly black glass.
Ilia pushed herself up, her ears ringing, her body bruised. They were alive. The village was a ruin. But the monsters were gone. The demon was gone. The silence that fell was the silence of survival.
And at that exact moment of stunned, fragile peace, a new figure appeared, cresting the hill at the entrance to the valley. It was Rohm, a sack of herbs in one hand, his face a mask of confusion that quickly morphed into pure, absolute horror as he took in the sight of his devastated, smoking home.
His journey was over. But his nightmare had just begun.