Polar Day And Polar Night

The Core of the Light Domain, the Primal Sanctum.

Here, there were no grand structures, no flitting Light-Emissaries, not even tangible spatial boundaries. Only a pure, warm, seemingly eternal expanse of white radiance, as if birthed with the cosmos itself. Luminous currents flowed and converged, forming an endless sea of light, radiating the supreme power that nurtured all things and defined all order. This was the source of the "Primal Radiance," the ultimate origin of the Light Domain's laws, its existence, its very meaning.

Now, this eternal sea of white was being encroached upon by an inexorably spreading tide of cold ash.

The ash was not matter, but the law-remnants of existence shrouded and terminated. Like ink dripped into clear water, it stained the pure holy radiance with expanding patches of dead, gray stillness. At the edges of these patches, intricate ashen runes shimmered, greedily shrouding, decomposing the pure white light they touched, converting it into frigid, distilled void-energy, which in turn fueled the ash's own growth.

The Radiance-Sea boiled with fury. Pure white light erupted with unprecedented purifying power, attempting to scour and annihilate this profane ash. Light condensed into billions of searing white lightning bolts, like whips of creation, lashing viciously towards the core of the ashen domain! Each bolt carried the Primal Radiance's most fundamental negation and purifying will, potent enough to reduce stars to streams of elementary particles!

Yet, the moment the lightning touched the ash's periphery, its terrifying energy and purifying will were forcibly shrouded, parsed, assimilated by the ashen runes! The pure white lightning, like metal plunged into potent acid, rapidly dimmed, lost its vitality, and ultimately became a trail of cold ash, absorbed into the expanding domain of death.

Resistance was futile.

At the heart of the ashen domain, the Ashen Husk hung suspended. Its burning, contoured form of ash seemed even more immense and distorted against the backdrop of pure white radiance, a profane stain upon a sacred canvas. Ash-lava flowed across its "skin," sizzling and steaming under the holy radiance's sear, yet unable to halt its slow, inexorable advance towards the core of the Radiance-Sea. Its twin abyssal sockets gazed coldly upon this font of light, the sheer will to shroud its most piercing spear.

Behind it lay the colossal ashen shadow cast by the fallen Xi Yao Sanctum. That brightest pearl of the Light Domain was now a coldly burning necropolis of embers, the most potent footnote to the Ashen Husk's entry into the Sanctum.

"Foul... construct... cease..."

An ineffable thought-impulse resonated, not as sound, but as the light's own pulse, emanating directly from the core of the Radiance-Sea, from the depths of the Ashen Husk's consciousness. Ancient as the cosmos' dawn, warm, yet imbued with indisputable absolute authority and... a sliver of icy wrath born of violated foundations.

The will of the "Primal Radiance" had awakened.

With this impulse, the entire Radiance-Sea violently contracted! Pure white light was compressed to its absolute limit, coalescing into an indescribable, incomprehensibly vast giant of pure light! Forged from flowing laws of creation, it bore no features save for a pair of eyes seemingly composed of the birth and death of countless stars, gazing coldly down upon the insignificant Ashen Husk. Its mere presence made the surrounding space groan under strain, laws twisting and solidifying!

The Light-Giant slowly raised an arm formed of condensed holy radiance. Its finger pointed towards the Ashen Husk, a minute point of the purest "Primal Radiance" core – containing power enough to make the multiverse tremble – beginning to coalesce at its tip!

"Being... defined... Null... ultimate... return... to Null..."

The Giant's thought was the final verdict. Though small, that core-radiance emanated the ultimate power to forcibly define existence, to erase definitions! It locked onto the Ashen Husk, onto its law-shrouding ashen essence, seeking to utterly erase this order-shattering "anomaly," along with its existential foundation, from the level of law itself!

Facing this primal, more terrifying erasure than the [Eye of Celestial Retribution], the Ashen Husk responded.

Its "head," crowned with abyssal sockets, tilted slightly back, as if "gazing" upon the Light-Giant's core. Its burning ashen form halted its advance; the flowing ash-lava across its surface seemed to freeze for an instant. An unprecedented aura, colder, deader, carrying the scent of "Terminus' End," emanated from it.

Slowly, it raised the "hand" formed of ashen tendrils.

Not towards the Light-Giant.

But... slowly pressing into the depths of its own abyssal cranial sockets.

"Chenxiao... Lu Chen... Tang Xiao..."

A thought, cold, fragmented, seeming woven from the dying echoes of countless worlds, resonated for the first time within the ash-storm, carrying a sliver of incredibly faint, yet razor-sharp... self-reference!

*HMMMM——!!!*

The Ashen Husk's burning ashen form violently imploded! The flowing ash-substance composing its shell was compressed inward by an invisible, titanic force, shrouded! Countless black fissures instantly widened, connected, like shattering glass! The twin abyssal sockets whirled madly, collapsing inward!

It ceased to be a stable form. It became a singularity, madly collapsing inward, devouring its own existence, its edges burning with cold ash – the **Terminus Singularity**! The ultimate form of [Embergrave Convergence]!

At the core of the singularity, it was no longer pure will to devour and shroud. Within that compressed void-heart, a mote of consciousness, faint as a guttering candle in a gale, flickered with stubborn defiance:

"Light... burns... ash... end... requires... anchor..."

That was Lu Chen's resentment in the exile's abyss!

Tang Xiao's resolve amidst the ice-bound etching!

Chenxiao's fusion-forged coldness!

And... at the brink of Terminus, the last shred of... attachment... to "Being" itself!

The singularity's collapse transcended time! In the instant the Primal Radiance core coalesced at the Light-Giant's fingertip—

The Terminus Singularity of [Embergrave Convergence] collided silently with that point of purest "Primal Radiance" core!

No cataclysmic clash of laws as expected!

No annihilating explosion of energy!

Only a contest beyond all comprehension... **the ultimate struggle of Shroud versus Definition!**

Time lost meaning.

Space lost dimension.

The boundary between Being and Null blurred into oblivion.

The pure white "Primal Radiance" core, containing the power to define all things, to create order, sought to forcibly shroud, redefine the collapsing singularity, erasing it into "Null."

The [Embergrave Convergence] Terminus Singularity, embodying the law of ash that shrouds all, ends all, sought to forcibly shroud, devour the creative radiance, assimilating it into its own Convergence.

The moment the two ultimate powers touched, an absolute zone of chaos, impossible to observe or comprehend, was born!

Within that zone, light was no longer light, ash no longer ash.

Laws shattered, shrouded, reformed, defined, and shattered again in frenzy!

Being and Null swirled like pigments in a maddening vortex, mixing, canceling, birthing and annihilating!

The Light-Giant's colossal form shuddered violently, its pure white radiance flickering unstably, seeming ready to disintegrate!

The singularity born of the Ashen Husk's implosion, its burning edges flashed and contorted wildly, as if on the verge of catastrophic dissolution!

In this transcendent stalemate, that mote of consciousness buried deep within the [Embergrave Convergence] singularity's core, crushed and torn by the violent clash of the two ultimate powers, was... forcibly purified, ignited!

Countless shrouded, frozen memory fragments, like bubbles from an icy abyss, were churned up in this storm of chaotic law—

The uncontrolled pale flame on Xi Yao's training ground... Adrien's half-charred body... the Tribunal elder's icy judgment... the biting wind of the Permafrost Wastes... the crystalline snowflake on Emberstone Keep's wall... the solitary figure pouring frigid power into the magma fissure... the Stasis Husk's cold killing intent... the agonizing fusion in the Source Flow core... the cold devouring of the Festering Eye... the resolve to tear the Light Domain's barrier... the Sanctum's dirge as it crumbled to ash...

Lu Chen's fury, shame, madness!

Tang Xiao's protection, agony, destruction!

Chenxiao's coldness, shroud, terminus!

All the pain! All the attachments! All the will!

At this point of ultimate collision, within this seam between Being and Null, compressed! Ignited! Tempered! Forcibly... **fused**!

"I... am... Terminus... and... the Anchor... in... the Ash..."

A new thought, cold yet bearing a strange warmth, like the first glimmer of light (or the first ember?) at creation's dawn, was born abruptly within the chaos's core!

*KRAKOOM——!!!*

The stalemate shattered!

The [Embergrave Convergence] Terminus Singularity and the "Primal Radiance" core, in the instant of this new will's birth, did not annihilate. Instead, they underwent an inconceivable... **shrouding fusion**!

The singularity ceased its pure collapse; the radiance ceased its pure definition!

The pure white light of creation and the cold ash of terminus intertwined like double helixes, forcibly shrouded and unified by the new will, frantically coiling, shrouding, fusing!

At the apex of this shrouding fusion, within the core of the Light Domain's holiest sanctum, a new, indescribable "point" was born!

Neither pure white, nor ash.

It emitted a faint, yet supremely stable radiance, warm yet carrying stillness, like the last warmth at the core of a burnt-out star.

It also flowed with cold, ashen fluid, yet this ash held no corrosive power, instead possessing a heavy texture that hinted at nascent life.

A new law—the **Emberglow Principle**—was born at this pinnacle of shrouding fusion!

This law was no longer mere shroud or definition, but... the cycle of Being and Ending, the balance of Order and Chaos, Creation and Convergence as twin aspects of one whole!

*Hmmmm... ...!*

The Light-Giant's colossal form ceased its tremor. Within its pure white eyes, the scenes of stellar birth and death showed confusion for the first time, then slowly settled into an ancient, profound stillness. The holy radiance composing its form began to flow uncontrollably towards the nascent "Emberglow Singularity," shrouded, fused, absorbed.

The boiling of the Radiance-Sea calmed. Pure white light receded like a tide, shrouded, absorbed, transformed by the nascent Emberglow Singularity. The coldly burning ashen domain ceased its expansion, its edges beginning to emit a similar, faint yet stable Emberglow radiance.

The Shroud was complete.

Terminus had arrived.

But the end... was not pure Null.

Within the heart of the nascent Emberglow Singularity, a blurred silhouette, formed of flowing Emberglow substance, slowly coalesced. No longer distorted and immense, it assumed a nearly "humanoid" stability. Where its face should be, there were no features, only two points of light slowly igniting.

One, like the last spark within cold, dying embers.

The other, like the lingering warmth of extinguished creation-radiance.

The new "Being," shrouding the old battlefield, upon this ruin of light and ash, opened its eyes.