Polar Day And Polar Night

"Cin...der... Touch..."

The icy, fragmented thought sparked like the last ember in an abyss amidst the thunder of the crumbling throne.

Chenxiao's arm, veined with cracks, swept down! The countless hair-thin, pale filaments laced with strange cinder-grey luminescence, extending from the broken sword's hilt, didn't stab at the annihilating beam in his chest. Instead, they writhed like living things, plunging fiercely into the edges of the black "wound" where the beam connected—into the ravening cracks devouring his very existence!

*Hssss——!*

No cataclysmic collision. Only a soul-freezing "contact" and "transformation" at the level of fundamental law!

The tips of the grey-white filaments flared with the peculiar radiance born of annihilation's crucible the instant they pierced the black fissures! This was not resistance, nor devouring. It was an unprecedented **Shroud**, existing on the threshold between being and oblivion!

The Abyssal Corrosion power composing the black cracks—the annihilating attribute of absolute void—underwent an inconceivable change upon contact with the grey-white filaments! Pure "nothingness" was forcibly granted the outline of "existence," covered by a membrane, gossamer-thin and hovering between grey and white! This membrane was impossibly fragile, shattering and dissipating under the Abyssal Corrosion's assault in a billionth of a blink. Yet, in the infinitesimal moment it existed, the speck of Corrosion it covered, forcibly given "form," ceased to be mere annihilating void. It became... a strange substance existing between "something" and "nothing"... burning with frigid cinders!

Like ice shards thrown into a furnace, vaporizing instantly, yet briefly visible before vanishing.

This fleeting, almost negligible "manifestation" brought a paradigm shift!

"Incinerate!" The savage will born of Lu Chen's devouring core, deep within Chenxiao's consciousness, erupted like a shark scenting blood, seizing the instant the "Cinder Touch" forcibly granted the Corrosion fleeting form!

*BOOM!*

Within Chenxiao, the deep-blue crystalline core—repeatedly tempered by annihilation, smaller yet denser, its surface flowing with strange cinder-grey light—erupted with unprecedented radiance! No longer pure pallor, but a cold, dead incandescence veined with ashen ember-glow!

The core pulsed! A new torrent of power—fusing Stasis, Incinerate, Devour, yet birthed on annihilation's brink with a fourth attribute: Transmute—surged outwards through the myriad grey-white filaments stabbing the black cracks!

This time, the Incinerating Flame had found its target!

The "Cinder-Corrosion" substance forcibly shrouded and briefly manifested ignited the instant it touched the Terminus Flame laced with cinder-grey luminescence—*CRACKLE!* Like white-hot iron pressed to thin ice, it instantly combusted and disintegrated!

Not annihilation of energy, but collapse of form and release of energy!

The ignited "Cinder-Corrosion" shattered like fragile crystal plunged into potent acid! Its annihilating essence was forcibly scattered, shrouded, transmuted, releasing a stream of frigid, pure, yet faintly void-tainted energy! This energy lost its corrosive nature; instead, it was instantly seized, assimilated, absorbed by Chenxiao's frantically cycling Terminus power!

At the points where the grey-white filaments pierced, the ravenous spread of the black cracks across his chest visibly faltered! Along the fissures' edges, an incredibly faint trace—like scorched residue—briefly covered the pure black!

Though this cinder-trace was instantly "erased" by the subsequent surge of Corrosion, the fissures' expansion had undeniably slowed by a billionth!

*It worked!*

The pale flames in Chenxiao's eye sockets, flickering on the edge of extinction, stabilized for a crucial instant! Deep within their cores, an almost imperceptible hint of cinder-grey ignited! A cold, fierce elation at grasping life from the jaws of oblivion surged through his near-shattered consciousness!

"Shroud... Transmute... Incinerate!"

Driven by desperate resolve, Chenxiao spared nothing! His cracked body became a crucible on the verge of shattering yet burning with frantic defiance, channeling every shred of Terminus power into the multiplying "Cinder Touch" filaments!

*Hmmmm——!*

More grey-white filaments erupted from the broken sword hilt, from his cracked armor! Like billions of ravenous grey-white worms, they fearlessly plunged into the spreading black fissures covering his form, into the edges of the annihilating beam transfixing his chest!

*Hssss! Hssss! Hssss!—*

A sickening chorus of searing sounds erupted simultaneously within and upon Chenxiao! Every contact of "Cinder Touch" with the Corrosion triggered a fleeting shroud, transmutation, and incineration! Every incineration released a wisp of icy, void-tinged pure energy, absorbed as fuel to sustain his resistance, to power more "Cinder Touch"!

This was a death-loop danced on a razor's edge! Using his own existence as the crucible, Terminus power as the fuel, "Cinder Touch" as the transmuter, forcibly stripping, transmuting, incinerating, and absorbing the Corrosion eroding him! Each transmutation came with the agonizing cost of his own foundation being eroded; each absorption brought a fleeting surge of strength and the grit to continue the law-battle!

Chenxiao's form became the most brutal battlefield. Obsidian cryosteel dissolved in great swathes, only to be painfully regenerated by Terminus power. The regenerated parts instantly sprouted new black cracks, immediately pierced, shrouded, ignited, and transmuted by countless grey-white filaments... On and on! The flames in his eyes shifted violently between pale and cinder-grey, dimming each time as if about to snuff out, flaring back each time with colder determination.

*"Ssssss——!!!"*

Above, the concentrated black annihilating beam seemed to sense its "prey's" tenacious resistance and the bizarre counter-consumption. It emitted a silent, soul-shredding shriek! The beam thickened, solidified! A more violent torrent of annihilation slammed into Chenxiao, seeking to erase this entity daring to "digest" it utterly!

*THUD!*

Chenxiao's body slammed backward onto the throne's wreckage! The armor over his chest shattered, dissolved, revealing a horrific "innards" beneath—a tangle of grey-white filaments and black cracks, like molten rock fused with ice! The flames in his eyes dimmed to their absolute limit, becoming mere pinpricks of cinder ember!

Yet, at the very peak of this annihilating onslaught—

The cinder-grey radiance on Chenxiao's deep-blue crystalline core blazed with ultimate intensity!

"De...vour... Cin...der!"

A final, icy, shattered, yet declarative thought detonated!

*KRAKOOM!!!*

Centered on the crystalline core, an invisible, terrifying suction force, tinged with the resonance of cinders, erupted! This suction didn't target energy; it targeted **form**! It savagely pulled at *all* the Abyssal Corrosion power within Chenxiao—both the beam transfixing him and the tendrils snaking over his form—dragging it violently towards the core!

Chenxiao ceased to be merely a passive recipient of transmutation. He became an active, ravenous devourer!

The countless grey-white filaments, like sharks scenting blood, plunged even more ferociously into the Corrosion being pulled by the suction! The efficiency of transmutation and incineration skyrocketed a hundredfold!

*CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE—!!!*

It sounded as if billions of micro-furnaces ignited simultaneously within Chenxiao! The devoured Corrosion power manifested under the "Cinder Touch" shroud, disintegrated under the Terminus Flame incineration, transmuted into frigid, pure void-tainted energy, and was greedily absorbed by the crystalline core!

The black beam transfixing his chest visibly thinned, dimmed! The frenzied spread of black cracks across his body was forcibly arrested! Within the fissures, the pure black was increasingly covered, replaced by the scorched residue of cinders! Though new cracks still formed, their birth rate now lagged far behind the speed of shroud and transmutation!

The twin cinder embers in Chenxiao's eyes, like guttering candle flames in a gale, yet burned with stubborn stability amidst the frantic devouring and transmutation. Their light was faint but steady, carrying the cold texture of rebirth from the ashes of destruction.

His form, clad in shattered armor, veined with cinder-scorched fissures, slowly rose from the wreckage of the throne. The broken sword had long since dissolved in the struggle, leaving only the hilt. But his empty right hand slowly rose, palm open, facing the weakening black annihilating beam still spewing from the fractured dome.

In his palm, a new point of light flickered into being—weak, like a cold ember, pulsing with grey-white luminescence.

At its core, deep within the flickering light, lay a trace of the annihilating beam's essence—now forcibly transmuted and tamed.

"Abyssal Corrosion..." Chenxiao's voice, icy and fractured, echoed through the collapsing hall, laced with the cold detachment of mastery. "...is... also... fuel."

The cinder-light in his palm pulsed faintly.

Above, the beam connecting to his chest shuddered violently, as if seized by an invisible fist, then was abruptly severed and wrenched backwards!

The disconnected annihilating beam writhed like a headless serpent, dissipating uselessly against the broken dome.

The cinder-light in Chenxiao's palm, however, seemed to brighten a fraction, as if sated.

He slowly clenched his fist, snuffing out the point of light that held a sliver of tamed void-power.

The myriad grey-white filaments covering his form retracted. The hideous black cracks across his body were now largely covered by cinder-like scorch marks—charred fissures that remained stark but no longer radiated annihilation. Instead, they had become part of his reborn power.

The crystalline hall was utterly destroyed. Massive pale totems lay broken and fallen. The obsidian vault was shattered, revealing the pale-membrane-shrouded "sky" of the Source Flow core space above. Countless shards of space drifted like black snow, slowly dissolving into oblivion amidst the remnants of the Stasis field.

Chenxiao stood amidst the ruin and encroaching void, the throne's final wreckage beneath his feet. His form, clad in tattered cryosteel armor, was veined with cinder-scars. In his eye sockets burned twin points of pale flame, stable now, their cores laced with the lingering ember-hue of cinders.

He slowly raised his head. His gaze pierced the shattered dome, pierced the shrouded pale sky, fixing once more upon the direction of the Light Domain.

The crisis of the Source Flow core's "Abyssal Corrosion" had been forcibly suppressed and transmuted—using his own being as the crucible, Terminus as the hammer, annihilation as the quenching fire. The cost was grievous; his foundation shaken. Yet, on annihilation's brink, he had forged a new law capable of touching the void—the Cinder Touch.

The ancient gaze from the Light Domain's depths, the echo of the "Primordial Radiance" declaring his doom, remained coldly etched in his consciousness.

His hand, marked with cinder-scars, slowly rose. He made a grasping motion towards the void.

A point of cold cinder-light flickered silently in his palm.

The path of Shroud was paved with ashes. Its end still pointed towards that land bathed in sacred radiance.

"Time... to... depart..." The icy words echoed in the ruins. Chenxiao's form began to fade, becoming translucent, as if merging with the silent abyss he had both destroyed and remade—a realm now veined with the fissures of virtual cinders.