Link didn't speak. The silence in the hollowed-out tree grew heavy as the three survivors stared at him, waiting for a word of hope from the legend of old.Instead, Link reached down to his hip and unclipped the fractured Sheikah Slate."What is that?" the young woman asked, leaning forward. "Is it an artifact from the Princess?"Link touched the cracked glass. The blue light flared, and then, the jagged line of pale gold static cut through the quiet night. The survivors flinched as Zelda’s frail, distorted voice crackled into the air."Link..."Toren dropped his water cup. The old man sank to his knees, his hands trembling as the recording played. They listened in breathless, horrifying silence as the Princess confessed her failure, her voice competing with that dark, monstrous undertone."The Calamity did not just break my body, Link. It broke my mind. It took my soul... I am no longer holding him back. He is using me. My light... it has become his weapon."The Gerudo warrior gripped the hilt of her scimitar so hard her knuckles turned white. When the final, chilling command echoed from the speaker—"If you wish to save what remains of this world... you must kill me"—the slate hissed, turned blood-red, and snapped shut.The campfire popped, throwing sparks into the dark. Nobody moved."No," the young woman whispered, burying her face in her hands. "No, she was supposed to be keeping us safe. The prayers... we've been praying to a monster.""It's a lie," Toren croaked, his voice cracking with grief. "The Calamity forged it to break us. It must be a trick!""It’s no trick," the Gerudo said, her voice dropping to a grim, hollow register. She looked at Link, her fierce yellow eyes wide with a mixture of terror and profound respect. "Look at his arm, Toren. Look at the slate. The Princess knew what she was becoming. She gave him his orders before the darkness swallowed her whole."She stood up straight, crossing her arms over her chest, stepping closer to Link."My name is Vola," she said. "If the Princess of Hyrule has become the core of the Calamity, then the old world is truly dead. But we are still here. And if you are going to march into that ash storm to end her suffering, you aren't doing it with a rusted piece of junk."She pointed her chin toward the rusted, notched Soldier’s Broadsword at Link's waist."The blood-lightning around the castle will tear you apart before you even reach the gates," Vola continued, her expression hardening. "But there are whispers among the scouts. Deep in the volcanic fissures of the old kingdom, parts of the Ancient Ancient Mechs—the Divine Beasts—are still emitting a pure, uncorrupted light. If we can harvest that energy, we might be able to forge something that can pierce her shield."Toren wiped his eyes, looking up at Link with a grim new resolve. "We will follow you, Hero. Even if it means fighting the Goddess herself. Where do we strike first?"
"We head north," Link said, his voice quiet but steady. It was the first time he had spoken since waking up, and the survivors hung on every word. "To the Lost Woods."Vola frowned, looking toward the dark northern horizon. "The deep woods? Travelers say the fog up there has turned completely black with Malice. If you get lost in those trees now, you don't just wander back out—the dark swallows you whole. But if the Master Sword is still there... it’s our only real hope against a corrupted goddess."The small group packed their gear in silence, kicking dirt over the fire. With Vola leading the way and Toren keeping watch from the rear, they marched through the dead, twilight landscape.Days bled together as they pushed through the ash-choked plains. The closer they got to the Great Hyrule Forest, the thicker the air became. When they finally reached the border, the trees weren't the vibrant oaks of old legends. They were massive, petrified gnarled trunks weeping black, oily sap. A dense, suffocating fog hung over the forest floor, glowing with a faint, sickly purple light."Stay close," Vola whispered, drawing her massive scimitar. "Lose sight of the person in front of you, and you're gone."Link stepped into the fog first. Strangely, the thick black mist seemed to part slightly around his blackened right arm, almost as if the dark energy within him was pushing the forest's corruption aside. He guided the group through the twisting, confusing paths of the woods, relying entirely on a deep, instinctual pull in his chest.Suddenly, the suffocating black fog gave way to a eerie, silent clearing.They had reached the heart of the Korok Forest, but it was a ghost town. The beautiful, glowing nightshades were dead. There was no music. Instead, hundreds of tiny, wooden Koroks were huddled together in terror, crammed inside the hollow, dead trunk of the massive Great Deku Tree. The ancient tree's face was frozen in a silent, petrified expression of grief, its bark gray and lifeless.And there, in the very center of the clearing, was the pedestal.But the blade was not resting proudly inside it. The Master Sword had been violently wrenched out of the stone pedestal, thrown aside like a piece of garbage. It lay flat in the dirt and ash, its once-brilliant silver blade stained with dark, pulsing veins of Malice.As Link stepped closer, the tiny Koroks peeked out from the Deku Tree, their wooden leaf-faces trembling."The Chosen One..." a tiny, shaking voice squeaked from the hollow trunk. "You've come back. But the Sword... the Sword is weeping! When the Princess fell, the blade shattered its own bond. It's corrupted. It's sleeping!"Link knelt in the ash, staring down at the legendary weapon. Even covered in dark veins, he could feel a faint, desperate hum of holy energy fighting back against the darkness from within the steel.
