The silence that followed the explosion was the silence of a dead world. The unnatural, crimson light of the Blood Moon was gone, washed from the sky by the pure, sacrificial fire of a Goron's heart, leaving only the cold, indifferent light of the stars. Smoke, thick with the scent of ozone, burnt stone, and a sorrow too deep for words, coiled lazily into the night sky from the ruins of Ordon Village.
For a long time, no one moved. The surviving villagers, huddled behind their shattered barricades, were paralyzed, caught between the terror of the battle and the shock of its sudden, violent end.
Then, from the ruin of the inn, a figure emerged. It was Ilia, her face pale and smudged with soot, her eyes wide with a trauma that would never truly leave her. She pushed a heavy, splintered beam off the unconscious form of Link, her movements driven by a strength she did not know she possessed. He was alive. His breathing was shallow, his face deathly pale, but he was alive.
Her movement broke the spell. One by one, the other survivors emerged, ghosts in their own home. Fado, his arm bleeding from a deep gash. The baker, his face a mask of numb disbelief. Impa, the elder, her ancient form unbowed, her eyes scanning the devastation with a deep, historical sorrow. They were so few.
It was into this scene of stunned, silent grief that Rohm arrived.
He crested the hill, the precious sack of Sun-blossom clutched in his hand, a feeling of cold dread already coiling in his stomach. He had seen the unnatural light from miles away, had felt the tremor of the earth through the soles of his boots. But he was not prepared for this.
His home was gone. The familiar, welcoming valley of his life had been transformed into a smoking, cratered, alien landscape. He saw the survivors, their faces hollow, their movements like those of sleepwalkers. He ran, his heart a frantic, hammering drum, the medicine for his wife suddenly feeling impossibly heavy, impossibly useless.
"Elara!" he roared, his voice a raw, desperate cry. "Link!"
Impa met him at the edge of the square, her face grim. "Rohm," she said, her voice heavy with the weight of the story she had to tell. Through her words, and the fragmented, shocked accounts of the other survivors, the nightmare of the past few hours took shape in his mind. The black knights. The demon lord. The impossible, heroic defense of his son. The arrival of the Goron Guardian. And the final, terrible, blinding light.
He listened, his mind struggling to comprehend the scale of the mythic battle that had taken place in his simple, rustic home. But one thought, one fear, burned through the fog of his shock.
"My family," he choked out. "Where are they?"
Ilia, her eyes brimming with fresh tears, took his hand and led him, not towards the crater, but towards the skeletal remains of his own home. The forge was a twisted ruin of metal and stone. The house itself was a hollowed-out shell, its roof collapsed.
He stepped across the broken threshold. The air inside was still and cold. In their bedroom, he saw her. Elara lay in their bed, her form peaceful, her hands folded over her chest. The violent chaos of the battle had not touched her. The sickness, amplified by the wave of despair the demon had unleashed upon the valley, had simply… claimed her. She had died in the quiet of the storm, alone.
Rohm fell to his knees. The sack of Sun-blossom, the cure he had risked his life for, slipped from his numb fingers, its precious contents spilling onto the dusty floor. He had been on a desperate, heroic quest to save his wife, while a war of gods and monsters had raged in his home. And he had failed. He knelt there, a great, broken mountain of a man, and for the first time in his adult life, he wept, his silent sobs the only sound in the ruined house.
"Rohm…" Ilia's voice was a gentle, hesitant whisper from the doorway. "It's Link. He's alive. But… he's hurt."
The words were a lifeline. A single, flickering ember in the ashes of his world. His grief, so vast and all-consuming, was suddenly caged by a new, more powerful instinct: the desperate, primal need of a father to protect his child. He rose, his face a mask of terrible, focused sorrow, and followed her.
She led him to the edge of the great, glowing crater that now dominated the center of the village. And there he saw him. His son. Link lay on a makeshift bed of cloaks, his face ashen, a grievous, dark wound in his shoulder still weeping blood. The Master Sword lay beside him, its divine light extinguished, as dormant and as wounded as its master.
Rohm knelt beside his son. He had lost his wife. He had lost his home. He had lost his peaceful life. He looked at the boy, this child of two worlds, this hero who had brought down gods and demons to protect them all, and saw only his son. All he had left. He gently, carefully, gathered Link into his arms. The boy was so light. So fragile.
His new purpose was absolute. He would save him.
Far away, in a realm of shadow and spite, the Umbral Court reeled. The violent, sacrificial death of a being as powerful as Korgon had sent a shockwave through the ethereal planes, momentarily severing Asmodeus's connection to his anchor. The spite-flames in the palace faltered, and the remaining Succubi and Imps shrieked in fear as the magic of their home became unstable.
In the center of the throne room, a single, thin wisp of sentient, black smoke seeped back into existence. It was all that was left of Asmodeus, his physical form utterly annihilated by the Goron's sacred fire. He was a whisper, a memory, his power all but gone.
But he was a Royal Demon. And his will was absolute.
The wisp of smoke drifted towards his throne, where his few remaining Succubi were huddled, their beauty marred by terror. They saw the shadow coming and tried to flee, but it was too late.
"An artist," a dozen voices seemed to whisper from the smoke, the echo of Asmodeus's thoughts, "must have a canvas. And you, my lovely, empty little dolls… will provide the paint."
The shadow lunged. The Succubi let out horrifying, soul-shattering screams as their life force, their power, their very essence, was violently ripped from them. Their beautiful forms withered in an instant, collapsing into piles of fine, grey dust, their stolen vitality flowing like a river of light into the wisp of smoke.
The smoke swelled, darkened, and began to solidify. It coiled upon itself, taking on a new, terrible shape. A body formed, humanoid but monstrous, its skin the color of ash, its form scarred with lines of what looked like molten rock, a permanent reminder of the Goron's fire.
Asmodeus was reborn. He felt the stolen life force coursing through him, a power even greater than what he had wielded before, though his form was now a hideous mockery of his former elegance. He looked down at his new, monstrous hands and smiled.
"The mountain's fire was an inconvenience," his new voice rasped, a layered chorus of all the spirits he had just consumed. "A flawed, brutish final stroke."
He turned his new, terrible eyes, now burning with a vengeful, multi-souled light, as if he could see across the dimensions to the broken boy in the ruins of Ordon.
"But the boy… the boy with the blade of light… His hope is the true masterpiece. And I will return to see it unmade."