After Link recovered from the scrutiny of that endless darkness, he immediately turned his attention to another matter that troubled him.
At the edge of the universe lay that planet inhabited by silicon-based life, beyond the influence of the mind field.
Before, though it had been rife with savage, bloody warfare, it had at least brimmed with "vitality."
Now, when Link's will descended there once more, all he "saw" was utter stillness.
Absolute, total stillness.
The planet had stopped rotating.
Like a glass marble carelessly discarded in the universe, it hung motionless.
Every silicon-based life-form on the planet, from mountain-sized rock beasts to shimmering energy beings in crystal caverns, had frozen in place, preserving the poses they had held a second earlier.
There was no death, no destruction. They had simply... stopped.
It was as though an invisible hand had pressed the planet's pause button.
What chilled Link even more was that this "silence" was spreading toward the surrounding galaxies in a way that exceeded the speed of light—and even his understanding of spatial law.
A star stopped burning, its light and heat frozen forever.
A nebula ceased to flow, its brilliant colors congealing into a motionless oil painting.
An enormous star in the midst of a supernova explosion had its destructive energy storm paused forever at the very instant it erupted.
This was neither an invasion nor a war.
It was a form of higher-dimensional "cleansing" Link had never witnessed before.
A silent "plague."
"What exactly happened?"
Fighting through the weakness brought on by wielding the Infinity Stones, Link concentrated the Time Stone's power in his eyes.
He would trace time backward and see the moment before this silence descended.
Green light flashed, and the river of time flowed backward before him.
Soon, he found the source.
Before the