Polar Day And Polar Night

"Shroud."

The word, cold, resonant, carrying a dual timbre, wasn't spoken through air. It was an edict of ultimate law, chiseled directly into the chaotic, viscous core consciousness of the "Festering Eye"!

*Hmmmm——!!!*

The obsidian cocoon sheathed in pale, liquid light-flame—the core of the Terminus Shroud—collapsed inwards violently! Compressed to a fraction of its former size, it became dense as a singularity before creation! Its deep black crystalline core pulsed with blazing white veins of hyper-condensed order. The liquid sheen on its surface transformed, no longer merely a covering, but into leaping, pale flames of terminus, so intense they verged on nothingness!

An unprecedented triune force field—Stasis, Incinerate, Devour—exploded outwards like an absolute domain!

*Space froze! Time congealed! Chaos annihilated!*

The countless world-ending claws, forged of tainted shadow wrapped around blazing magma hearts, froze rigid at the field's edge! Their viscous shadow-substance plunged into an abyss of absolute zero, instantly losing all vitality, solidifying, turning brittle! The white-hot magma hearts, swept by the pale Terminus Flame, saw their furious heat and destructive will snuffed out like candle flames in a gale, silently decomposed, devoured, converted into pure energy streams that fed the leaping flames upon the cocoon!

"Sssscccrrreeee——!!!"

The Festering Eye unleashed an ultimate shriek that transcended fear—a scream from its very soul! It felt the bedrock of its existence tremble violently! The encroaching force field wasn't mere destruction; it was the utter shrouding and termination of the very concept of "Chaos" itself! It marshaled its last vestiges of chaotic will, contracting, coalescing in one desperate gamble!

Deep within the festering wound, the chaotic crimson core collapsed frenziedly, becoming an unstable, light-devouring dark singularity! Then—BOOM! The singularity detonated! A beam of ultra-condensed, jet-black annihilation surged forth, a mixture of the Source Flow's primordial filth and the curses of billions! Like the world's final, dying spew of venomous blood, it pierced the frozen space, aimed straight at the Terminus Shroud's core!

This was the Festering Eye's final struggle, condensed from its last dregs as the font of chaos! Where it passed, even space frozen by the Terminus Field groaned under the strain, corroding into viscous, writhing black fissures!

"Obstinate."

Within the Terminus Shroud, the nascent consciousness born from the fusion of Lu Chen and Tang Xiao's wills—Chenxiao—radiated icy indifference. The dark silhouette sheathed in pale flame slowly raised its "hand," fingers splayed, and made a casual grasping motion towards the oncoming tide of black annihilation.

There was no cataclysmic collision.

Only a soul-freezing act of shrouding and erasure at the level of fundamental law.

The liquid membrane of pale Terminus Flame surged like a ravenous abyssal maw, instantly engulfing the jet-black torrent! The terrifying onslaught of filth and curses struck the membrane—and vanished like flames cast into a bottomless glacial void, failing to raise even a ripple! The Terminus Flame frenziedly decomposed, *devoured* the chaotic essence within, forcibly converting it into pure, frigid energy of order! The destructive will imbued within the tide was instantly frozen solid, petrified by the absolute Law of Stasis overlaying it, like venomous insects sealed within ten-thousand-year ice, stripped of all animation!

*Sssss——!!!*

The jet-black torrent of annihilation visibly faded, consumed, assimilated, *shrouded* by the pale flame! Starting from its tip, it shed its filthy black hue, stained icy pale, until it transformed entirely into a docile, frigid energy stream, greedily absorbed by the Terminus Shroud!

"Im—pos—si—ble—!!!" The core consciousness of the Festering Eye unleashed one last, despairing, twisted shriek of soul-rending disbelief and bottomless resentment! Its imploding dark singularity, bereft of its final sustaining essence, collapsed utterly inwards!

*Hmmmm...*

The Source Flow's core space plunged into an eerie silence.

Deep within the colossal festering wound, the perpetually pulsing "Festering Eye" was gone. In its place yawned a profound, dark aperture, its edges crawling with pale, restless flame. No more tainted shadows or magma spewed from the hole—only absolute stillness and cold remained. The raging magma ocean, shrouded by the Terminus Field, rapidly cooled and solidified into an endless expanse of black cryo-basalt, veined with pale frost scars. The massive, fallen crystalline roots hung frozen mid-air, like colossal icy tombstones.

The entire Source Flow core space had been forcibly consigned to a frigid, eternal... Stasis.

The Terminus Shroud cocoon hovered serenely at the heart of this newly birthed dead world. Pale Terminus Flame flowed steadily across its surface, radiating the annihilating aura of finality.

Within the Cocoon.

Chenxiao's consciousness hovered like a cold star above a frozen star-sea composed of shards from Lu Chen's and Tang Xiao's memories.

Lu Chen's Constellation: The glory of the Xi Yao City paladin; the uncontrolled pale flame on the training ground; the horrifying sight of Adrien's half-body instantly charring; the icy judgment of the Tribunal elders; the final leaden sky glimpsed as the float-disc plummeted into the abyss... These images were encased, frozen beneath a thick layer of deep-blue ice veined with pale flame. Beneath the ice, Lu Chen's fury, resentment, shame, and despair were visible like cryo-sealed specimens, stripped of all vitality, mere cold exhibits.

Tang Xiao's Constellation: The snow-lashed battlements of Emberstone Keep; the spinning crystalline snowflake in his palm; the crimson hellfire consuming his home during the geothermic eruption; the solitary figure standing at the magma fissure's edge, using his body as a prison; the power to freeze light-flame on the ice lake of the Permafrost Wastes; the dark obsidian etching spreading across his face alongside writhing azure ice... These memory shards were similarly ice-locked, but the freezing medium was the denser, more profound Terminus Flame. Tang Xiao's protective obsession, etching agony, destructive madness, and the icy clarity of his final life-burning sacrifice flowed like powerful undercurrents beneath the ice, deeply imprinted onto Chenxiao's core consciousness, becoming the bedrock and frigid engine of his power.

Two sets of memories. Two kinds of agony. Two wills. Under the absolute Shroud of Terminus, they did not vanish. Instead, they were forcibly frozen, unified, becoming the... double-helix foundation supporting this nascent, frigid deity. Lu Chen's madness and defiance were *shrouded*, tamed by Tang Xiao's ice and order. Tang Xiao's stillness and annihilation were constrained, directed by Lu Chen's Domain-of-Light instinct for "purification."

Chenxiao slowly "looked down" at the form coalescing from Terminus Shroud power. The dark silhouette sheathed in pale flame was solidifying, gaining definition, as it absorbed the vast energy from devouring the Festering Eye's last essence.

No longer a vague outline, it was a tall, lithe, armored form clad in flowing obsidian cryosteel. Blazing white light-veins, like frozen magma, pulsed at its joints. Its face was covered by a smooth, featureless obsidian ice-mask, save for the eye sockets, where two points of steady, cold, pale flame burned like eternal glacial stars.

He (It?) slowly raised an armored arm. Palm upturned.

A thought stirred.

*Hmm!*

A point of pale light-flame ignited silently in its palm. It was stable. Cold. Utterly devoid of its former frenzy. Yet it radiated a supreme will to freeze space and consign all things to stillness. This was the most basic manifestation of Terminus Shroud power—Permafrost Aurora. It held no heat, only the essence of **Shrouding** and Termination.

Chenxiao's icy gaze (those two pale flames) pierced the cocoon walls, pierced the solidified cryo-basalt plain, pierced the thick strata of rock, fixing upon the Permafrost Wastes' "sky"—a canopy choked with sulfurous fumes and violet lightning clouds.

"Shrouding... begins..."

A cold, resonant, utterly emotionless voice echoed through the dead core space.

*Hmmmm——!!!*

The obsidian cocoon sheathed in pale flame—Chenxiao's nascent body—erupted with unprecedented radiance! Not an explosive blast, but a wave of all-encompassing diffusion!

Centered on him, pale Terminus Flame spread like placid mercury, soundless and inexorable! Where it flowed, the solidified cryo-basalt plain was overlaid with a denser, darker "new membrane," veined with pale light. The frozen crystalline roots were enveloped, reshaped, transformed into towering pale crystalline totems supporting this dead space. Deep within the Source Flow's shrouded wound, the crawling pale flame seeped inward, covering, sealing the profound aperture completely, leaving only a smooth, mirror-like expanse of obsidian ice, etched with pale patterns.

The power of Shroud did not stop! It followed the pulse of the Source Flow, coursing upward through the polluted geothermic veins and fissures beneath the Permafrost Wastes like the coldest plague, silently spreading, covering!

*Permafrost Wastes, Surface.*

Writhing violet lightning snakes froze mid-air, pinned like venomous insects. The billowing sulfurous haze ceased its churn, overlaid with a thin film of pale-glowing crystalline dust. Magma fissures spewing from the depths saw their incandescent flow instantly cool, blacken, sheathed in smooth, frigid obsidian ice veined with pale light. Jagged metal spires swept by the pale flame shed rust and filth instantly, becoming smooth, cold, like newly forged black tombstones stabbing towards the leaden sky veiled in crystalline dust.

The low-tier shadow-and-ice predators roaming the wastes froze utterly the moment the pale flame touched them, then silently disintegrated, dissolving into pure frigid energy absorbed by the shroud covering the land. Even the omnipresent, soul-freezing chill was shrouded, assimilated, becoming part of the covering power itself.

The entire Permafrost Wastes was being dragged, at unprecedented speed, into a state of icy, silent, pale-glowing eternal Stasis! No longer a chaotic exile zone, it was transforming into a colossal, terminus-shrouded... silent necropolis!

At the leading edge of this shrouding tide, deep within Shatterbone Chasm...

A wisp of chaotic, scorching shadow—like a startled serpent—frantically slithered from a magma fissure just about to be covered by the pale flame! It was the last, weakened shred of the Festering Eye's consciousness, escaped during its final dissolution! Imbued with boundless resentment and terror, it sought to flee the all-shrouding Terminus power!

Yet, the instant it emerged—

*Hmm!*

A beam of hyper-condensed pale light—like divine retribution crossing space—descended soundlessly from the pale membrane now covering the sky! It struck the fleeing shadow with unerring accuracy!

*Ssss!*

No explosion. No scream. The shadow dissolved like a silhouette cast into potent acid, instantly decomposed, shrouded, erased. All that remained was a tiny patch of smooth, cold black ice etched with pale patterns—an insignificant new patch of... dead stillness on the land.

The Shroud continued. Cold. Silent. Eternal.

Chenxiao hovered at the center of the transformed Source Flow core—a majestic ice hall supported by pale crystalline totems, its floor a vast expanse of obsidian ice veined with pale light. Slowly, his gaze (if the mask could be said to hold a gaze) turned towards the hall's depths.

There, standing silent, was a new throne of ice. Fashioned from pure obsidian cryosteel, it pulsed with blazing white veins of order. Upon the throne sat an ice sculpture clad in the same material. It held a pose: hands resting on the pommel of a greatsword. Its face was covered by a smooth ice mask. In its eye sockets burned two faint yet unwavering points of pale flame—Tang Xiao's last remnants, reshaped by Chenxiao's Terminus Shroud power. An eternal symbol... a guardian icon and an anchor of power within the silent ice hall.

Chenxiao's gaze swept past the throne, finally settling on the greatsword plunged into the ice before it. Its form vaguely echoed that of Stasis Husk's blade, yet it was sleeker, more profound, its blade coursing with condensed pale light-veins, radiating the supreme will of Shroud and Termination.

Slowly, he raised his armored hand, gesturing towards the greatsword in a beckoning motion.

*Hmm!*

The greatsword emitted a low, submissive hum, transforming into a streak of pale light that flew into Chenxiao's grasp.

The hilt was cold to the touch, weightless, yet it seemed to bear the stillness of an entire world.

Chenxiao held the Terminus Blade. His gaze, sheathed in pale flame, pierced the hall's thick vaulted ceiling, pierced the shrouded sky of the Permafrost Wastes, fixing upon a distant, blurred direction obscured by polluted clouds.

There. The direction of the Domain of Light. The direction of Xi Yao City.

An icy intent, like a terminus decree, resonated soundlessly within the silent ice hall:

"Order... requires... remaking... Light... also... requires... shrouding..."

Pale flame flowed silently along the blade in his grasp.