Polar Day And Polar Night

The stillness left in the wake of the Light Domain's receding will was heavier than the Shroud itself. The suspended black ice sculptures, the fissured plain, and the half-kneeling figure at its center formed a tableau like an altar to the apocalypse. The twin points of pale flame in Chenxiao's eye sockets flickered violently, each pulse straining the hairline fractures stubbornly etched across his armor. Within him, the surging torrent of power—a fusion of Terminus energy and the freshly subdued, assimilated Sacred Essence—raged like a dragon forcibly tamed, thrashing against the obsidian cryosteel channels of his form. Each impact elicited faint, ominous *cracks* from deep within the glacial structure.

"Primordial... Radiance..." Icy shards of thought tumbled through Chenxiao's core consciousness. That ancient hum had delivered not physical impact, but a crushing, declarative blow on the level of law. It was a searing brand, deeply etched onto the foundation of the Terminus Shroud, bringing a scorching pain to his very existence... and a warning.

The pale membrane of Shroud flowed soundlessly, like the most patient artisan, repairing the battle scars on the ice plain. Shattered ice smoothed over, covered by darker, denser layers. The ice sculptures of Antoine and his Paladins were gently enveloped, sinking until they merged seamlessly with the plain, leaving only subtle mounds veined with pale light as their tombstones.

Chenxiao slowly rose to his full height. The Terminus Blade slid from the ice, pulling free a cascade of fine, pale-flame-licked shards. His head, covered by the featureless ice mask, turned. The twin pale flames of his "gaze" did not return to the Light Domain, but pierced downward, through the profound ice layers, targeting the darker, fouler root of the Permafrost Wastes—the Source Flow core, now shrouded and stilled.

That was his Nest. His source of power. His anchor.

Soundlessly, the dark figure sheathed in pale flame sank into the ice like mercury. The ice parted, covered, and sealed before him, leaving no trace.

*Source Flow Core, Crystalline Hall.*

Grand. Deadly still. Pale crystalline totems supported an obsidian vault. The mirror-smooth ice floor reflected the pale light-veins flowing overhead, creating a cold, symmetrical, eternal prison. Deep within the hall, the throne of obsidian cryosteel stood silent. Upon it, Tang Xiao's ice sculpture—hands resting on the greatsword pommel, face obscured by a smooth ice mask, twin points of faint yet unwavering pale flame in its eye sockets—pulsed like the hall's heart, radiating frigid, unyielding order.

Chenxiao's form coalesced silently at the hall's center. He did not approach the throne, merely hovered, the pale flames of his gaze fixed upon the sculpture.

"Ice... bone..." An icy thought resonated through the hall, not sound, but a vibration of law.

*Hmmmm——!*

The pale flames in the sculpture's eye sockets flared! A wave of "Stasis" power, far purer and denser than Chenxiao's current state, emanated from the figure like an invisible glacial pulse, instantly sweeping through the entire hall!

This power brushed gently over Chenxiao's form. The hairline fractures in his armor, touched by this ultimate cold born of Tang Xiao's core will, were filled and sealed as if by the most precise ice crystals, vanishing instantly. The ravening, incompletely tamed energy torrent within him, soothed by this absolute order and stasis, calmed like magma injected with ten-thousand-year ice. Its turbulence subsided, its flow becoming heavy, ordered, sinking deeper into the obsidian cryosteel of his being.

Chenxiao lowered the Terminus Blade slightly. The "Stasis Resonance" from Tang Xiao's sculpture had temporarily soothed the law-burn inflicted by the Primordial Radiance, stabilizing his nascent foundation. He needed to digest. To understand. To convert all that he had devoured into part of the Shroud.

He descended slowly onto the mirror-smooth ice. The moment his cryosteel-clad foot touched the surface, a faint ripple of pale light spread soundlessly outward.

Consciousness plunged into the core.

This time, he did not passively endure the assault of memory fragments. He actively *shrouded* them.

His "gaze" pierced the layer of deep-blue ice veined with pale flame that covered Lu Chen's constellation of memories, landing deep within the frozen "amber"—the uncontrolled pale flame on Xi Yao City's training ground; the horrifying sight of Adrien's half-body charring instantly; the leaden, despairing sky during the Tribunal elders' icy sentencing... Lu Chen's fury, shame, the agony of exile, frozen yet still scalding.

"Light... tainted..." Chenxiao's icy will probed like a scalpel into these frozen emotions. He did not *feel* Lu Chen's pain; he dissected it. He analyzed the violent "Incinerate" will within the uncontrolled Holy Flame, the doubt and desire to overturn "order" itself born from the Light Domain's betrayal. These "impurities," deemed filth and loss of control by the Light Domain, became, under Chenxiao's Shrouding perspective... *nutrients* to understand the Light's weaknesses and strengthen his own "Incinerate" and "Devour" laws.

His will flowed over Tang Xiao's memory constellation. The protective resolve amidst Emberstone Keep's snowstorm; the despair as geothermic hellfire consumed everything; the resolve to become a living prison at the magma fissure's edge; the icy scrutiny freezing light-flame on the Permafrost Wastes... and the soul-deep, icy numbness and destructive urge as the etching spread. These memory shards were shrouded by denser Terminus Flame; their core "Stasis" and "Protection" obsessions were absorbed, assimilated more deeply by Chenxiao.

Lu Chen's ravenous Devour and desire for upheaval. Tang Xiao's ultimate Stasis and destructive guardianship. Within the frigid forge of the Terminus Shroud, they were hammered, quenched, fused. Chenxiao's consciousness was a cold observer, a greedy alchemist, stripping away impurities, distilling the essence of their agony, will, and power origins, feeding it into his deep-blue crystalline core.

Within that core, the blazing white light-veins subtly shifted in hue. Within the white incandescence, a thread of soul-freezing, icy blue emerged, alongside a strand of world-consuming, violent pale. The core's pulse grew heavier, more potent. Each beat caused the light-veins across his armor to flicker, radiating a stronger Shroud field.

Just as Chenxiao's consciousness immersed itself in this cold "digestion" and "evolution"—

*Hmmmm... ...!*

A completely different kind of "hum" resonated unexpectedly from the profoundest depths of the Source Flow core!

This hum came not from the Light Domain, nor was it the voice of law. It was low, viscous, carrying the groan of matter forcibly twisted, of space slowly tearing! It emanated from the very depths of the festering wound Chenxiao had shrouded and sealed within the Source Flow core! From the deeper layer of chaotic origin polluted by the "Festering Eye" for untold ages!

The pale flames in Chenxiao's eye sockets snapped into focus! The "Stasis" field covering the entire crystalline hall rippled uncontrollably for the first time!

"Ssss... Crrrkkk... Rrrippp..."

A sound like the simultaneous grinding of billions of shards of glass rose from the hall's floor, walls, and vault! Countless fine, spiderweb-thin cracks of purest black appeared without warning across the surfaces of the obsidian cryosteel composing the hall! No energy leaked from these cracks, yet they exuded a suffocating aura of pure "Void" and "Annihilation"!

These were not physical fractures! They were cracks in the very *law* composing the "Stasis" space, being eroded and unraveled from within by some force!

The pale flame in the sculpture's eye sockets atop the throne jerked violently! A surge of potent Stasis power tried to mend the cracks, but they spread faster than they could be healed! The black lines crawled like living things, scaling the walls, intertwining madly!

Chenxiao snapped his head up. The twin pale flames pierced the hall's vault, targeting the location of the shrouded festering wound—where there should have been only smooth, pale-veined obsidian ice.

There, at the center of that ice, a tiny, rotating hole of absolute blackness was silently expanding!

At its edges, the pale light-veins covering the surface were being forcibly "erased" by an indescribable force! Not burned, not frozen, but the most complete, *existential* negation! Where the pale veins touched the hole's edge, they vanished like pencil marks erased by rubber, soundlessly, leaving no energy residue!

"Abyssal... Corrosion..." A cold, unfamiliar term surfaced in Chenxiao's consciousness by instinct. Not the language of the Light Domain, nor any he knew. It was a concept... of ultimate void... dredged from the deepest chaotic origins of the Source Flow!

That rotating black hole was the manifestation of "Abyssal Corrosion"! It was the backlash from the deeper chaos and void energies accumulated within the Source Flow core, suppressed for so long by the "Festering Eye" and then forcibly Shrouded and Stilled by Chenxiao! It represented no longer filthy chaos, but the end of all things—Absolute Void!

The black hole rotated, expanded. Where it passed, the walls, floor, even the very space of the crystalline hall was soundlessly "erased"! Left behind was pure, absolute void—devoid even of darkness! The Terminus power covering the area seemed utterly impotent before the "Abyssal Corrosion"! Stasis could not freeze "Nothing." Incinerate could not burn "Nothing." Devour could not consume "Nothing"!

"Hsss... Grr..." Tang Xiao's sculpture emitted a pained "moan." The pale flame in its eye sockets dimmed rapidly. Fine black cracks began to spiderweb across its obsidian cryosteel form! As the power anchor, it bore the brunt of the "Abyssal Corrosion's" erosion of the foundational law!

Chenxiao's cryosteel-clad fist clenched the Terminus Blade! The light-veins along its length erupted in blinding pallor! Without hesitation, his form became a streak of pale light tearing through space, charging headlong towards the madly expanding black hole in the vault!

Shroud must cover! Stasis, Incinerate, Devour... The laws of Terminus Shroud must find a way to oppose this "Nothing"!

Yet, just as his blade's edge neared the swirling black periphery—

*Ssss!*

A soft sound.

The tip of Chenxiao's blade, sheathed in pale Terminus Flame, vanished the instant it touched the edge of the black hole. Not just the metal, but the concentrated power it carried... winked out of existence like a stone dropped into the void!

No energy clash! No law against law! Only the purest, existential annihilation!

The twin pale flames in Chenxiao's eye sockets flared—for the first time, violently, uncontrollably. An icy alarm, born from the depths of his existence, seized him like the gaze of the Abyss.