10 Shrines & Synergies

I gesture for her to keep the pig, and smile at the orc-like bokoblin. She joyfully gazes at me, and begins to eat the pig, doing so quite messily in front of me.

I allow the creature to eat her fill, before turning away from her and looking at the rest of her awe and lust-stricken allies. The other creatures are still staring at me, unable to look away from the dazzling beauty of my current form.

"You're all kind of cute when you aren't running around trying to murder, or worse, other living things." I remark, as I study the creatures. I can sense the malice within them trying to compel them to strike me but it's not working. The hold the stuff has on them is not strong enough to override the enslaving power of my unholy aesthetic perfection.

I walk over to one of the male bokoblins and touch the thing's horn. When I do I feel the malice in its body rush to the thing's horn and attempt to explode outward, presumably to attack and even smother me if given the chance. It fails to do anything meaningful, not even changing the color of the creature's horn, but the malice is clearly almost alive and has some level of awareness.

I quietly take advantage of my ability to manipulate energy and sap some of the malice from the bokoblin, which causes the creature to fall to its knees in front of me. The energy seeps out of the thing's horn and darkens the air between the horn and my hand as it flows into me.

The energy enters me and fails to do anything harmful even though I can sense it attempting to do so. I possess defenses far beyond the scale of any of these tutorial-level foes, even with the eerie corruptive power of malice.

I see an internal meter appear with the word "Healer" over it. The meter is incredibly long, but as I strip the bokoblin of a bit of the corruptive malice that fills it, an incredibly tiny amount of the meter fills. I can estimate that it must be a fraction of a fraction of a percent, but seeing the meter at all is amusing to me. It's nice to have confirmation that the questing and leveling systems my body is using are working, even when new essences are added to the mix.

"Hmm… Interesting." I say as I look at my hand and quietly laugh. When I look back at the creature I am surprised to see a glint of intelligence slowly returning to its eyes. I suppose I sapped enough malice to allow portions of the creature's mind to return? The creature's gaze gains much more reverence as it feels its sanity returning to it, something the creature has not yet felt for a long time.

I did not totally drain it of Ganon's malice, but it is intriguing that I took enough for the creature to be able to regain long lost parts of its sense of self. Suddenly, I notice a curious blue energy coming off of the creature as it gazes at me. I study the energy and am surprised when I hear an unexpected voice explain what it is to me.

"Master, that's worship. Worship creates actual, tangible energy, energy easily usable by the likes of dragon lords, cosmic gods, and archdemons. It is difficult for living beings other than the ones being worshiped to sense worship energy, and you can only see it because of your orichalcum chassis. What you are seeing is the power of reverence, awe, and submission. That energy is… difficult for sanguinarchs and transynths to use at maximum efficiency, but it is certainly possible for them to find things to do with it." The voice of my Player's Handbook tells me, whispering directly into my mind.

I smile at the creature and will the blue energy to come into me. The stuff flies into my chest, flowing directly into the cosmic artifact that is situated somewhere in my soul. I tremble when the energy enters my body. The stuff is powerful, incredibly so, and a portion of my mind considers ways to manipulate the energy.

My swift mind is easily able to create and contemplate curious mathematical formulas that could play a role in safely converting the power of worship into tangible, usable energy, at least as far as mundane technology goes. Those same formulas could also help me convert Ganon's malice into energy that can be safely used by technology I create!

Such a scheme could even result in the proliferation of technology from, say, Arcadia that can be used here in Hyrule. Or the opposite; sheikah technology that could be used back on Arcadia, even without something like me creating the stuff using nanites.

The idea of the humans of Arcadia having real, fully working sheikah slates and the infrastructure needed to fully use those things to their maximum potential is very intriguing. A sheikah slate can allow, among other things, instantaneous teleportation across a planet if the proper infrastructure is in place.

As I consider what to do I mentally call up my skill trees, and glance at a new one that I know is only available to me because of my choice to get the [Demonic] origin. It is a skill tree for archdemons, and on

it is a list of "Power Sources". "Power Sources" are mighty things that direct actual power towards three of the five types of ascendants! A few of power sources work regardless of which of the three types of ascendants are using them, such as worship, but every type of ascendant has a few unique power sources as well.

One of the power sources which works across all three of the types of ascendants who benefit from power sources is "Worship". I know that when I eventually purchase the power source I'll be maximizing the impact of worship, particularly how much raw energy even the slightest feelings of awe towards me generate. That'd make me creating cults well and truly worth it, since they'd be creating energy for me, directing power my way, and even serve as powerful essence farms.

I quickly regain my focus after that, and I smile at the bokoblins. There is one more way they could serve me that'd be worth it. I begin to send energy towards the [Existential Inducer] and prepare to begin being more efficient.

I am a sanguinarch. I am, in fact, the very first sanguinarch. Being a sanguinarch is incredible, and the powers that come with being a member of such an incredible type of ascendant are amazing but being a member of only a single type of ascendant invariably comes with weaknesses. A sanguinarch's weakness is that, unless they are willing to expend essence, they are often dependent on existing resources, or even a willingness to import their resources, to really get started when it comes to expanding their dominion.

If I were just a sanguinarch it'd be tough for me to begin making the Great Plateau a part of my dominion. The king of Hyrule's spirit is the only hylian here, and while I could certainly turn the bokoblins who call this place home into vampires, such a process would make turning this place into the newest patch of dominion I possess a bit slow. Fortunately, my nature as an infant, multi-type ascendant gives me a way to address all of that.

By using the awesome powers of my transystems I can overcome the weaknesses that come with being a sanguinarch. I can create life, without expending essence! The power to create life, without expending small fortunes of essence every time someone does it, is incredible for a sanguinarch. It means that we can create our own sources of essence without expending essence in the process. That is highly synergistic with the powers of almost any other ascendant, at least according to what I've learned from the Player's Handbook over the course of the last few days.

There is an awesome explosion of light that begins inside of me and spreads outward for a few meters in every direction as I power the [Existential Inducer] and watch as the thing creates a pair of adult hylians clad in traveler's clothing right in front of me. The process really is almost instantaneous and as soon as the blinding light dissipates my bokoblins see the pair of people and roar at them.

The two people gasp when the orc-like creatures prepare to attack, but I raise a hand and absorb malice from my minions. The dark energy flows out of them and begins to fly towards me, even as the bokoblins begin to regain what small senses of self they possessed or would possess if not for the power of the calamity. As the dark energy that had corrupted them is forced from their bodies, blue energy swiftly replaces it as the creatures realize, to the extent that they can, what I have just done.

The meter from earlier appears again and more of it fills up, but the amount is still hilariously small. I should not expect to earn whatever powers [Healer] affords me anytime soon…

"And with this… We begin to rebuild Hyrule." I mutter, even as I keep my eyes on the two hylians, one man and one woman, who stand before me. They gaze at me, awe filling their eyes as they realize they are in the presence of their creator and as they fall victim to my predatory beauty.

I quietly transform the two elfin creatures into vampires, causing both to fall to their knees as power courses through them and remakes their newly made bodies. I smile at the two of them, excitedly, as I feel them begin to worship me as well, causing blue energy to suffuse them and flow into the air around the pair.

I continue to drain the bokoblins of malice until they are completely free of the stuff. This causes me to sense the appearance of a new quest in the part of my mind that is connected to my Player's Handbook. I mentally glance at it, and chuckle as I read the thing.

"Conquering Corruption" is the name given to the journey that I can now go on. It is all about making sense of malice, and it offers me awards that stem from an [Origin] entitled [Corruptive Dominance] that would allow me to make use of what I have just earned; a tiny, but regenerative and growable internal ocean of corruption keyed to me rather than Ganon. I can feel the capabilities of the corruption, which for now are not super impressive but will grow with every use of the stuff.

I can feel the ocean of corruption inside of me, bolstering me and yearning to be used. It is almost alive, and it has an energy all its own. It wants me to infect things with it, and I know that in some ways I have more freedom than even Ganon does with the stuff, as I can see that among other things I can do with the stuff is create seeds of it that continually pour the stuff into people without my active input. I can also tell that there is a lot to this strange font of energy, and that if I ever want to master it I'll need to methodically train.

"Alright… I suppose I ought to explain what has just happened to the two of you." I say, as I refocus and turn my attention to my newly created vampires. Their eyes widen as they hear me address them, and I give them a quick rundown like how I briefed the other vampires who serve me hours ago. I infect my nanites with my corruption, an easy task since the nanites are a part of me, and I feel the level of the ocean within me diminish a bit before it begins to regenerate on its own.

I silently make use of the fact that there are bokoblins who are in my personal presence to acquire some more essence. I effortlessly dominate the creatures, which causes them to begin to transmit essence towards me, before enthralling them which boosts the essence they will continually pour into me from now on.

A nanosecond later I begin to inflict waves of pleasure onto the orc-like creatures, and I drain them of their blood and souls, causing dark energy and red aerosol streams of blood to pour out of the bestial humanoids and into me. I do not kill the creatures, but I also don't stop draining them until they all pass out.

At the same time, I silently command my nanites to upgrade the two vampires, and I watch them become noticeably more beautiful and charismatic as my nanites touch and enhance them. When I am done briefing them I order them to go and hunt the bokoblins who call the plateau home, while infecting the vampires with seeds of corruption that will allow me to begin to permanently influence the creatures who call this place home. My vampires nod at me, and turn into mist before heading in the direction of the woods from which the first bokoblin I slew came.

"Okay… I guess now I can resume my journey?" I ask, mostly to myself, before I glance in the direction of the shrine. All that rests between the shrine and I now is a large, surprisingly deep pond filled with the decayed ruins of guardians. I silently clone myself, making use of [True Shifting] to begin to pursue multiple goals at once. At the same time, within seconds of beginning my journey I feel the familiar sensation of essence flowing into me.

The stuff sends pleasant tingles down my spine as it enters me, and I also feel memories of the bokoblins that my followers have begun to torment and maim. I also feel my corruption entering them and beginning to compete with Ganon's malice, a fight which my corruption loses almost immediately but that doesn't make the stuff vanish. Instead of vanishing my corruption is forced to stay still and not spread further through the bokoblins, for now, but the seeds have been planted and that's enough.

I can already feel my powers beginning to grab a hold of the plateau. It is not fast, I am nowhere near ready to do the rituals needed to make a place part of my dominion, but this is very decidedly a start and that matters.

While my main body, or at least my original one, heads towards the shrine, flying over the pond when I reach it, one of my clones gets to work on the decayed remains of several guardians. The wreckages of the things litter the pond and the small shore that surrounds it, and healing things is good for me.

It only takes a few moments for my clone to reach the remains of one mostly intact guardian. The thing is right outside of the pond, standing on the shore, and it is missing one of its metal legs. I watch my clone use magic to create a new limb for the creature and attach it to the guardian, before he begins to absorb the malice that infected the creature prior to its death. I let out a quiet laugh when I see that meter appear over my head again, though I notice that this time the fills a good deal more than it did before, which is both interesting and encouraging.

As soon as all the malice has been absorbed from the creature my clone takes command of nanites within himself and he orders them to resurrect the guardian. They surge over the mechanical marvel, while corrupting it with the sort of corruption I control, and begin to go into the creature. Right as I reach the shrine I am able to see the creature's legs begin to move, and I am able to watch its central unit, where its one eerie eye lies, begin to glow.

The creature is successfully coming back to life… And by replacing malice with my corruption we are safeguarding the thing against any further attempts by Ganon to reassert control over it. To well and truly eliminate the possibility of that happening, my clone places his hand on the guardian and transmits a fragment of our impossible mind into the thing, which will prevent a creature on Ganon's level from doing anything meaningful to it, unless it is as direct as destroying it in combat.

"Remarkable…" I mutter, even as I wrench my eyes away from the guardian and face the small building I have reached; the shrine I need to acquire "Treasures" from, if I want the paraglider. I am in front of a tiny building with a single door that takes the form of a long wall, and a pedestal right in front of the wall that glows with sheikah energy. I grab my slate and place it in front of the pedestal, familiar with this song and dance already.

"Sheikah slate authenticated. Preparing Oman Au shrine… Teleportation point, locked in" The all too familiar voice of sheikah technology's automated responses tells me.

I wait for a moment before the door slides into the walls of the building and I am able to see a tiny platform hidden behind the wall. I step onto it and it tells me to walk onto the middle of the platform. When I do the door shuts behind me, plunging me into darkness, right before the platform I am on begins to descend into the earth.

I am riding some sort of elevator, but as I grow familiar with the machinery around me, thanks to my transynth nature, I realize that this is a floating platform. It seems to be capable of rising and lowering freely, in defiance of gravity.

I am on the elevator, in complete darkness, for several seconds before the elevator enters a vast chamber illuminated by the same runes that power so much sheikah technology. Bright blue light illuminates a gigantic chamber, and as the elevator slows, I can see a distant, ancient figure seated on a plush cushion surrounded by some sort of forcefield. He is behind a sort of… maze of thick blue walls made of some sort of smooth, worked metal.

Curiously the whole place is the first place I've seen other than the shrine of resurrection without any malice in the air…

The chamber is eerily silent as well, and it seems like it hasn't been disturbed in a long time. When the elevator reaches the bottom of the chamber I step off of it and see a terminal like the one in the tower.

As soon as I step off of the platform I hear a strange voice whisper to me.

"To you who enters this shrine… I am Oman Au. In the name of the goddess Hylia, I offer you this trial." The voice tells me, which I immediately realize must belong to the figure at the other end of the chamber.

I also see two thick steel doors affixed to the floor that are distinctly unlike the rest of the floor. I approach the terminal and place my slate in it, which causes the thing to grab my slate and begin amalgamating more information.

Directly in front of me is a large wall that is clearly unclimbable for a mundane hylian. The wall is large, so large that it'd normally take magic to scale, but I know that I could do it with ease if I wanted to. Nevertheless, I can play along and see how things are meant to go.

I hear the soft sound of the drop of data dripping from the terminal and onto my slate, followed immediately by the sound of the slate being released. I grab the thing telekinetically and pull it to my hand before using telekinesis to lift one of the steel doors affixed to the floor and unceremoniously toss the thing away. This reveals a walkway hidden beneath the doors, which I promptly jump into.

I find myself looking at a walkway leading to a hallway, and to my right is a long pool, at the end of which is a ladder leading to the hallway I am being not-so-subtly encouraged to go to by the place's architecture. I walk towards and then down the hallway before finding myself in a large room where one part of the walls that define the chamber is made up of several thick stone blocks and one metal block, right in the middle of the comical idea for a puzzle.

I take out my slate and activate the "Magnesis" rune. The display on my sheikah technology changes to display the world in front of me and the metal box is highlighted, which makes it easier for me to tell what I can and can't use this rune on.

I tap the slate and I watch it fire a beam of magnetized energy at the block. When the block is touched by the energy, I feel the connection between my device and the block solidify, and I chuckle as I maneuver the slate away from the block, causing the block to move out from underneath some of the stone blocks, which causes the whole wall to fall apart.

Behind the thing is a small robot which is clearly some type of guardian but it's not infected by any malice! The tiny thing only has half the legs of the guardians I saw outside and begins to come to life as soon as I step towards it and the area behind it. The area behind the guardian consists of two platforms which rise above a shallow pool. One large slab of metal serves as a makeshift bridge connecting the platform the guardian is on with the first of the two other platforms.

I begin to walk towards the tiny guardian and I channel one of my major sanguine abilities. The power fills my voice before I speak, and when I open my mouth I can see the light coming from within it.

"Stop." I command, making use of the [Monstrous Command] power. The ability is simple, it allows me to command monsters and animals of all types. It is not as complex or as esoteric as [Absorption] or even [Empowerment]; a major sanguine ability that is itself a testament to my power and skill with essence.

The tiny robot does come to a stop, and I order some of my nanites to go and study the thing. They do so, curiously scanning each part of the machine and transmitting information to me. It takes them a few moments to provide me with a completed set of blueprints for what they identify as a "Guardian Scout".

At this point I inelegantly lift the guardian scout into the air and crush it with telekinesis, not needing to deal with the thing's nonsense. I sense a tiny amount of essence enter me in the wake of my decision to kill the creature and chuckle as its memories of being constructed in the truly distant past, before waiting here for millennia, fill my mind. I also gain the ability it had to fire lasers, which I can easily tell could be quite useful in the days to come.

I walk over the makeshift metal bridge, before casually using magnesis to slide the slab over to connect the second and third platforms. When that's done I find myself in front of a thick pair of metal doors and

I use magnesis once more to wrench them open. Behind the doors lies the ancient figure I saw earlier, sitting in the middle of what I can easily identify as some sort of life-preserving field of sheikah energy.

Up close I can tell that the figure is truly ancient. He must be at least a few centuries old, kept alive entirely through the powerful field he is seated in the middle of. I can see the blue energies of sheikah technology flowing into his truly decrepit body.

"Step forward, knight. Come and claim your reward." The figure whispers, his voice a soft and unremarkable thing. I step past the doors and into the final area of the shrine. The ancient corpse in the field has skin that has thinned virtually to the point of non-existence, and he wears veil over his head that has one of the runic symbols that adorn much sheikah technology.

"In the name of Hylia, I welcome you to my shrine oh young hero. I am Oman Au, the creator of this shrine and the trial contained within. It is my duty and my privilege to help those who seek to destroy Ganon." The figure begins, even as I wonder whether it is worth expending essence to gain a new, and unusual, ally here. I ignore the appearance of the "Healer" meter, indicating the successes of my clone as he heals and revives various guardians throughout the Great Plateau.

I walk over to the field preserving the man's life, and when he nods at my slate I lift it up and tap it on the field. I am surprised when the thing dissipates, but not unpleasantly so as the man begins to smile at me.

"I, and my kin, are humble monks that the goddess Hylia blessed with her sight. Throughout the world you will find other shrines, created and staffed by men like me. It is our sacred duty to help those who would safeguard the world against Ganon's wrath. I offer you this spirit orb as a sign that you have passed my trial." The figure explains, before a glowing purple ball of soulful energy bursts out of him and flies into me.

"And now, with my duty complete, I may pass on peacefully. May the goddess smile upon you." The man says, quietly. I elect to allow the figure to pass on, though internally I am a bit annoyed when his body seems to disintegrate completely moments after I acquire the orb. He becomes blue dust that is quickly blown away by what amounts to an unseen and unfelt breeze.

I chuckle when I am alone in the square chamber he resided in. The thing is plain, consisting of little more than four thick metal walls and the area containing the life preservation field. I allow my nanites to flow out of me and study the tech, even as I feel more essence coming into me from the bokoblins my minions are out there defeating. I sense more memories flowing into my mind and I turn around so that I can go and collect the remaining treasures.

For the next few hours, I methodically explore the plateau. My first destination is the Ja Baji shrine, where I would normally have gained access to the "Remote bomb" runes. Shortly thereafter I journey to the Owa Daim shrine where my slate could have gained a weakened version of the "Stasis" rune it currently possesses. The final shrine is located in the frozen peaks of the highest mountains of the plateau and it is named Ke Numut. Within it lies a terminal that contains the rune for "Cryonis". As soon as I collect it and leave the shrine, the king of Hyrule during its last days reappears, seemingly gliding down from a higher peak.

He tells me to meet him at the ruined cathedral, where he will give me the paraglider. He says he has a story to tell me, and then he departs, leaping off of the cliff where the Ke Numut shrine is located and gliding towards the distant cathedral. I follow him, visually, as he drifts towards the distant edifice. When he is out of sight I sigh.

I silently expend a small but not negligible amount of essence to emulate an ability I do not possess; the power to see the future. I elect to peer into the future to see divergent paths; namely how the world will look if I embark on this quest as Link and not as myself. When I do I see Hyrule struggling to rebuild. I see a world that takes decades to rebuild, rather than months, and where monsters continue to be problems and threats instead of friends.

In this version of the future I take much longer to get anywhere, and I don't get to reclaim the guardians as allies and protectors of the people of Hyrule, at least not for a long time. In this future Zelda weakens and while she doesn't die, she begins to hate her power.

There is another path. If I embrace who I am, instead of pretending to be who Link is, I can undo the harm that the Great Calamity did. If I am unapologetically myself I can protect the people of Hyrule. All it takes for me to defeat Calamity Ganon and to transform this place into my dominion is for me to be my true self.

I don't have to stand out here in the cold and pretend that this is some sort of unselfish action. Me claiming Hyrule as my dominion, placing it under my control, is something I want to do selfishly, but that doesn't mean I have to be a monster or that I have to sit by and ignore the hateful cruelty of Calamity Ganon or even become a needlessly wicked monster myself. I can choose to claim Hyrule for myself, and allow the king and princess to become immortal rulers of the place in my stead, ruling over a paradise as vampire monarchs…

It is not a hard choice for me to make. I morph into a swarm of nanites, a silhouette made of swirling nanorobots, and I begin to fly towards the ruined cathedral.

________________________________________________________________________________

The creature flies towards the cathedral at speeds that vastly exceed the speed of sound. Warren, now undisguised and in his "True form" as far as his transynth nature goes, quickly reaches the area where the king of Hyrule, King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule is waiting for him.

The king gasps when the odd silhouette appears atop the tiny tower that juts out of the ruins of the legendary temple. The silhouette does not bother shapeshifting again and begins to speak to the failed monarch.

"King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule… Allow me to introduce myself." The silhouette exclaims, triumphantly. The king visibly pales as he takes in the sight before him.

"I am Warren, an ascendant being from far beyond this universe. I have come here to save and claim Hyrule. I can undo the damage that the Great Calamity did to this land." The creature proclaims, not inaccurately. The king takes all of this in stride, and he focuses on one part of the creature's remarks as his eyes narrow in alarm.

"You wish to 'Claim' Hyrule?" The king asks, watching the creature carefully. The silhouette chuckles, darkly, in response to the man's query.

"Yes. I will reunify, rebuild, and protect Hyrule. And I will claim it. It will be mine, and you, your wife, and your daughter, will be among its rulers. Together we shall turn this place, this once ruined and shattered kingdom, into a paradise." Warren says, his voice softening when he speaks of Zelda's mother. King Rhoam's eyes widen when he hears the strange nightmare before him even mention the long-dead mother of Princess Zelda.

"Are you telling me you can bring her back?" The ghost asks, a second after the ascendant entity speaks. The silhouette does not respond with words, but does begin to glow as he expends more essence than he's ever spent to reach into the afterlife of this version of Hyrule. His dark power wraps around the woman's soul, resting in the peaceful divine realm of Hylia herself, and pulls her to Hyrule while washing her soul in the darkness of Warren's sanguinarch nature.

The woman abruptly reappears in front of King Rhoam, already dyed in the power and corruption of the deadly sanguinarch responsible for snatching her from Hylia. She is almost identical in appearance to Princess Zelda, though she looks considerably older, and she wears the simple robes of a peasant villager.

The figure appears in the same room as the king, and when she opens her eyes the man struggles to not weep openly at the sight of his wife, alive and well. Warren ignores the "Healer" meter that has just appeared in his mind's eye and fills far more than it has before, even though internally he is pleasantly surprised to see how much it filled.

"Daphne… Is it truly you?" King Rhoam eventually asks, uttering her name with awed reverence and deep love. The woman smiles at her husband and nods, causing Rhoam to fall to his knees.

"King Rhoam, your story is not finished. Well, not unless you want it to be. I know my mission. I know I am destined to fight against Calamity Ganon and slay him. I know of the four divine beasts, the champions, Link, and Zelda. But there is more to this story than all of that." The figure proclaims.

"Join me. Aid me in reuniting the different towns that dot Hyrule, and allow me to reunite your family. You can be with Zelda again. And Daphne can be with both of you. She can see the mature young woman her daughter has become, the heroine who has kept Calamity Ganon at bay for one hundred years." The creature says, his voice filled with emotion as he imagines the family reunified in the wake of the downfall of Calamity Ganon. King Rhoam is still for a moment, as he thinks about the impossible offer that is being made to him.

"My kingdom… My people… Both, alive and well, in a world without Ganon…" King Rhoam mutters, softly.

"And you, alive and well as well. All it takes is for you to pledge your allegiance to me. I will claim the Master Sword, and I will use it against Ganon. Together Zelda, the champions, and I will save the world." The ascendant creature promises. King Rhoam shuts his eyes and steels his will.

"Warren, I have seen your power firsthand. A power that not even the Calamity possesses… The power to reach into Hylia's afterlife and pluck the souls of those who rest eternally from her embrace. What will you do if she asks what happened to Daphne?" The king asks, genuinely curiously. Warren's silhouetted form pauses as he considers the question.

"Hylia failed to protect Hyrule. Her acolytes did not successfully aid Zelda in awakening her powers. Her people were slaughtered in the thousands. It took Zelda and Link sacrificing everything for Hyrule to have even the slimmest chance at survival. I will do what she could not, and I will protect everyone. I will free monsters from the grip of Ganon's malice, I will restore the guardians and allow them to do their duty, and I will rebuild Hyrule. I will even bring back those who died during the Calamity." The figure promises, his voice filling with power as he makes that pledge. Even Daphne's eyes widen as she hears this mythical stranger promise to protect Hyrule and to undo the damage done by Ganon's last great rampage.

"If Hylia asks me why I took Daphne from her, I will say it is because Daphne's story deserves better than the ending Hylia gave her. Daphne deserves to be with her family, to be alive, and to see Hyrule be the verdant paradise it was meant to be. I will give the followers of Hylia the story they deserve." Warren utters, powerfully. King Rhoam is quiet when he hears this, and tears begin to stream down his face.

"Warren… I pledge myself to you. If you can give my people, my family, and my home freedom and justice, I will support and serve you. Please resurrect me so that I may be with my wife, and so that together we can banish the Calamity and stop the apocalypse." The king says, causing Warren to smile even as essences begins to flow from the king and into the sanguinarch.

Warren expends another meaningful amount of essence, but as a result of that sacrifice his shadow jumps forward and slams into the ghost of the king. For a few moments the ghost shudders as he feels the power of the ascendant washing over him and remaking him. His ghostly presence fades away, but in exchange he regains long lost physicality and corporeality.

"I… I am actually coming back." He says, awe filling his voice as he realizes that Warren's powers defy belief. And as a result of the promise he made, Warren gains a distant new ally: Princess Zelda herself.

The alliance the ascendant and the king have made results in Warren well and truly joining the "Rebuild Hyrule" camp, which allows his transynth aura to wash over Zelda, and the sheikah loyalists situated in distant Kakariko Village, and this causes them to fill with unexpected, and mighty power.

At the top floor of Hyrule Castle's tallest tower stands the glowing princess herself, facing a strange and eldritch egg made of purple and pink pulsing energy. For the past century the princess has felt her strength waning as she has tirelessly stood watch over the egg, endlessly pouring her celestial power into it to prevent Ganon from making much, if any, headway as far as rebuilding his body goes. And for the past few decades she has felt her power leave her, even as it successfully held Ganon at bay. But now… Now the princess feels something changing within her.

A rush of energy and a tremendous surge of power enters her as she continues her vigilant watch over the egg. Her glowing body glows more intensely than ever before, and her power pours into the egg, Hylia's divine gifts becoming well and truly Zelda's own abilities as she unknowingly gains an ascendant backer. The triangle on the woman's hand glows brilliantly, and Zelda closes her eyes and smiles.

"Link…" She whispers, aware, somehow, that her brave knight is awake again. She thanks the wrong entity, thanking Hylia, as she feels the progress Ganon had managed to make as far as rebuilding his body be destroyed thanks to the tidal wave of holy energy she is pouring into him.

She opens her eyes and decides that the last chance she'll have to do something meaningful is here and now, and she recalls an ancient spell that she learned about while preparing to try and awaken her powers before the advent of the calamity. She focuses and uses her hands to weave together glowing sheikah symbols in the air in front of her. As she does she quietly asks for Link's help, and envisions him standing behind her, steadying her and allowing her to focus on completing the spell she is casting.

A strange, glowing triangle appears in front of the princess as she prays to the goddess who she wrongly thinks is saving her. The triangle is as big as she is, and it slowly moves towards the mighty and terrifying eldritch egg. It takes several minutes for it to reach the egg, but when it does an incredibly loud sound explodes out of the egg unleashing a sonic wave strong enough to blow Zelda back to the edge of the beautiful room, slamming her into a distant wall, even as the egg is well and truly sealed.

The triangle burns itself onto the egg, effectively entombing and paralyzing the mighty demon within. Calamity Ganon's final roar was loud enough to blow the princess back and, unbeknownst to her, damage her own sheikah slate, but it was not loud enough to harm her or disrupt her concentration. She gets up and hisses in pain but the look on her face is one of triumph. She can no longer feel a hurricane of activity within the demonic egg she has paralyzed.

"It's… It's done." She mutters, as she relaxes for the first time in a century and stops channeling her power. The triangle burned onto the egg does not dissipate or even shrink, and Zelda smiles. This time she feels a surge of excitement, as she realizes that she has somehow paralyzed Ganon, and can actually leave the castle. The spell is far from a permanent, or even particularly long, solution but it will be weeks before it needs to be recast. That gives her time, time to try and figure out how to help Link from the other side of the continent.

Distantly, Warren, Daphne, and Hyrule's last king, all watch as the purple miasma that has surrounded Hyrule Castle for decades visibly weakens, lessening in intensity, and even partially dissipates. Warren converts the king into a vampire, and chuckles as he pieces together parts of what has happened atop the castle.

"Alright… Princess Zelda has succeeded in weakening the Calamity. That means that we can begin to build a settlement here, and to slowly unify the villages beneath the Plateau. It will be your jobs to transform this place into parts of my dominion, so that I can protect the Temple and the Plateau. For New Hyrule." Warren explains, even as his clone begins to create life, the first citizens of the kingdom he is beginning to build; "New Hyrule".

For the next two days the newly formed faction, and kingdom, get to work establishing themselves. By the time Warren has been in Hyrule for two and a half days, he has managed to claim the entirety of the plateau as his dominion, and the place itself has been rebuilt and transformed.