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!

on the floor were broken. If

to the waking world yesterday. Before that, she had been a Sleeper, which meant that she had

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

took some time to get used to it, and even more to master it. However, every Ascended before Changing Star enjoyed having the experience of making the first steps on that long

reached Ascension, controlling essence was as natural to

also deprived her of

was out of her

broken sword in her hands with a deep frown, Sunny waved a hand in the air and forced out a

time learning how to guide your soul essence. After that, you will have to spend even more time relearning how to fight with its help. I had

for a bit, and

essence at all. It will be a pure test of

all things considered, if both of them neglected using essence

and concentrated.

moment later,

thing went better.

sense the core of her style. It had changed

Sunny could not master the style yet, he attuned himself to its flow and cadence enough to be

combat was not based in affinity to shadows, and was sufficiently different from it… but achieved a similar result. It was the

she could predict what

Sunny had never found himself in a battle that demanded so much mental gymnastics before. He was not even entirely sure what was happening! There had to be a solution

just half of

couldn't even prevent herself from instinctively using it. As the result, Sunny had to endure sudden outburst of speed, strength, and agility that