Polar Day And Polar Night

Above the deathly still ice plains of the Permafrost Wastes, the pale sky hung like frozen sheet lead. Chenxiao, holding the Terminus Blade, gazed through the polluted clouds, his vision sheathed in pale flame, locked unerringly on the direction of the Domain of Light. That gaze was cold, focused, carrying an absolute will to remake order, and... a scrutinizing hunger to shroud the very concept of "Light" itself.

"Order... requires... remaking... Light... also... requires... shrouding..."

The icy words did not dissipate in the dead air; instead, they struck like stones cast into still water, triggering deeper ripples of law.

*Hmmmm——!*

Beneath his feet, the obsidian ice instantly sprouted countless blazing white veins of light, like activated nerves, rapidly extending, piercing every shrouded corner of the Permafrost Wastes! The entire land, this newborn silent necropolis, abruptly awoke, becoming an extension of his will!

Almost simultaneously, the very patch of polluted cloud layer pierced by Chenxiao's gaze was violently torn asunder!

Not by explosion, not by storm, but by pure light! Sacred, blazing, bearing an indomitable will to purify!

A colossal beam of light, over a hundred meters in diameter, pierced the heavens like a spear of divine retribution! It descended with the overwhelming might to incinerate filth and cleanse all creation! Its core was a purity so intense it was nearly blinding gold-white, its edges flowing with liquid-golden, scorching flame! Where it passed, the sulfurous fumes and violet lightning clouds, frozen and shrouded by Chenxiao's Terminus power, vaporized and vanished like vanquished foes! Even the jagged metal spires on the ice plain below, brushed by the beam's periphery, cried out with a "sssssss" as their obsidian ice sheaths rapidly melted, glowed red, and softened!

The target of the beam was Chenxiao!

And the "tainted" land beneath him, reeking of deathly stillness and frigid power!

Before the beam struck, its terrifying heat and pure purifying will arrived! The air around Chenxiao's cryosteel-armored form warped and shrieked under the scorching assault! The deep obsidian ice beneath his feet even began to emit thin wisps of sulfurous, pale vapor—the Terminus power composing the ice was being forcibly evaporated!

"Foul construct! Defiled ice-wraith! In the name of Xi Yao's Holy Light, upon you... FINAL PURIFICATION!"

A voice, majestic, thunderous, filled with sacred wrath, boomed from the direction of the Domain of Light like the tolling of ten thousand bells, echoing across the entire Permafrost Wastes! The power and stature of its owner far surpassed the Tribunal elders who once hunted Lu Chen!

Within the beam's core, twelve figures clad in radiant platinum-white holy armor, wielding greatswords or lances ablaze with sacred flame, were faintly visible! They stood in a ring formation, channeling all their power towards the center—where a figure hovered. He wore no heavy armor, only simple white robes etched with sacred sigils that shimmered with power. His face was veiled by a soft yet impervious radiance, save for his eyes—twin orbs of molten gold, like concentrated suns, piercing the distance to lock coldly onto Chenxiao!

A Sanctifier of the Light Domain! One of the highest arbiters and wielders of the Domain's purifying power—Antoine!

His raised right hand held aloft a rotating holy sigil, its core burning with a point of eternal golden flame—the [Everflame Sigil]! This devastating beam of purification was precisely what this sigil channeled, gathering the might of twelve high-ranking Paladins! Its power could vaporize a mountain range in an instant, cleanse a deeply corrupted land!

Facing this world-obliterating purifying light, Chenxiao's featureless ice-mask remained utterly still. The twin points of pale flame in his eye sockets flickered once.

No evasion. No guard.

He simply raised his empty left hand, fingers splayed, palm facing the oncoming beam of dissolution!

In his palm, the manifestation of Terminus Shroud's basic power—the "Permafrost Aurora"—suddenly blazed forth!

No longer a weak flame, it transformed into a deep, swirling vortex of pale light! At its center lay the diamond-shaped, deep-blue crystalline core, pulsing with blazing white veins! An invisible force field of all-encompassing Stasis instantly expanded from the vortex!

*BOOOOOOM——!!!*

The purifying beam slammed into the pale vortex in Chenxiao's palm!

The cataclysmic explosion one might expect did not occur.

Time itself seemed forcibly stretched and congealed at the point of contact.

The terrifying torrent of light-flame, capable of melting adamantium, struck the pale vortex as if hitting an intangible yet utterly frigid wall of sighs! The blazing light-flame, the violent purifying will, visibly slowed under the overlay of the Law of Stasis! The front of the beam, its purest, most violent gold-white core, seemed mired in viscous cryonic sludge, its advance slowed a hundredfold!

"Sssss... Crrrrkkk..."

The piercing shriek of energy being forcibly frozen and annihilated rang out!

The pale vortex in Chenxiao's palm whirled madly! The Devour law was pushed to its limit! The purifying light-flame, stalled by Stasis, was torn apart, shredded by the leaping pale Terminus Flame at the vortex's edge like gold fed into a grinder! The sacred energy particles composing the light-flame, upon contact with the Terminus Flame, had their attributes of "purification," "scorching heat," and "order" forcibly stripped, *shrouded*, assimilated!

The gold-white light, mangled by the vortex, rapidly shed its sacred radiance, stained with deathly pallor! The decomposed energy didn't dissipate; it transformed into a frigid, pure torrent of order, ceaselessly devoured by the vortex, channeled into the obsidian cryosteel form of Chenxiao!

The blazing white veins upon his dark armor suddenly flared brighter, denser! As if nourished by potent sustenance!

"What?!" Within the beam's core, Sanctifier Antoine's face, veiled in holy light, registered unconcealed shock for the first time! He felt the colossal Holy Light channeled by the [Everflame Sigil]—enough to cleanse a lesser plane—was being... devoured! Decomposed, shrouded, absorbed by a power that was cold, still, and carried the ultimate will of negation!

This was no mere frost! Frost could freeze, not erase the sacred essence of Holy Light so utterly!

"Sacrilege! Utter sacrilege against the Holy Light!" Antoine's golden eyes blazed with unprecedented fury and a sliver of... unthinkable fear! "Judgment Array! Holy Light Torrent! Maximum output! Purge this heretic!"

The twelve high-ranking Paladins roared in unison, burning their life essence, pouring every ounce of Holy Light into the beam! The sacred flame greatswords and lances encircling Antoine blazed like twelve miniature suns!

*KRAKOOM!!!*

Empowered, the purifying beam surged with renewed fury! Its gold-white core instantly swelled, the liquid-gold flames at its edges boiling and roaring, seeking to overwhelm the bizarre pale vortex with sheer torrential force, to vaporize Chenxiao and his foul land utterly!

Chenxiao's armored arm, under the sudden increased pressure, dipped slightly. The pale vortex in his palm emitted a strained hum, its rotation seeming to falter a fraction.

Yet, the "gaze" formed by his twin points of pale flame remained cold as ten-thousand-year ice.

"Light... tainted..."

An utterly emotionless thought, like a terminus decree.

The Terminus Blade clenched in his right hand slowly rose! Its tip pointed towards the roaring gold-white core of the light beam!

*Hmmmm——!!!*

The blazing white veins coursing along the blade erupted in blinding pallor! A purer, more domineering will of Shroud than that in the vortex coalesced at its point!

No earth-shattering technique name.

Just a simple thrust!

A beam of hyper-condensed pale light, fine as a hair, shot from the Terminus Blade's tip! It ignored spatial distance, seeming to exist at its target point from the moment of its birth, piercing instantly into the very heart of the purifying beam—the point of most concentrated energy, most violent will, guided by the [Everflame Sigil]—the gold-white light-core!

Hsss——!!!

Like white-hot iron plunged into snow!

No explosion.

Only Shroud.

The condensed pale beam embodied the core law of "Terminus Shroud"—the ultimate negation and shrouding of all states of existence! The moment it pierced the Holy Light core, the tyrannical Law of Stasis forcibly froze the core's frenetic energy flow! The Incinerate law began disintegrating the structure of the Holy Light particles at the most microscopic level! And the Devour law greedily sucked at the decomposing sacred essence!

The gold-white core, centered on the point pierced by the blade, rapidly stained with a layer of deathly pallor! This pallor spread like the deadliest plague, ignoring the Holy Light's resistance, ignoring Antoine's mix of shock and rage, madly spreading outward, shrouding!

"NO! My Sigil!!" Antoine shrieked in agony! He felt his connection to the [Everflame Sigil] being forcibly severed, shrouded! The eternal golden flame within the Sigil, under the pale beam's erosion, dimmed rapidly, flickering as if about to snuff out!

The twelve Paladins encircling him were thunderstruck! Their energy link to the beam was violently severed by the bizarre pale shroud; the backlash instantly cracked their holy armor, sending them plummeting like broken puppets from the beam's edge, spewing blood that burned with golden flame!

The purifying beam, the symbol of the Light Domain's supreme authority and cleansing might, now resembled clear water injected with ink, vast swathes rapidly polluted, shrouded by deathly pallor! Its form began to warp, to disintegrate!

"This... is not ice... it's... negation..." Antoine stared at the Sigil in his hand, its core flame now pale, feeble, seemingly about to freeze. He felt his own Holy Light essence within being eroded, shrouded by the omnipresent icy will. A chill unlike any before, emanating from the depths of his soul, utterly drowned him.

Chenxiao's silhouette, framed by the collapsing, pale-shrouded beam, seemed taller, colder. He slowly withdrew the thrust Terminus Blade.

His left hand, sheathed in pale flame, pressed down with an open palm towards the disintegrating beam and the falling Paladins.

"Shroud."

*Hmm!*

Centered on him, the liquid membrane of pale Terminus Flame spread once more like spilled mercury! This time, it did not merely cover the earth; it flowed upwards! Towards the sky! Towards those falling figures radiating their last vestiges of Holy Light!

The Paladins' holy shields snuffed out the instant they touched the membrane, their platinum-white armor crumbling like sandcastles, overlaid with obsidian ice. Their expressions of terror, their burning life-flames, were frozen in place by absolute Stasis, ultimately transforming into contorted black ice sculptures veined with pale patterns. They crashed heavily onto the ice plain below with sickening thuds and cracks.

Antoine tried to detonate the [Everflame Sigil]'s last power in a suicidal counterattack, but the pale flame at its core merely flickered weakly before solidifying and extinguishing. The Terminus Flame membrane wrapped around him, gentle yet cruel.

The last thing he saw was Chenxiao's twin points of cold pale flame, piercing the encroaching membrane, searing into the core of his consciousness.

No anger. No hatred. Only the absolute, remorseless cold of one remaking order, gazing down upon dust.

The next instant, eternal Stasis shrouded all his senses.

Sanctifier Antoine became an ice sculpture, frozen in an attitude of shock and despair, suspended beneath the pale sky—a new, frigid tombstone adorning the heavens above this shrouded silent necropolis.

The shroud membrane continued its upward flow, gently smoothing over, shrouding the torn hole in the clouds. The polluted sky returned to a uniform, deathly still, pale-glowing crystalline lid.

Chenxiao hovered above the ice plain, slowly lowering the Terminus Blade. Having absorbed the vast sacred essence of the purifying beam, twelve high-ranking Paladins, and a Sanctifier, the blazing veins within his obsidian crystalline core pulsed brighter, like magma flowing beneath ice. The contours of his armor seemed denser, deeper, radiating suffocating pressure.

He looked once more towards the Domain of Light. This time, his gaze seemed to pierce not just physical distance, but some barrier of law.

In the direction of the Light Domain, deep within that land bathed in sacred radiance, ancient existences, slumbering for eons, seemed stirred by the anomalous, all-shrouding Stasis of the Permafrost Wastes and the devouring cold will that consumed Holy Light.

Several vast, ancient wills, filled with shock and scrutiny, like slumbering dragons opening their eyes, spanned the endless void, gazing upon this pale-shrouded waste.

Chenxiao's twin points of pale flame met the ancient stares from the depths of the Light Domain with icy calm.

Upon the edge of the Terminus Blade, a point of pale flame ignited soundlessly.

The Shroud had only just begun.