Polar Day And Polar Night

Judgment descended.

Not light, not heat, not sound, not even the concept of "descent" itself. What shot from the pupil of the [Eye of Divine Retribution] was an "annulment" indescribable by any sense or law. Not a beam, but the manifest embodiment of "existence" being forcibly stripped away, declared null and void by ultimate decree.

Chenxiao's consciousness was swallowed by boundless "nothingness" upon contact.

The obsidian cryosteel composing his form? Under the "annulment," it dissolved like a phantom that never was.

The cinder-seared fissures covering his body? Those rebirth sigils were smoothed away like sandcastle graffiti before the final verdict.

The pale cinder-flames burning in his eye sockets? The struggle of his power core was rendered superfluous, denied even the process of extinguishing.

Even the deep-blue crystalline core—tempered by Source Flow's oblivion, harboring Void Ember's Touch—its defiant pulse, its core thread resisting the void… under the **[Heaven's Chastisement]**'s negation, froze like a candle flame cast into absolute vacuum. Instantly stilled, dimmed, plunged into utter deathly silence.

Time lost meaning. Space lost dimension. Thought lost its vessel.

Only the ultimate, icy "annulment" remained, covering all, remaking all, like the cold iron laws before creation.

Above Xi Yao, the **[Eye of Divine Retribution]** slowly rotated, scenes of worlds birthing and dying flowing once more in its pupil, radiating absolute, indifferent majesty. Grand Inquisitor Eliath hovered upon the crystal dais, his saintly visage impassive beneath the radiance, his pure golden eyes reflecting the zone outside the city wall—now a pure law vacuum, beyond even "emptiness." Every trace of Chenxiao, every stain of his cinder-erosion, utterly expunged.

It was over.

The city's hymns seemed to rise a pitch, resonant with holy relief. The halted light-envoys resumed their courses; the sacred flame orbs glowed warmer, purer. Order was defended. Defilement purified.

Eliath slowly lowered his outstretched hand.

Yet, as his fingers began their descent—

*Hmmm... ...!*

A tremor, infinitesimally faint, as if from the world's very end, resonated unexpectedly within that law-vacuum annulled by Heaven's Chastisement.

Not sound. Not energy. A... reverberation... within the very bedrock of law itself.

Eliath's pure golden pupils contracted—for the first time, minutely.

*Hmmm... ...!*

A second reverberation! Clearer! The annulled vacuum rippled like a pond struck by an unseen stone—a ripple the color of cinders!

Then—

*Pfft.*

A point of feeble, icy, gray-white light—like the last ember deep within charred wood—ignited at the vacuum's heart!

Dim, yet blindingly stark against the absolute "nothing"! It flickered. Deep within its core, the thread of void-attribute tamed by Void Ember's Touch, annulled by Heaven's Chastisement yet not utterly extinguished, reared its head like a dying viper within the cinder-glow!

"Im...possible..." Words tinged with disbelief escaped Eliath's saintly lips for the first time. His **[Heaven's Chastisement]** was the manifest authority of the Light Domain's highest judgment, an extension of the **Primordial Radiance's** will, the absolute power of annulment at the level of law! No trace of any being had ever survived its touch!

Yet, the cinder-light defied "impossible." It wasn't resisting the "annulment." It was... **overriding** the very foundation of the "annulment's" existence *through* the act of being annulled!

"Void Ember... unto... Naught... Is... Being..."

A voice—icy, fractured, like the grinding of a billion cinders, the echoes of countless dying worlds—did not come from outside. It detonated within the law-fabric of Xi Yao's heart, within the pupil of the **[Eye of Divine Retribution]**, within the frozen lake of Eliath's consciousness!

*KRAKOOM——!!!*

Centered on that cinder-point, a minuscule yet soul-crushingly profound **cinder-singularity** birthed itself! It spun, ravenous, swelling! Where it passed, the law-vacuum annulled by Heaven's Chastisement shattered like fragile glass, forcibly **overridden**, twisted! Shards of Chenxiao's annulled existence—slag of obsidian cryosteel, resonance of cinder-fissures, ash of pale flame, dust of the crystalline core—were wrenched back from oblivion by unseen gravity, **overridden**, **remade**!

Not resurrection! **Override!** Forcing the law of **Void Ember's Touch** upon the result of Heaven's Chastisement's negation! Defining "**is**" where "**is not**" had been decreed!

*CRACK-KAK-KAK-KAK——!!!*

The agonized shriek of space-law being torn and overridden rent the sky! The vacuum zone convulsed as if seized, kneaded by an invisible, cinder-burning fist! Light warped; space-fragments peeled away like black snowflakes, annihilated, then forcibly overridden, solidified!

Within the cinder-singularity's heart, a new, horrifying form coalesced, solidified before their eyes!

No longer armored in cryosteel.

No longer scarred by cinder-fissures.

It was... the Ember Husk!

Forged of pure, coldly burning cinders! Its outline vaguely recalled Chenxiao, yet taller, distorted, as if piled from the embers of incinerated worlds! No armor adorned it—only ceaselessly flowing, collapsing, re-forming cinder-flesh, beneath which countless tiny cinder-vortices, like dying galaxies, pulsed erratically. Bottomless black fissures webbed its form, oozing not void, but a viscous, light-devouring sludge of **cinder-magma**! Its head was a churning, collapsing, exploding storm of pale cinders; at its storm-center, two abyss-deep black voids replaced eye sockets, gazing coldly upon the Holy City!

No Terminus Blade in its grasp. Only a massive, amorphous **Relic**, twisted from perpetually extending and contracting cinder-tendrils, its tip dripping molten cinder-slime that left charred, slowly annihilating trails in space.

*HMMMMMM——!!!*

The **[Eye of Divine Retribution]** emitted an unprecedented drone—a mix of wrathful shock and... disbelief! The scenes within its pupil convulsed violently! Its very structure of condensed Holy Light law rippled unstably under the terrifying aura of **override** radiating from the Ember Husk!

Grand Inquisitor Eliath's radiant form swayed—imperceptibly, for the first time! His pure golden eyes locked onto the burning cinder-figure outside the walls, reflecting not a defiled construct, but... a walking cancer upon the laws of existence!

"Profaning... the... Root... of Law..." Eliath's voice lost its steadiness, laced with the icy chill of violated taboo. His half-lowered hand didn't fall; it clenched into a fist!

"Heaven's Chastisement! Terminus Purge!"

*KRAKOOM——!!!*

The [Eye of Divine Retribution]'s pupil contracted to a needle-point! A negation beam more terrifying, more concentrated than before erupted! This time, its purpose wasn't erasure. It carried the absolute will to incinerate, to purify this overridden "aberration" and the very law-ground it stood upon from the multiverse itself!

Facing this ultimate purge, the newborn Ember Husk committed an act that froze the souls of all witnesses.

It—raised its cinder-tendril limb, dripping annihilating sludge.

Not to defend. Not to block.

To... override.

Its void-pitted "head" turned slowly. Its abyssal "gaze" ignored the world-ending beam, piercing through the Holy City's radiant walls, through the crystal dais, through Eliath's radiance, locking onto the very heart of Xi Yao—the source of the most ancient, warmest, yet most implacable pulse of Primordial Radiance!

"Light... Ends... Ash..."

A declaration of terminus, woven from the friction of a billion cinders, the death-rattles of countless worlds, echoed through Xi Yao!

Simultaneously, its raised cinder-limb made a grasping motion towards the oncoming beam of ultimate purge.

*HMMM——!!!*

Space imploded before the beam! A colossal, ragged-edged black maw rimmed with icy cinders tore open in the fabric of law! Within its depths, viscous cinder-nebulae swirled, radiating a void-devouring hunger purer, greedier than Source Flow's "Abyssal Corrosion"!

[Embervoid Abyss]!

The beam of ultimate negation plunged headlong into this law-overriding abyssal throat!

*Hssssss——!!!*

No cataclysmic detonation! No energy annihilation!

Only a soul-crushing... consumption and silence.

The beam, potent enough to purify planes, dimmed like a torch cast into a bottomless pit, overridden, dragged, and decomposed by the swirling cinder-void within the abyss! Its core will of ultimate negation, meeting the viscous cinder-void, vanished like clay oxen into the sea—overridden, assimilated, becoming... **fuel** for the swelling cinder-nebulae!

The beam visibly shortened, thinned! The **[Eye of Divine Retribution]**'s radiance visibly dimmed! Groans of strain came from its Holy Light law-structure, its surface beginning to show fine, gangrenous cinder-spots!

"NO—!!!" Eliath finally roared, a sound of purest outrage! He had never conceived that the Light Domain's supreme power of judgment could be... **devoured**! Overridden, transformed by a power born of exiled filth, in such profane fashion!

But worse was yet to come.

The Ember Husk's void-pitted "head" slowly turned towards Xi Yao's majestic light-walls. Its grasping limb didn't retract. Instead, it opened its taloned fingers towards the walls of flowing liquid-gold law, etched with eternal sacred sigils.

"Override... Annihilation..."

The icy, fractured decree fell.

*Hmm! Hmm! Hmm! Hmm!*

At multiple critical junctures across the Holy City's light-walls, space imploded simultaneously! Several smaller, yet equally cinder-rimmed **[Embervoid Abyss]** maws tore through reality, manifesting like colossal, ravenous black leeches adhering to the city's radiant skin!

*Sssss—!!!*

The liquid-gold law composing the walls dulled, sickened instantly upon contact with the abyssal maws! Its sacred structure was overridden, eroded, decomposed! Golden streams of energy, like stolen blood, were siphoned relentlessly into the devouring throats! Ancient sacred sigils etched upon the walls shrieked in silent agony, their light guttering out, surfaces crusting over with spreading, icy cinders!

Before the horrified gaze of countless light-envoys, the majestic light-walls of Xi Yao Holy City sickened like a colossal golden statue plunged into acid! Vast swathes centered on the abyssal maws lost luster, turned necrotic, softened! Massive, cinder-burning gangrenous patches spread like wildfire across the golden expanse!

The city's hymns, for the first time, cracked into a shrill, discordant shriek!

Terminus Annihilation had scaled the Light Domain's holiest ramparts! Burning cinders began to override eternal radiance!