Polar Day And Polar Night

Biting cold darkness enveloped Lu Chen. He fled along the precarious, narrow "path" of shattered ice roots, Tang Xiao's cold, rigid corpse a dead weight on his back. Beneath his feet, icy "bridges" groaned under strain; to either side roared molten abysses; above, colossal shards of frozen debris rained down, each trailing deadly "Stasis" residue and foul shadow. The Abyss-Devouring Flame raged in his palm—its azure core spinning like a maelstrom, its pale light tearing through darkness, the etched rune-chains of crimson and black whipping wildly—shattering, devouring, or melting obstacles in his path. Each surge of power tore through him, the three warring forces within—light-fire, extreme cold, shadow-magma—clashing and fusing in agony, like walking on white-hot blades.

Behind him, the Stillness-Bones' world-ending light reached its zenith! The scarred crystalline greatsword transformed into a pillar of azure and shadow, fused with tainted ferocity and a guardian's final resolve, plunging towards the pulsating **Festering Source-Eye**!

*BOOOOOOM—!!!!*

An indescribable cataclysm erupted at the Source-core! Pure "Stasis" law collided with chaotic, filthy Source-essence! Space tore open into visible black rifts! Shards of azure ice mixed with viscous crimson pus and incandescent magma—fragments of a rotting world—shot through the destruction! The Stillness-Bones' colossal frame was hurled back by the blast, crashing into distant collapsing ice mountains. The flames in its sockets dimmed drastically. The greatsword flew from its grasp, spinning into the magma abyss, its fracture rapidly spreading, threatening to sunder the blade entirely!

The Festering Source-Eye shrieked—a soul-rending wail of fury and destruction! Its chaotic crimson core bore a massive, ragged void from the Stillness-Bones' furious blow, its edges writhing, trying to heal! Even viler, more savage energy—like ruptured pus—gushed from the wound! The collapse of the Source-core space accelerated violently! The root plane shattered like an eggshell, vast sections plunging into the magma sea, sending up tidal waves of murky crimson!

The shockwave of destruction struck Lu Chen's back like a god's hammer!

*THWACK!* Lu Chen felt as if struck by lightning! Blood and viscera sprayed from his mouth as he was hurled forward like a broken puppet! He clung desperately to Tang Xiao's corpse. The Abyss-Devouring Flame guttered wildly under the agony and impact!

The narrow ice-root "path" beneath them groaned despairingly under the double assault of shockwave and spatial collapse—beginning to fracture from the middle!

"Urgh!" Lu Chen and Tang Xiao's body tumbled with the breaking roots towards the churning magma inferno below!

Soul-melting heat washed over him! Death's shadow had never felt so real!

At the fatal precipice—

***"GRAB!"*** A voice—cold, faint, yet piercingly clear—exploded in Lu Chen's chaotic mind!

*Tang Xiao's voice!* But not from the cold corpse on his back... it came from *within*—from the spark of life and consciousness devoured and fused with the Abyss-Devouring Flame!

Lu Chen acted on pure instinct. He slammed his flame-wreathed left palm against a massive, relatively intact ice root fragment hurtling past!

*SKREEE—!*

The azure core of the Abyss-Devouring Flame unleashed unprecedented devouring and freezing power! Pale flame became viscous "glue"; crimson-black rune-chains drove in like steel spikes! Ice and fire, pushed to their limits in desperation, melted and froze a handhold into the root's surface!

Lu Chen's body smashed into the edge of the hollow. The impact blurred his vision; his arm felt wrenched from its socket. But he clung, fingers gouging the ice! Tang Xiao's body dangled from his other hand over the magma abyss! The searing updraft instantly charred his ragged clothes!

"Huff... huff..." Lu Chen gasped, each breath a lungful of scorching blood. He looked at the flame in his palm. That burst had nearly drained him. The frostflame was feeble, its azure core webbed with cracks, the pale light flickering, the runes dim. Worse, gorged on chaotic energy from the collapsing space and Stasis residue, the conflicting forces within the flame raged uncontrollably, threatening to detonate, shattering him and the ice root!

Then, a trickle of pure, icy will—like a mountain spring—flowed from the flame's core, soothing his frayed consciousness. *Tang Xiao!* His final spark of life and clarity, fused with the flame, wasn't gone!

***"Source-wound... core... disintegrating..."*** Tang Xiao's fragmented thought came, cold and urgent. ***"Stillness-Bones... crippled... Festering-Eye... wounded... balance... shattering... faster... must... anchor..."***

*Anchor?* With what? Lu Chen looked down at the roiling magma, the falling debris, felt the explosive chaos within himself and the flame on the edge of eruption. Cold despair washed over him. What could anchor a disintegrating world-wound?

***"Use... us..."*** Tang Xiao's thought held a near-ruthless finality. ***"Your... flame... my... ice... this... filthy... symbiont... becomes... the new... 'scab'!"***

*A new scab?* Use the Abyss-Devouring Flame, their fused power, to plug the festering core spewing the world's pus?

The idea was insane! The Festering-Eye's energy could vaporize them instantly! And the gaping wound torn by the Stillness-Bones raged like a hungry maw, vomiting destruction!

***"Go... to the wound's... weakest... point..."*** Tang Xiao's thought faded but guided inexorably. ***"It... was... torn by... Stillness-Bones... in the chaos... a fleeting... 'void'..."***

Lu Chen snapped his head up. His gaze pierced falling ice and churning energy, locking onto the ragged void torn in the Festering Source-Eye! At its edges, filthy shadow-matter and magma sludge writhed, trying to heal. But at the void's heart—where the purest "Stasis" force had momentarily "frozen"—the energy surge showed a brief, unstable... *lull*! A cold bubble in boiling oil!

It was the only chance! The path of last resort Tang Xiao's life and will had pointed to!

***"RAAAAAGH—!!!"*** Lu Chen roared, a sound of despair and madness fused! He stopped suppressing the raging forces within him, stopped restraining the flame on the brink! Instead, with his last shred of focus, he *channeled* them—the tearing conflict of light-fire, extreme cold, shadow-magma, and Tang Xiao's icy will and life-spark—like a fuse into a powder keg, pouring everything into the Abyss-Devouring Flame!

***"BURN—!!!"***

*WHOOSH—!!!*

The Abyss-Devouring Flame swelled tenfold! No longer a flame, but a howling vortex of chaotic energy! The azure core shattered and reformed, each iteration deeper, colder; the pale light became leaping bolts of lightning; the etched runes tore free, becoming ravenous void-chains coiling around the storm's edge! A force—icy, chaotic, savage beyond measure, yet held in fragile unity by Tang Xiao's final will—detonated!

Lu Chen kicked off the ice root with the recoil! Carrying Tang Xiao's corpse, he shot forward like a moth to flame, an arrow against the tide, hurtling towards the "void" at the heart of the Festering-Eye's wound—the lull in the energy surge!

***"SKREEE-GAAAA—!!!"***

The Festering Source-Eye sensed the threat—tiny, yet lethal! It shrieked with renewed fury and hunger! The writhing shadow-matter at the void's edge instantly animated, forming countless viscous tentacles tipped with magma spikes, lashing and coiling towards Lu Chen!

Lu Chen's world narrowed to the expanding energy "void." The frostflame vortex led the charge! Azure ice froze and slowed the lashing tentacles; pale lightning shredded and vaporized them; rune-chains greedily devoured their dissipating energy, growing stronger!

*Sizzle-Crack! Thud! BOOM!*

Ice shards flew! Lightning flashed! Tainted energy fragments sprayed! Tentacle strikes slammed into Lu Chen, bones cracking, blood painting the air crimson! Yet he surged on! Guided by Tang Xiao's icy precision, propelled by the frostflame burning itself as fuel, he tore a death-path through the forest of tentacles towards the "void!"

Closer! Almost there!

The lull at the wound's heart—the eerie, brief "calm"—was within reach! Lu Chen could almost feel its unnatural stillness!

***"NOW—!!!"*** Lu Chen and the remnant consciousness of Tang Xiao roared as one!

He thrust the vortex—the culmination of all their power, will, agony, and madness—along with himself and Tang Xiao's corpse, *into* the energy-lull at the heart of the wound!

Not an attack! *Integration!* A self-sacrificial... *plugging!*

*OOOOOM—!!!*

Time seemed to freeze!

As the raging vortex touched the momentarily stilled Source-energy within the "void," metamorphosis erupted!

Deep within the vortex core, Tang Xiao's spark of icy life and clarity ignited a fundamental resonance! The azure core blazed with unprecedented cold light—not freezing, but *congealing*, *anchoring*! The pale lightning ceased its wild destruction, transforming into countless fine, stable threads of light, weaving frantically! The crimson-black rune-chains stopped their ravenous devouring, becoming living sigils of sealing, etching themselves with cold order into the surrounding, writhing filth!

*Sizzle-Crack-Hiss—!*

The sound of energy being violently woven and bound!

Centered on Lu Chen and Tang Xiao's bodies, a colossal, distorted **Cocoon** rapidly formed within the gaping wound!

Its outer shell was rapidly thickening azure ice, deep as ancient glaciers, radiating potent "anchoring" will, fusing with the wound's putrid edges! Inside the Cocoon, chaos ceased. Instead, networks of stabilized pale light—like newborn veins and nerves—connected Lu Chen, Tang Xiao's corpse, and the forcibly "tamed" portion of the Source-core! The crimson-black runes became flowing seals on the Cocoon's surface, voraciously absorbing, converting, and integrating the surrounding tainted energy into the nascent structure!

The Festering Source-Eye screamed—a sound of primal terror and fury! It *felt* it! The mortal threat! This tiny symbiont, once prey and chaos-source, was now parasitizing its weakest point! Drawing its power! Building a new, incomprehensible, law-defying **Order-Core** to usurp it!

It marshaled all its chaotic will! Filthy shadow and magma torrents, like enraged beasts, slammed against the forming ice-shell from all sides!

*CRACK! SNAP!*

The newly formed azure shell fractured under the onslaught! The pale networks within flickered violently! The sealing runes dimmed!

Within the Cocoon, Lu Chen endured agony beyond imagining! His body was the crucible of conflict and transformation! Flesh, bone, meridians—all felt torn apart and remade! Tang Xiao's cold corpse became a strange "anchor," its azure ice and Abyssal Taint resonating deeply with the nascent Cocoon, providing icy order and... a frozen sense of *existence* drawn from life's core!

***"Hold... use... my... ice... as bone... your... flame... as vein... the Source's... chaos... as blood..."*** Tang Xiao's icy, unwavering thought was a final beacon in Lu Chen's pain-blurred mind. ***"This... filthy... world... needs... a new... 'scab'!"***

Lu Chen's eyes were bloodshot, his soul ablaze! He surrendered no longer to pain or fear. He poured all his will, madness, and desperate will to live into the nascent Cocoon!

***"ABYSS—RETURN TO SOURCE—!!!"***

His soul screamed! The core frostflame vortex abandoned flame-form entirely, becoming a swirling maelstrom of grey-white and azure! At its center—Tang Xiao's spark of icy order! At its edge—Lu Chen's will-driven fury of devouring and conversion!

*CRUNCH—!!!*

The colossal Cocoon violently contracted! The azure shell grew denser, harder, fractures sealing! The internal pale networks condensed, solidified! The surface runes blazed, their devouring and conversion accelerating wildly!

The Festering-Eye's assault was driven back! The ragged wound's edge was plugged—a significant portion forcibly sealed by the nascent **Grey-Azure Cocoon**, radiating cold devouring and nascent order!

Though the Festering Source-Eye still raged, vomiting filth from other fissures, though the Source-core space continued its collapse... at the heart of the world's festering wound, a "new scab"—forged from uncontrolled flame, ultimate ice, tainted Source-essence, and the souls of two exiles—was undergoing its agonizing, law-defying **metamorphosis**!

The Grey-Azure Cocoon pulsed like a cold jewel set into the Festering-Eye, stubbornly throbbing amidst the storm of destruction. Each pulse devoured surrounding chaos, emitting a faint, undeniable glow... of nascent order.