Chapter 1: The Goddess's Last Resort

A low moan echoed through the stark infinity of Hylia's divine realm, vibrating against the white marble columns that held the void at bay. It wasn't the mournful cry of a creature, nor the wail of the wind, but a lament woven from the very fabric of a Goddess's being. For within that throne, shimmering into existence with a fading golden luminescence, resided the Goddess herself, a hollowed echo of her former majesty.

"Another failure…"

No celestial choruses accompanied her arrival, no angels danced in her wake. Only the vast, starless abyss mirrored her desolation. Only the echo of her own despair filled the room.

This was Hylia, the Goddess, partially materialised in her stark throne room - a colossal space with no walls, its gaze perpetually fixed on the endless dark abyss. White marble columns, stark against the void, surrounded the open space. The room in mention was gift from Din, the Goddess of Power. Though the origin of its design remained unknown, Hylia found solace in its unvarnished grandeur although she wasn't sure where Din had gotten the inspiration from.

Yet, her present form was far from majestic. Only a faint golden hue on the woman-shaped throne betrayed her presence, devoid of facial features she couldn't muster the power to manifest. Distress, however, etched itself upon her invisible form. An injury etched upon her invisible form, a pulsating scarlet orb upon her spectral throne, was more than a battle scar. It was a gaping maw devouring her divine essence, a cruel memento of the battle against Demise and his legion of demons.

With each stolen spark of power, the divine realm itself dimmed, its stark grandeur losing its brilliance. Hylia, once a vibrant tapestry of energy, was now a flickering candle in the darkness. Yet, her despair didn't cripple her. Her gaze, though invisible, remained fixed on the abyss, her mind a whirlwind of strategies and desperation.

She had tried everything to heal the wound, from channeling ancient Hylian rituals to forging pacts with forgotten deities. Each attempt bore the same bitter fruit. Resigned to her fate, she had retreated to this desolate dimension, a timeless void outside the flow of mortal days. Here, the erosion of her power slowed, but it was a mere reprieve. Her time, like sand in an hourglass, was slipping through her ethereal fingers.

This divine realm wasn't her creation so it would likely outlast her or at least she had hoped so. The inability to even properly materialise a testament to her fading strength.

None of this startled the Goddess, she had tried numerous ways to remedy this injury before she realised it was a fruitless endeavour and gave up. The Goddess was a proactive individual who prioritised her responsibilities and so why her eventual demise was regrettable she had to remain focused on how to keep the world from falling into ruins before her time was up.

Nevertheless, at the moment the Goddess was deep in thought at the presence of an unexpected 'issue' that had aroused. A wrinkle in the tapestry of time, a dissonance in the symphony of fate. In this realm where past, present, and future were a tangled knot, such occurrences were as rare as fallen stars. The last anomaly had been Demise's monstrous emergence from the earth's bowels, a harbinger of chaos that had nearly toppled her kingdom.

The reason this unexpected 'issue' had disturbed the Goddess so greatly was that she had just finished the preparations for her mortal reincarnation and the chosen hero for when Demise would eventually return and by doing so, she had constructed another branch of the future she was currently analysing. If an issue had aroused just after she had made her preparations, then the 'issue' had to be in direct relation to her preparations or so she had assumed.

This new problem ignited a flicker of despair in Hylia's dimming eyes. With a herculean effort, she peered into the future, millennia unfurling before her like a river rushing over cataracts. But the images that swam into view were distorted, fragmented, riddled with incomprehensible shadows. Ignoring them was unthinkable yet deciphering them with her dwindling power was equally perilous.

The Goddess sometimes had trouble differentiating the past, present and future as she resided everywhere in time almost simultaneously but even existing outside the confines of linear time, she knew to prioritise the past before the future. In other words she had to prioritise her preparations in the present after Demise's seal but before his return rather than something arising thousands of years into the future.

Dragons remained unforged, the trials of the Silent Realm untested, the Hero of Legend a blank slate yet to be inscribed. Every second wasted on this enigma brought her closer to the precipice, the moment where she would plunge into slumber without waking, leaving Hyrule prey to Demise's inevitable return.

Frustration gnawed at her, a cruel irony for a being who existed outside the constraints of time. Priorities clashed in her fading mind. The future writhed, demanding attention, while the present, her final preparations for Hyrule's defense, begged her to focus.

A cold dread settled in her core. The anomaly persisted, growing more insistent, more urgent. It held the key to something, she knew, but reaching for it meant neglecting her primary task – safeguarding Hyrule. Her hand instinctively rested on the pulsating darkness within her, the gnawing reminder of her fading power.

"How diligent I am," she whispered, her voice a mournful echo bouncing off the void. "Working until my very death, like a mortal burdened by fate."

But Hylia was no mortal. She was a Goddess, sworn to protect Hyrule. And for Hyrule, she would do the unthinkable. With a heavy heart, she weighed the costs, silencing the whispers of doubt. Banishing the anomaly from the fabric of time, she severed it from the natural order, an act of desperation she knew even the Golden Goddesses might condemn.

Guilt, icy and sharp, pierced her spectral form. The anomaly, now a writhing mass of pure potentiality, pulsed in her hand, a constant reminder of her transgression. Yet, she couldn't let the tremors of conscience paralyze her. Hyrule still stood, still breathed, and for its sake, she would gamble with the very fabric of time itself.

In the echoing silence of her eternal throne room, Hylia, the Goddess fading towards twilight, made her choice. For Hyrule, she would become the villain, the weaver of fate's most intricate snare. For Hyrule, she would gamble with the future, even if it meant forever staining her celestial soul.

This was not the end. It was merely the beginning of Hylia's last, desperate gamble.