Polar Day And Polar Night

Cold, viscous, suffocating!

Lu Chen felt less like he was falling and more like being forced through a pipe made of congealed darkness and viscous lament. Ubiquitous filthy shadow energy and savage magma essence stabbed into his skin and marrow like billions of icy venom needles. The Abyss-Devouring Flame flared wildly in his palm, a lighthouse in a storm, instinctively opening "maws" of azure ice to greedily devour the lethal energy torrents, desperately maintaining its own existence and barely shielding Lu Chen's last shreds of consciousness from being utterly obliterated.

He clung to Tang Xiao's corpse on his back—cold, rigid, the final weight of the Keeper, now the only anchor preventing him from being lost in this chaotic maelstrom. The storm of chaotic energy tore at his senses; agony flooded him like a tide.

Time lost meaning—an eternal instant, or a fleeting moment.

*THUD!*

A heavy impact, then bone-deep cold. They had finally hit bottom.

Lu Chen struggled to lift his head, wiping viscous slush—blood, ice crystals—from his eyes. The Abyss-Devouring Flame stabilized with difficulty as he gasped, casting its light.

He found himself in a space... beyond description.

Beneath him wasn't solid ground, but a vast, seemingly boundless plane woven from countless gnarled, intertwined roots of azure ice! These roots were colossal as mountains, dense as spiderwebs, twisted and ancient, radiating a cold deeper and heavier than the Sanctum of Frozen Bones. They coiled and knotted, forming the "foundation" of this space.

Below this plane of icy roots churned an endless, roiling "ocean" of dark crimson! Not water, but magma essence of purest intensity, its incandescent glow turning the roots above into red-hot brands. Waves of heat and cold clashed violently here, hissing in perpetual evaporation.

The ceiling vanished into impenetrable darkness. But the soul-chilling horror lay at the heart of this space!

At the center of the icy root plane gaped a colossal, indescribable "Wound"!

Not a physical tear, but a conceptual point of festering decay in space itself. Thick roots snapped and twisted here, their broken ends crusted with filthy, viscous shadow-matter like blackened, suppurating scabs. Torrents of murky shadow and searing magma essence spewed ceaselessly from the depths of this festering "Wound," like pus bleeding from a rotting world!

Some of this tainted energy surged upward, forming the magma fissures and shadow-pollution sources piercing the Perpetual Frost Wastes' surface. The rest coiled like venomous snakes, gnawing at the surrounding broken roots with corrosive *hisses*, deepening the horrific wound.

And deep within that festering wound, half-open, half-closed, loomed a... massive "Eye"!

Not a biological eye, but a manifestation of pure chaotic Source-energy and foul shadow! It swirled in chaotic dark crimson, threaded with viscous shadow veins and incandescent magma flows, its structure unstable, radiating nauseating decay and an icy "Hunger" that transcended all! The ancient, sorrowful lament of the Source-current emanated from the depths of this terrifying "Festering Source-Eye"! Each pulse of lament triggered violent gouts of pus-blood from the wound and deeper erosion of the surrounding ice roots!

*This* was the core of the Source-current's imbalance! The origin of all calamity in the Perpetual Frost Wastes! The *truth* of the lament—a rotting world-foundation!

"Urgh..." Lu Chen knelt on the icy roots, his stomach heaving, his soul trembling under the "Eye's" gaze. He finally understood Tang Xiao's madness, his desperate need to ice the world! Faced with such a festering core, destruction seemed the only answer?

The Abyss-Devouring Flame pulsed ravenously in his palm! It craved the purest filth—shadow and magma—spewing from the wound! Its perfect "sustenance"! The azure core spun with greedy hums; the pale flame quivered; the etched rune-chains strained towards the "Festering Source-Eye" like hounds scenting blood!

Yet, as Lu Chen reeled from the sight and the flame's hunger—

*KRA-KOOOOM—!!!*

An earth-shattering roar erupted from above—the direction of the Sanctum! Massive chunks of ice, burning with azure frost-fire and trailing deadly "Stasis" residue, plummeted like meteors! They smashed onto the icy root plane with deafening impacts, spraying shards and dark crimson magma sludge!

A colossal, cold figure wreathed in furious azure frost-fire tore through the collapsing ice, crashing down behind the barrage!

The Bone Guardian—the Stillness-Bones!

Its massive crystalline greatsword was drawn! The fracture inflicted by Tang Xiao's spark and Lu Chen's flame was stark, shadow-threads writhing around it, eroding the blade. This wound and corruption had clearly cost it dearly, igniting an ancient, unprecedented wrath!

The azure flames in its empty sockets locked onto Lu Chen below and Tang Xiao's corpse on his back! A wave of "Stasis" will—more savage, more chaotic than in the Sanctum, mixed with tainted ferocity—crashed down like an invisible iceberg!

***"DESECR...ATOR... BROKE... SEAL... SHALL... BE... STILLED!"*** Shattered shards of icy will hammered into Lu Chen's soul!

It ignored the festering Source-core and the "Eye." Its target was singular—reduce these ants who violated the sanctum, broke the seal, and wounded it to eternal ice sculptures!

The greatsword rose high! Azure light and foul shadow clashed violently on its blade, shrieking! A terrifying blade-force—woven of deep-blue ice, pale stasis halos, and threads of shadow-taint—tore through space, bearing an annihilating will, cleaving down towards Lu Chen and Tang Xiao! Where it passed, even the churning magma ocean froze into a dead path of rime!

The shadow of death—cold, hopeless—engulfed Lu Chen!

*No escape! No defense!* The Stillness-Bones' enraged strike was beyond his current power! His strength was spent tearing the platform; the Abyss-Devouring Flame was unstable from gorging on chaos!

In that fatal instant, Lu Chen's gaze instinctively swept Tang Xiao's cold, rigid face. The right eye, half-covered by azure ice and Abyssal Taint, seemed to reflect both the descending blade-force and the festering Source-core below—the "Festering Source-Eye"!

A mad idea struck Lu Chen's chaotic mind like lightning!

*The Stillness-Bones is corrupted! The seal it guards is riddled! And it only sees us!*

***"Gamble... it is!"*** Lu Chen's eyes blazed with desperate insanity! He didn't try to block or dodge the strike. Instead, he poured his final strength into the Abyss-Devouring Flame—its hunger, its instability—and slammed it down onto the icy root plane! His target: a node near the festering Source-core, severely eroded by shadow, its structure brittle!

***"GO! FEAST!"***

The Abyss-Devouring Flame, sensing the node's intense tainted energy, exploded with unprecedented devouring frenzy! The azure core became a vortex; the pale flame became rending fangs; the crimson-black rune-chains drove down like siege rams!

*SKREEEEE—!!!*

The eroded root node shattered like rotten wood under the flame's desperate assault! A gaping, bottomless hole yawned open! Below it surged one of the most violent geysers of filthy shadow and magma "pus" from the "Festering Source-Eye's" edge!

*BOOOOOOM—!!!*

The Stillness-Bones' corrupted blade-force struck almost simultaneously—right where Lu Chen and Tang Xiao *had* been! The root plane split open a chasm yards deep, its edges coated in dead rime and foul shadow! The shockwave hurled Lu Chen away!

But Lu Chen's gambit worked!

The hole he tore gaped just below and beside the blade-force's trajectory! The violently exposed, spewing fountain of tainted energy below was like a massive, supremely tempting "wound." It instantly drew the corrupted shadow-forces within the Stillness-Bones' own blade-strike!

Like iron filings to a magnet!

The corrupted shadow-threads, forcibly bound within the blade-force for the attack, sensed their kin—purer, vaster—below. They instantly rebelled! Like homing vipers, they tore free from the main force, lunging ravenously towards the spewing "pus" fountain below the hole! Seeking to merge! To devour!

This sudden power backlash and trajectory shift twisted the blade-force violently off course! The annihilating will locked onto Lu Chen was shattered!

*KRA-KOOOOM—!!!*

The corrupted blade-force, bereft of its shadow component, remained devastating but missed its mark. It slammed into a dense cluster of ice roots yards from Lu Chen! Roots shattered; magma fountained; in the thunderous roar, that section of the root plane was obliterated!

*"SKREEEEE—!!!"*

A non-human shriek of mingled agony and fury tore from the Stillness-Bones! The backlash and loss of control made its colossal frame shudder violently; the azure flames in its sockets flared wildly! It jerked its head down, its burning "gaze" locking onto the hole torn by the Abyss-Devouring Flame—now spewing tainted energy—and onto the half-glimpsed "Festering Source-Eye" within! It seemed to realize—this festering core, the source of its corruption, was the greater threat!

But too late!

The Stillness-Bones' misdirected, root-shattering blow was the final straw!

*CRACK! SNAP! SPLINTER!*

A sickening symphony of shattering ice erupted from the obliterated root cluster! The entire, immense icy root plane, its critical supports gone, began a chain reaction of collapse! Vast fissures spiderwebbed across every visible inch of the "ground"! Countless massive root segments, bereft of support, plunged like falling mountains towards the churning magma ocean below!

The Source-core space was coming apart!

The "Festering Source-Eye," jolted by the spatial collapse, violently contracted and expanded! More torrents of filthy shadow and magma erupted like an uncontrolled volcano from the wound! The Source-current's lament soared into a piercing, destruction-saturated screech!

Lu Chen tumbled and dodged amidst collapsing root monoliths, the Abyss-Devouring Flame flickering in the chaotic energy storm. He clung to Tang Xiao's corpse like a leaf in a typhoon.

The Stillness-Bones hovered amidst the chaos, its frame swaying in the violent tremors. It looked down at the collapsing root plane, the erupting festering core, then at Lu Chen struggling amidst the ruin with the "desecrator" on his back. The azure flames in its sockets flickered intensely, its icy will churning with unprecedented confusion—tainted rage, the sting of failed guardianship, hatred for the corruption source... and a sliver of doubt about its own existence.

Finally, its cold "gaze" locked back onto the throbbing, expanding "Festering Source-Eye" at the heart of the collapse! A wave of "Stasis" will—more resolute, more insane than ever, fused with tainted ferocity—erupted from it! It gripped its scarred greatsword with both skeletal hands, pointing the blade directly at the world's rotting eye!

It had chosen—abandon Lu Chen, and pour its final strength into annihilating the source of all catastrophe! Even at the cost of mutual destruction!

Azure and shadow twisted together in terrifying light upon the massive blade!

Lu Chen glimpsed the Stillness-Bones' intent, his heart pounding! *This was the only chance!* While the guardian focused on the "Eye," before the space collapsed entirely!

He burned through a falling ice monolith with the Abyss-Devouring Flame. His eyes scanned the collapsing hellscape, finally locking onto a narrow "path"—formed by relatively intact roots—sloping down towards the dark edge of the space!

*"GO!"* He roared, heaving Tang Xiao's cold weight, and fled towards that path of darkness—a path that might be escape, or another abyss! Behind him gathered the Stillness-Bones' world-ending light, and the "Festering Source-Eye's" roar of destruction!