Shadow Slave

Sunny and Nephis stood opposite each other, holding training swords. Both felt more than a little disturbed by how much this scene resembled their bitter confrontation at the very top of the Crimson Spire.

Of course, today, the situation was completely different. They were just going for a friendly spar, not a battle to the death. There were no stakes in this training fight, no emotional investment… no complicated mixture of regret, fury, and resentment.

…So why did Sunny feel as though he had to prove something?

Forcing himself to relax, he glanced at Nephis and attacked. Their swords met with a deafening clangor.

A few seconds later, Sunny jumped away and shouted:

"Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Changing Star froze while he looked around, breathing heavily.

Sunny gritted his teeth and spat a muffled curse.

"Damnation…"

His idea to have a spar might not have been the wisest one he ever had. Yes, the underground dojo was designed specifically to allow Awakened to train their powers. It was isolated, reinforced, and heavily armored, able to transform into an impregnable bunker in case a Gate opened nearby and a tide of Nightmare Creatures flooded the district.

The interior was furnished with heavy plates of armor-grade ceramic alloy and supplied with training equipment meant to withstand the rigors of Awakened power.

…However, Sunny and Nephis weren't Awakened anymore! They were full-fledged Masters, and abnormal ones at that!

hand was shattered. A few plates on the floor were broken. If this continued, the repair bill for the dojo was going

she had been a Sleeper, which meant that she had no experience of controlling soul essence whatsoever. Let alone doing it with

unrestrained the flow of her essence was, because Shadow Dance now allowed him to sense the movement of the mystical energy through the

had an instinctual understanding of how to augment their physicality with essence, but it still took some time to get used to it, and even

time Awakened reached Ascension, controlling essence was as natural to them as

deprived her of a

out of her

Changing Star stared at the broken sword in her hands with a deep frown,

even more time relearning how to fight with

for a bit,

using any essence at

both of them neglected using essence or augmenting themselves

again, they stood opposite each other and concentrated. Each discarded their broken weapons

moment later, they

thing went better. However… not by

and his familiarity with Nephis, it didn't take Sunny long to sense the core of her

cadence enough to be able to predict some of

Star herself could do more or less the same. Her ability to discern, predict, and control patterns of combat was not based in affinity

what he had predicted her actions, and change her approach on the fly… which he would

much mental gymnastics before. He was not even entirely sure what was happening! There had to be a solution for this predicament, of course,

just half

and bad that she couldn't even prevent herself from instinctively using it. As the result, Sunny had to endure sudden outburst of speed, strength, and agility that were too chaotic to predict. Because he was holding himself back, handling