Polar Day And Polar Night

*Hsss!*

That soft sound, like an ice crystal falling into the absolute zero void, pierced the deathly stillness of the Crystal Hall. The tip of Chenxiao's Terminus Blade vanished the instant it touched the edge of the black hole. Not broken, not melted, but utterly *erased* from existence, as if it had never been. The break was unnaturally smooth—no energy leakage, no ripple of law—only a terrifying, absolute "nothingness" that defied even the concept of void.

The twin pale flames in Chenxiao's eye sockets flickered wildly! Not fear, but an icy alarm born of his foundational existence being shaken, like an intangible ice spike piercing his consciousness-core. The obsidian cryosteel composing his form emitted faint, metallic shrieks as if nearing catastrophic failure. The erasure power of the Void Abyss was spreading along the invisible "contact" point of the broken blade, reaching towards him!

"Retreat!"

An icy, resolute will, stamped with Tang Xiao's essence, exploded within Chenxiao's mind!

Instinct took over. Chenxiao's form, sheathed in pale Terminus Flame, exploded backward! His speed left a lingering pale afterimage in his wake!

The instant he moved—

*Hmmmm...!*

An invisible wave of erasure, like a scythe of death, silently swept through the space he had just occupied! That patch of space, along with the obsidian ice covering it, vanished as if wiped away by an eraser, leaving behind a perfectly smooth, meter-wide sphere of absolute void! Even space itself was erased!

Chenxiao re-coalesced scores of meters away, broken blade lowered. His featureless ice-masked "face" turned fractionally towards the throne.

It was Tang Xiao's effigy! Its will had forcibly intervened at the critical moment!

But the cost was immense.

*Crack... Krrk... Scree...*

Hideous fracturing sounds came from the throne! Tang Xiao's effigy, hands gripping its sword hilt, and the armored shoulders connected to its arms, were now spider-webbed with rapidly spreading black cracks! The obsidian cryosteel composing it was losing its luster, turning ashen, brittle! The twin points of weak yet constant pale flame in its eye sockets now flickered like guttering candles in a gale, flaring and dimming wildly, threatening to snuff out at any moment!

The erosion of the Void Abyss upon the foundational laws, triggered by the effigy's forceful intervention to save Chenxiao, had instantly intensified! As the "Anchor" of the entire Source Flow core's Stasis field, it bore the brunt of the erasure power's backlash!

"Anchor... point..." Chenxiao's icy will grasped the crux instantly. This effigy, forged from Tang Xiao's final remains and will, was not merely a symbol. It was the bedrock of the laws governing his Shroud and Stasis over this Source Flow core space! The materialized core of Terminus Shroud power here! If this "Anchor" was completely eroded and erased by the Void Abyss, the entire Crystal Hall, even the entire shrouded and stilled Source Flow core space, would lose its support and be instantly devoured by the Void Abyss, reduced to absolute nothingness!

The rotating black hole did not pause its expansion with Chenxiao's retreat. Like an ink drop in clear water, it silently bled across the smooth crystalline dome of the hall. Its diameter now exceeded ten meters! At its edges, the pale light-veins covering it were continuously "erased," the obsidian ice walls melting away soundlessly. Within the hole, the swirling blackness was not darkness, but an absolute erasure field where even the concept of "void" was redundant. Its aura made the hall's very **Stasis** law groan and warp.

Chenxiao's ice-gauntleted hand clenched the broken blade's hilt until it groaned. At the fracture point, pale Terminus Flame leapt and stretched futilely, trying to reform the blade, but any nascent flame nearing the erasure field's edge simply dissipated and vanished. Stasis could not freeze "nothing." Incinerate could not burn "nothing." Devour could not consume "nothing"... The three core laws of Terminus Shroud failed utterly before this ultimate Void Abyss!

The fracturing sounds from the throne intensified. Large chunks of obsidian cryosteel composing Tang Xiao's torso sloughed off, erasing into fine black dust. The pale flames in its eye sockets were now faint sparks, guttering on the brink of extinction.

Chenxiao's icy intellect raced. Shroud. Analyze. Simulate. Lu Chen's ravenous devouring instinct and Tang Xiao's ultimate mastery of ice and order were pushed to their limits by the mortal peril.

What *was* the Void Abyss? The manifestation of the Source Flow core's deepest chaos and void? A mutation born from the extreme pressure of Terminus Shroud upon the remnants of the destroyed Festering Eye? Or... something deeper, older, lurking within the Source Flow's chaotic origin all along?

Law-based resistance was futile. Physical assault was suicide.

Then... the Anchor?

Chenxiao's gaze snapped to the crumbling Tang Xiao effigy! It wasn't just the spatial anchor; it was the anchor for *his* power, *his* existence here! The sole tether binding him to this shrouded, stilled space!

An idea both utterly frigid and utterly insane ignited in his consciousness like a glacial star rising from the abyss.

Since the Void Abyss was devouring the Anchor...

Then let the Anchor become the bait! The trap to devour the Void Abyss!

"Ice-Bone... Undying..."

Chenxiao's icy will, like a final command, was imprinted directly onto the core of Tang Xiao's effigy, poised on the throne at the edge of total dissolution!

*Hmmmm——!*

The two dying pale sparks in the effigy's eye sockets erupted with a death-flare of blinding light! A Stasis force born of soul-burning resolve, no longer used for self-repair, lashed out like intangible chains, instantly coiling around the expanding black hole on the dome!

*SKREEEEE——!!!*

A soul-rending shriek erupted from the hole's depths! The intangible erasure power was forcibly *slowed* for a heartbeat by this ultimate Stasis born of Tang Xiao's last will! The hole's expansion visibly faltered, its rotation growing sluggish! A faint, unstable rim of pale ice crystals was momentarily frozen onto the edge of the black abyss!

*Now!*

Chenxiao moved! Not towards the hole, but transforming into a pale streak of light that tore space, he shot with transcendent speed towards Tang Xiao's effigy upon the throne!

*KRAKOOM——!!!*

The obsidian form sheathed in pale Terminus Flame collided violently with the crack-riddled effigy!

No cataclysm. Only a forced fusion and shroud at the level of law!

Chenxiao's form flowed like liquid, flame-wreathed obsidian ice, instantly enveloping, devouring Tang Xiao's effigy on the brink of erasure! The shattering fragments, the two final burning sparks, Tang Xiao's last vestiges of protective will and Stasis law essence... all were violently drawn into Chenxiao!

The throne stood empty. Tang Xiao's effigy was gone.

In its place stood Chenxiao. Still armored in cryosteel, but now its surface crawled with the same rampant, spreading black cracks that had marred Tang Xiao's effigy! From the depths of these cracks, the aura of erasure clung like a corrosive plague, furiously eating at his very existence! The pale flames in his eye sockets flickered violently, painfully, their light flaring and dimming erratically, seemingly on the verge of being swallowed by the "nothing" bleeding from the cracks.

He had replaced Tang Xiao's effigy. He was now the new, the sole Anchor of this Source Flow core space! But in doing so, he had willingly channeled the erosive power of the Void Abyss, through this Anchor point, directly into the core of his own being!

"Ugh—!!!" A silent scream echoed in the depths of Chenxiao's consciousness. Torment beyond any before—not the tearing of flesh, not the burning of soul, but the ultimate agony of existence itself being negated, erased, piece by piece! His obsidian cryosteel form eroded away in chunks under the erasure force, only to be painfully regenerated and shrouded by Terminus power driven to its limits. Each regeneration brought violent tremors to his foundational laws and immense cost!

Above, the black hole, momentarily stalled by Tang Xiao's final Stasis, now sensed a new, more potent Anchor vibration. Like a viper finding fresh prey, it focused its entire erasure will onto Chenxiao!

*Hmmmm——!*

Abandoning slow expansion, the black hole contracted, coalesced! Transforming into a hyper-condensed beam of pure void, no thicker than an arm! Ignoring space, it crossed the hall in an instant, lancing directly into Chenxiao's cracked chest!

*Thud!*

No penetration wound. The beam simply merged into his fractured armor upon contact, like water into a sponge! Chenxiao's body arched violently backward! His armored form convulsed! The pale flames in his eye sockets dimmed to near extinction! The black cracks covering him, infused with the erasure beam, became like living venom, spreading, deepening, interweaving with frenzied speed! Vast sections of obsidian armor silently vanished, revealing the pale light-veined "flesh" beneath, itself now marred by creeping black lines!

"Devour... me..." Chenxiao's icy thought, a guttering candle in the erasure maelstrom, carried a death-or-glory madness. "...is... to devour... the Abyss..."

He ceased resisting the erasure beam within him. He dropped all defenses! The deep-blue crystalline core at his center, pulsing with blazing white and azure veins, spun and throbbed madly under the erasure onslaught! Terminus Shroud power, pushed beyond all prior limits, abandoned attempts to freeze or burn the erasure force. Instead, it performed an unthinkable act—actively *channeling* the destructive erasure torrent directly into the core itself!

*KRA-VOOOOOM——!!!*

Indescribable agony and shockwaves erupted in every fiber of Chenxiao's being! The crystalline core shrieked like a universe rending apart! Its surface veins instantly dimmed, fractured! Deep within, Lu Chen's Devour-core and Tang Xiao's Stasis-core, hammered by this ultimate erasure, were like stubborn iron thrown into a chaos forge—forcibly forged, shattered, and remade!

*Shroud! Shroud! Shroud!*

This frigid obsession was all that remained of Chenxiao's will! To use Terminus Shroud's laws to forcibly shroud this invading erasure force! Even if only for a billionth of a second! Even if the cost was the erasure of his own foundation alongside it!

*Hss... ssss...*

Strange sounds emanated from Chenxiao's core. As the violent erasure beam impacted the deepest recesses of the crystalline core, its pure attribute of "nothingness" seemed to clash fundamentally with the core's most primal law—that of "existence" itself—resulting in mutual annihilation and cancellation!

The core did not instantly erase! Instead, under the extreme pressure of the erasure force, the intertwined blazing white and azure veins within were purged like impurities, forcibly stripped away and annihilated! The core's volume shrank drastically under erasure, but the remnant portion radiated an unprecedented, purer, denser luster, bearing a faint, strange sheen that seemed to *resist* the attribute of "nothingness"!

The erasure power channeled into Chenxiao's chest seemed to weaken, if only by a hair, amidst this core resistance and the consuming effort of Terminus power!

The near-extinct pale flames in Chenxiao's eye sockets flared with renewed intensity! Faint, yet sharp with the cold clarity of seizing a lifeline in the abyss!

His arm, covered in cracks, eroding and regenerating, slowly raised the broken blade. At the fracture point, pale Terminus Flame ceased trying to reform the blade. Instead, it transformed into countless hair-fine strands of pale light, imbued with the newly forged, strange luster from his core. Like living things, they actively speared towards the black "wound" on his chest—the conduit for the erasure beam!

His aim was not to sever, but to... *guide*! To channel *more* Void Abyss power into the core's refining crucible! To use his own existence as fuel, Terminus Shroud as the forging hammer, and the Void Abyss as the quenching agent, forging a new law capable of resisting "nothingness" on the very edge of annihilation!

The Crystal Hall shook violently under the erasure beam's assault and Chenxiao's own law-based backlash. Space fragments peeled away like plaster, sucked into the erasing void. Only upon the throne remained a fixed point—a figure pierced by a beam of void, its form constantly eroding and regenerating, undergoing a fiery rebirth within destruction, the sole point of light (if the pale flame could still be called light) in this sinking abyss.

The Anchor plunged into the Abyss, seeking life through death.