Polar Day And Polar Night

Cold nothingness enveloped Lu Chen's consciousness, as if he had sunk into the deepest strata of the Perpetual Frost Wastes' frozen veins. No light, no warmth, only boundless stillness and the exhaustion of utter ruin. Adrian's shriek, the Tribunal's verdict, Tang Xiao's ice-blue eyes that froze light... all images faded, shattered, sinking into this black sea of awareness. Was it over? Was this the quiet end to the exile's disgrace?

Then—

*"Oooooom—"*

That ancient, sorrowful lament pierced the ice encasing his consciousness, striking directly at the core of Lu Chen's soul!

This time, the sensation was far clearer. It wasn't sound, but a pure flood of emotion, carrying unimaginable antiquity and vastness, along with a pain of being torn and polluted! It was like a red-hot steel needle violently thrust into the depths of his drowning awareness!

"Ah—!" Lu Chen screamed soundlessly on the soul level. His near-dissipated consciousness was brutally yanked back by this agony! His vision was no longer pure black, but a churning chaos of colors—azure ice-light, pallid flame, magma's dark crimson... and a deep, filthy, nauseating shadow-black!

His eyes snapped open!

Piercing cold instantly wrapped his entire body. The air he sucked into his lungs carried a nauseating mix of sulfur and blood, making him cough violently. Each spasm sent waves of tearing agony through him. He found himself lying on the icy lake surface, not far from those suspended, twisted flame-ice prisms. Within the prisms, the pale flames still writhed and battered frantically against the azure ice, emitting a sputtering, grating death rattle.

Yet, the upheaval *within* him was even more horrifying!

Deep within his dantian, the warm, pure core of light-fire that once belonged to the "Oath of Radiance" was now unrecognizable! A patch of icy, deathly azure, like virulent moss, had taken root deep within the once-fiery nucleus! This azure was unnaturally cold, radiating a primordial, profound chill identical in essence to Tang Xiao's, yet deeper. His own light-fire power hadn't been utterly frozen or annihilated. Instead, like an enraged, trapped beast, it was locked in a savage death struggle with the invading extreme cold!

The two forces raged within him, clashing, tearing, devouring! Each collision felt like countless ice needles and branding irons churning through his organs! Agony made him curl up. Cold sweat instantly soaked his tattered sackcloth cloak, freezing solid in the gelid air. More terrifyingly, he felt the azure cold greedily leeching the life force from his flesh and blood, like bone-devouring maggots, seeking to turn him into an icy husk!

"Ugh... ugh..." Lu Chen spasmed in torment, only broken gasps escaping his throat. He tried to muster power to expel the cold, but only a few feeble, equally cold pale sparks flickered at his fingertips before being crushed by the raging conflict within.

Just then, another deep rumble came from the depths of the ice lake! Accompanying it, the ancient Source-current's lament surged again! This time, the sensations of "agony" and "defilement" within the lament were even clearer!

Lu Chen instinctively looked up towards the source of the rumble and lament – the teetering magma ice-dome.

The sight made his pupils contract violently!

The surface of the ice-dome, its azure layers forcibly reinforced by Tang Xiao earlier, was now undulating violently. Within the web-like cracks, instead of pure magma crimson, viscous, filthy shadow-matter was seeping out! It writhed like living sludge, eroding the ice, emanating a soul-chilling aura of decay and ill omen! It was this vile shadow, mingled with the magma's infernal heat and the Source-current's lament, that relentlessly battered the dome's seal!

Tang Xiao stood less than ten paces before the dome. He maintained a posture of pressing his hands forward, chains of deep blue cold, as tangible as forged metal, pouring from his palms to anchor the dome, fighting against the dual assault of the filthy shadow and magma within. His whole body trembled violently, his cloak whipping wildly in the turbulent energy currents.

His hood was long gone, revealing his full visage.

The left side of his face, from cheekbone to jaw, was covered in pure obsidian-like Abyssal Taint, cold, smooth, like an unliving creation of the void. The right side, once pale human skin, was now being savagely consumed by a sickly azure ice! This ice writhed like a living thing, visibly spreading across his cheek and down his neck with shocking speed. Where it passed, skin rapidly lost color, turning the grey of frozen stone. More horrifyingly, deep within the writhing azure ice, faint threads of filthy shadow seemed to squirm like poison worms beneath the frost!

"Huff... huff..." Tang Xiao's breathing was labored and agonized, each exhalation a plume of ice-crystal fog. Every surge of the writhing ice across his face brought an uncontrollable spasm. His ice-blue right eye was fixed unwaveringly on the vile shadow oozing from the dome, the madness in his gaze replaced by a profound, almost despairing gravity.

"The Source-current's... wound... is tearing..." he rasped, his voice shredded by the roar of annihilating energies. "The Abyss's rot... seeps in... the balance... shatters faster..."

He abruptly intensified his output! The chains of cold connecting him to the dome flared brilliantly! Deep blue, verging on black, light surged, forcibly freezing and sealing several fissures where the vile shadow threatened to break through! But the cost—the writhing azure ice on his face erupted anew! It instantly consumed the skin beneath his entire right eye, clawing towards his temple! The shadow-threads within the ice became clearer, more active!

*Thwup!* Tang Xiao's body lurched violently. A torrent of dark crimson blood gushed from his mouth, freezing into ruby shards mid-air before shattering on the ice. His aura instantly withered. The chains of cold anchoring the dome visibly dimmed and wavered. The writhing of the vile shadow within and the magma's roar immediately grew more rampant!

At that moment, the ancient Source-current's lament suddenly turned sharp, piercing! As if enduring unspeakable torment! The lament's wave struck the entire ice lake like a physical blow!

Lu Chen felt as if hit by a sledgehammer. The warring light-fire and extreme cold within him, goaded by the lament, exploded into even fiercer conflict! He could bear it no longer. A roar of agony tore from him, his body pitching forward uncontrollably!

*Squelch!*

His left palm landed squarely on a narrow, but actively gushing, fissure at the lake's edge, spewing filthy shadow and searing magma sludge!

"AAAAAAGH—!!!"

Indescribable agony engulfed him! The vile shadow surged like a living thing, carrying potent corrosive malice and icy venom, instantly burrowing up his arm! Simultaneously, the magma's savage heat flooded in! Three forces—his own chaotic light-fire, the invading Tang Xiao frost, and the external filth-shadow and magma poison—collided and detonated within his fragile body!

Consciousness tore apart! Only a storm of chaotic energy remained!

On the brink of total dissolution, the core of the ancient Source-current's lament, seemingly drawn to Lu Chen's body—this vessel of chaotic conflict—unleashed a vast, turbulent torrent of icy power, saturated with pain and a desperate plea for aid! It poured through the fissure beneath his palm, flooding into him like a breached dam!

*BOOM!*

Lu Chen's body locked rigid! His eyes bulged wide, pupils exploding with unprecedented chaotic radiance—pale flame, azure ice, vile shadow, magma crimson—madly interweaving, spinning!

This torrent wasn't an attack. It was an instinctive *dumping* and *clinging*. It held no clear will, only infinite pain, the chaos of being torn asunder, and an instinctive, desperate craving for *stability*! Like a drowning man, it clung desperately to Lu Chen's own body, thrashing in the same chaotic storm!

Under the impact of this immense torrent, the three warring forces within Lu Chen (light-fire, extreme cold, shadow-magma) were violently *compressed* together by this fourth chaotic external power! An aberration of balance was forcibly hammered into existence on the very edge of annihilation!

On Lu Chen's left palm, pressed against the fissure, an anomaly manifested!

*Hsssss—!*

A strand of bizarre "flame" erupted!

It wasn't pure fire. Its core was a leaping, unstable pale flame tinged with cold, the wreckage of Lu Chen's power. This core was encased in a flowing, translucent layer of azure ice crystals, radiating biting cold—the essence of Tang Xiao's invading frost. And at the junction of pale flame and azure ice, filaments of filthy shadow and sparks of magma writhed like parasitic vines, exuding decay and destruction!

This "frost-flame" was wildly unstable, twisting and flickering violently. Pale and azure clashed fiercely; shadow and sparks constantly exploded into nothingness. Yet, beneath this chaotic surface, an unprecedented *field of force* emanated from it!

*Huuuummm!*

The air resonated with a low thrum.

Centered on Lu Chen's palm, the vile shadow and magma sludge oozing from the small fissure suddenly changed course, as if drawn by an invisible magnet. Strands were forcibly siphoned, adsorbed, and drawn into that twisting strand of "frost-flame"! The frost-flame devoured this tainted energy greedily. The pale flame at its core seemed to brighten a fraction; the outer azure ice thickened slightly; the entwined shadow and magma sparks grew more active, forming a brief, grotesque cycle of consumption!

Even the vile shadows gnawing at the distant ice-dome seemed subtly disturbed by this strange field, their writhing slowing by an almost imperceptible degree!

The change was minuscule, yet like a stone cast into stagnant water!

Tang Xiao whipped his head around!

His bloodshot, ice-blue right eye, strained by agony and exhaustion, locked onto the twisting, leaping strand of "frost-flame" on Lu Chen's palm, radiating chaotic hunger! His expression froze, then transformed into a mask of utter shock, incandescent fury, and... a flicker of unrecognized, almost covetous, heat!

"The Source-current's lament... *clings* to you?!" His voice distorted grotesquely under the emotional onslaught, like a bellows tearing. "This filthy... equilibrium... this profane... power!"

He stared at the frost-flame as it continuously devoured shadow and magma from the fissure, the light of madness igniting in his eyes again—more intense, more reckless than ever!

"Give it... to ME!" Tang Xiao bellowed like a beast. Dragging his ice-encroached, stiffened body, ignoring the teetering ice-dome, he lurched towards Lu Chen! His still-functional right hand gathered deep blue-black cold once more, radiating an absolute will to freeze and plunder, grappling savagely for Lu Chen's hand—the hand branded with the Scar of Paradox-Light!