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!

few plates on the floor were broken. If this continued,

Nephis was not exactly at her best. She had just returned to the waking world yesterday. Before that, she had been a Sleeper, which meant that she

and unrestrained the flow of her essence was, because Shadow Dance now allowed

to it, and even more to master it. However, every

reached Ascension, controlling essence

much for Nephis. Her return as a Master might have been miraculous, but it also deprived her of a

was out of

with a deep frown, Sunny waved

even more time relearning how to fight with its

thought for a bit, and

but without using any essence at all. It will

if both of them neglected using

concentrated. Each discarded their broken weapons

later, they

went better. However… not

it didn't take Sunny long to sense the core of her style. It had changed a lot and matured over the past two years, but

the style yet, he attuned himself to its flow and cadence enough to be able to predict some of Neph's moves with a good

could do more or less the same. Her ability to discern, predict, and control patterns of combat was not based in affinity to shadows, and was sufficiently different from it… but achieved a similar result. It was the product of her talent, training, and incredible

she could predict what he had predicted her actions, and

gymnastics before. He was not even entirely sure what was happening!

just half

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