Polar Day And Polar Night

The echoes of destruction reverberated through the shattered nebula of stellar dust, like the dying sigh of a cosmos. The Stairway of Ash groaned beneath the Ashen Walker, vast stretches of its steps – formed of congealed stellar cores and the remnants of civilizations – cracking and collapsing under the rending force of the law-storm, plummeting into the churning chaos below. The Stairway itself, that soaring path towards absolute unity and icy stillness, fractured irreparably for the first time.

The body of the Ashen Walker, the icy embodiment of order imposed upon myriad worlds, had become the most brutal battlefield of its internal war.

At the center of its chest, the void-black puncture torn by the Void-Erosion beam was now a seething wound. Icy-blue stasis force and blazing-white annihilation flame, like two enraged serpents, spat, bit, and annihilated each other at its edges. Each collision birthed flashes of law-rending light; each mutual destruction allowed the eroding void to creep further into the surrounding matter, "stilled" or "scorched" by the Emberglow. At the mangled left shoulder, the Void-Erosion's erasure was forcibly contained by Tang Xiao's glacial will, frozen at the ragged edge into a ring of flickering, invasive azure-ice cracks. The right shoulder's ruin, however, was engulfed by Lu Chen's annihilating fire. Blazing-white flames licked the wound, ceaselessly converting the body's Emberglow substance into furious energy, halting the erosion while accelerating the limb's disintegration.

The most grievous wound lay at its core.

The light-seam separating the Ember left eye from the Radiance right eye was now a spiderweb of cracks, horrifying to behold. The light on either side was no longer the blended ash and glow, but starkly polarized extremes: The left half, icy-blue stellar fire like frozen auroras, surged with Tang Xiao's will – the absolute order of self-made prisons and world-freezing resolve – battering the fissure, striving to freeze, cover, and reduce the entire core and existence to eternal stasis. The right half, the seething white-magma sigil of Lu Chen's desire to burn shackles and devour all realms, roared with his insatiable hunger. It voraciously consumed the core's laws of "Annihilation" and "Devouring," transforming into a torrent of molten fury that scorched and melted the fissure, yearning to incinerate this forced fusion and return to the devouring chaos of the abyss.

"ARRRGH—!!!"

The dual-toned scream of agony, no longer a suppressed growl, tore through the fractured void. The Ashen Walker's light-obscured visage contorted and split completely! The left half was encased in dense azure ice crystals, a frozen death-mask; the right half flowed with blazing magma, a demonic visage aflame. Its remaining left arm instinctively clawed towards the plummeting Scepter, but the movement was grotesquely twisted by internal conflict. Power erupted from its fingertips – chaotic bursts of icy-blue stasis rays and blazing-white annihilation blasts canceling each other out in flashes and ripples.

The Scepter, symbol of Emberglow sovereignty, its apex swirling with the miniature Emberglow Singularity pulsing erratically like a dying heart, spun down into the unfathomable chaos below. In its wake, even the churning law-flows seemed drawn, covered, trailing a path of ashen light.

But the lethal hunt did not cease.

Just as the Ashen Walker reeled in unprecedented weakness and chaos from core division and bodily ruin, pure-white silhouettes materialized silently at the edges of the shredded nebula, within the viscous chaos.

Formless, flowing outlines of absolute nothingness, edges unnaturally smooth, radiating the same cold, pure essence as the Void-Erosion beams – the **Void-Erosion Predators** themselves! Ultimate scavengers born of multiversal wreckage, feeding on the law-level act of "erasure," they specialized in hunting entities like the Ashen Walker who reshaped order and covered worlds, consuming both their nascent laws and the "dregs" of their conquest to sustain their own void.

Devoid of emotion, driven only by cold, ultimate predation, they sensed an unprecedented "feast" – prey powerful yet unraveling from within, core laws violently clashing, covering fields riddled with gaps! And that Scepter, separated from its master, symbolizing a vast source of order!

*Vzzzt! Vzzzt! Vzzzt!*

Several beams of concentrated, icy, dead-white light tore through the void anew, from different angles! Their targets precise and rapacious:

Two beams lanced towards the Ashen Walker – one aimed at its painfully arched, split head-core (that fissure on the brink of shattering!); the other insidiously targeting the expanding Void-Erosion wound on its chest! An attempt to simultaneously "hollow out" its core existence and its greatest injury!

Two more beams flashed towards the falling Scepter! One targeted the miniature Singularity at its apex, its light wildly fluctuating on the edge of chaos; the other aimed straight for the Scepter's mid-section, intending to "erase" it clean through, severing its last tie to the Ashen Walker!

The attacks were cunning, lethal, exploiting the Ashen Walker's absolute disadvantage, besieged within and without!

"GUARD!!"

"DEVOUR!!"

Within the core, on the precipice of total sundering, the two opposing wills, spurred by mortal peril, unleashed power beyond their limits – yet pulling in opposite directions!

The shard of Tang Xiao's will screamed silently! Icy azure light surged like a bursting glacial dam, instantly covering most of the Ashen Walker's body, especially the head and chest! An absolute stasis field, far denser than before, rimmed with biting frost, layered instantly before the head-core and chest wound! Azure ice-crystal patterns spread madly, striving to freeze the incoming beams, if only for an instant! Simultaneously, a powerful stasis-traction field erupted from his will – *not* to grasp the Scepter, but to violently wrench at the churning chaos *below*! He sought to freeze, to still, that patch of void *along with* the falling Scepter! This was his guardian instinct – even as he crumbled, preserve the scepter, the core of order!

"MINE! BACK OFF!!"

The shard of Lu Chen's will bellowed with greedy savagery! Uncontrolled blazing magma erupted from the Ashen Walker's right half, especially the remaining right arm (despite the mangled shoulder)! Furious Emberflame transformed not into dragons, but into countless greedy, twisting chains of pure white hunger, lashing savagely towards the two beams targeting the Scepter! He would *devour* these attacks! Simultaneously, more blazing chains, like starved tentacles, ignored distance and spatial barriers, viciously grabbing for the falling Scepter! He would reclaim the power! Devour everything! Including this damned cage and that frozen block's will!

Ice and Fire. Stasis and Devouring. Guardian and Plunderer. At the edge of annihilation, they collided once more, using the Ashen Walker's ruined shell as their battleground.

*KA-BOOOOOM—!!!*

A law-storm more terrifying and chaotic than before erupted completely around the Ashen Walker!

At the head-core, Tang Xiao's stasis field barely stalled the incoming Void-Erosion beam for an instant, but its cold erasure instantly corroded the frozen barrier, webbing it with cracks! Simultaneously, the energy surge from Lu Chen's devouring chains violently impacted Tang Xiao's stasis domain, nearly nullifying the delay! The Void-Erosion beam pierced the cracking ice and slammed into the fissure-riddled light-seam on the head-core!

***SHHHHKK—!***

The light-seam flashed violently, cracks widening explosively! The icy stellar fire of the Ember left eye and the molten sigil of the Radiance right eye were violently wrenched further apart! Agonizing pain threatened to split the entire "head" asunder!

At the chest wound, Tang Xiao's stasis-freeze and Lu Chen's annihilating resistance clashed again. Icy-fire chaos and the Void-Erosion beam collided violently, annihilating each other, causing the wound to churn, distort, and expand like boiling flesh! More Emberglow substance vanished into nothingness!

Of the beams targeting the Scepter, one was ensnared by Lu Chen's devouring chains! Blazing chains frantically consumed the beam's erasing energy, shrieking like rending space, the chains themselves melting rapidly! The other beam was deflected minutely by Tang Xiao's stasis-traction on the void, scraping past the Scepter's mid-section, leaving a deep, bone-deep black gash on its surface, slowly eroding!

Meanwhile, Lu Chen's blazing chains grabbing for the Scepter collided head-on with Tang Xiao's void-stasis field near the artifact!

Stasis' icy blue and Devouring's blazing white tangled ferociously, annihilating each other! The falling Scepter, caught in the rending forces of these opposing extremes, spun and shuddered like a lone ship in a maelstrom! The miniature Singularity atop the Scepter flickered erratically with chaotic light, its rotation utterly disrupted, the electrostatic spark-fissure at its core jumping wildly as if ready to explode!

"NO—!!!"

"MINE—!!!"

The roars of the two wills exploded within the core, filled with desperate fury and covetous denial.

At the very zenith of this storm of ice-fire conflict, law-annihilation, and Void-Erosion assault—

A sudden mutation!

The Void-Erosion beam ensnared by Lu Chen's devouring chains did not fully dissipate under their ravenous consumption. A thread of pure, ultimate, icy erasure, following the connection of chain and will, stabbed like a venomous needle deep into the Ashen Walker's *right* core – the blazing magma sigil housing Lu Chen's will!

This external, kindred yet superior force of "erasure" acted like a spark in volatile oil, instantly detonating the already cataclysmic "Devouring" and "Subversion" desires within Lu Chen's will! Instead of being incinerated, it catalyzed the white-magma sigil, causing it to violently implode—then explode outward!

*BOOOOOOM!!!*

An unprecedented, pure tide of **Annihilation · Devouring** erupted from the Ashen Walker's entire right side! Blazing white light devoured the remnants of the right arm, the right shoulder, and half the torso, then ravenously encroached upon the left! Emberglow substance composing the body wasn't burned away in this tide; it was instantly assimilated, consumed, transformed into even more furious energy!

Simultaneously, the Void-Erosion beam piercing the head-core fissure, and the violent struggle at the chest wound, detonated the extreme "Guardian" and "Stasis" obsession within Tang Xiao's will. Feeling Lu Chen's will erupt destructively and invade his "domain," the icy azure stellar fire also compressed to its absolute limit—then detonated outward!

*BOOOOOOM!!!*

Icy azure light, carrying the cold to freeze epochs, erupted violently from the head-core, the left side of the body, and the frozen stump of the left shoulder! It was no longer mere defense. It radiated absolute exclusion, forcibly freezing, stilling, and repelling *everything* within its reach—including the blazing energy Lu Chen was invading with!

The two torrents of will, born from the roots of existence, inherently opposed to the extreme, and precisely detonated by the external Void-Erosion force, finally—

*Sundered completely!*

*CRACK—!!!!*

A sound like the shattering of the universe's foundation echoed—not in matter, but across the dimensions of law and existence!

Down the center of the Ashen Walker's armored form, the light-seam running from head-core to chest, already on the brink, shattered like fragile glass under the ultimate rending force of internal and external destruction!

Then came the cataclysmic energy release!

Along the line of the shattered light-seam, the blazing white and icy azure lights exploded outwards like twin supernovae from within the Ashen Walker's ruined body! Dark grey Emberglow armor, flowing light-traces, the dense substance of its form—all were ground to dust and annihilated in this ultimate clash of ice and fire!

No longer fissured. Utterly torn asunder!

Amidst blinding blue-white light and deafening law-annihilation, the colossal body of the Ashen Walker, symbol of covering dominion and order, exploded violently!

Two radically different lights, sheathed in disintegrating Emberglow matter and savage law-flux, were hurled apart like twin stellar cores blasted from an explosion!

One, a blazing pale meteor, its molten sigil boiling within, radiating the mad aura of annihilating all and devouring everything, trailing a long tail of flame that consumed stellar dust and law-flux in its wake, crashing into the distant chaos depths!

The other, an icy azure comet, its core stellar fire deathly cold, radiating the absolute stillness and freezing order, its passage instantly freezing the churning chaos into streams of azure ice-dust, plunging equally into the endless void!

The origin point held only a vast, ever-annihilating energy void, and countless shards of Emberglow matter, stripped of luster, slowly decaying into true, dead ash. The Stairway of Ash buckled again under the blast, its broken edge jagged like a beast's bite.

The Emberglow Scepter, caught at the heart of the blast, was hurled violently by the shockwave. Spinning wildly, the light of its miniature Singularity flickering weakly and chaotically, trailing a wake mixed of ash and ice crystals, it plunged down into a deeper, unknown abyssal rift below.

The pure-white silhouettes of the Void-Erosion Predators drifted silently at the explosion's periphery, coldly "observing" the two sundered lights flying apart and the falling Scepter. After a moment's stillness, they split into two groups, merging seamlessly into the void like sharks scenting blood, pursuing the vanished paths of the Blazing Meteor and the Icy Comet, and the Scepter's descent into the abyss.

The cold void held only the silent reverberations of annihilated energy, and the slow drift of Emberglow ash, stripped of all warmth and meaning, settling on the fractured Stairway.

The Ashen Walker was no more.

Left behind were two torn wills, two ruined vessels, a broken Stairway, and a fallen Scepter.

The echoes within the rift had only just begun. The forked paths of the twins were now chasms separating star seas. And the icy order meant to cover all worlds seemed, within the explosive light, to have scattered into drifting ash.