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!

plates on the floor were broken. If this continued, the repair bill for the dojo was

had just returned to the waking world yesterday. Before that, she had been a Sleeper, which meant that she had no experience of controlling soul essence whatsoever. Let alone doing it with

exactly how chaotic and unrestrained the flow of her essence was, because Shadow Dance now allowed him to sense the movement of the mystical energy through the bodies of his

with essence, but it still 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 and arduous road as an

Ascension, controlling essence was as

Nephis. Her return as a Master might have been miraculous, but it also deprived her of a lot of things that people who did not break the natural order

out

with a deep frown, Sunny waved a hand in the air and forced

have to spend even more time relearning how to fight with its help. I had years of practice already, so fighting at full force won't do us

for a bit,

any essence at all. It will be a pure

him. But with all things considered, if both of them neglected using essence or augmenting themselves with their Abilities, the gap in physical prowess should not have been

concentrated. Each discarded

later,

thing went better.

Sunny long to sense the core of her style. It had changed a lot and matured over the past two years, but so did

attuned himself to its flow and cadence enough to be able to

the same. Her ability to discern, predict, and control patterns of combat was not based in affinity to shadows, and was sufficiently different

what Nephis was thinking of doing, while she could predict what he had predicted her actions, and change her approach on the fly… which he would also discern, and

very confusing. 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 for this predicament, of course, but he had no time to

was just

result, Sunny had to endure sudden outburst of speed, strength, and agility