Shadow Slave

The next two weeks passed in a blur.

Sunny had so much to do that there was no time to concentrate on any one thing for too long. The First Evacuation Army camp around him was in a similar state, becoming increasingly more hectic and busy as the date of the naval convoy's departure approached.

Luckily, he was more than familiar with having to act fast while enduring immense pressure.

The first thing Sunny did after introducing himself to the members of his cohort was briefly reiterate the key objectives of the upcoming campaign, as well as share several pieces of information about the hardships they would most likely have to endure and the intended role of the First Irregular Company that his soldiers had not been privy to before.

After Sunny finished his briefing, the mood in the empty gymnasium turned somewhat grim. Not wishing to let the six Awakened stew in their apprehension, he immediately transitioned to the next stage of getting to know his subordinates.

Summoning the Cruel Sight, Sunny smiled pleasantly and asked them to attack him, one at a time.

He wanted to kill two birds with one stone by dueling each of the cohort members right off the bat.

First of all, Sunny knew that he had to win their respect. No matter what Master Jet had said, these experienced soldiers were not going to put their trust in him easily. He was young, small, and a complete stranger. Although forging a real bond would take more time and effort, a simple demonstration of strength was a good start.

Secondly, he needed to understand their powers and techniques better. A simple duel was the best way to do that. Sunny had an additional advantage in that regard, since his mastery of Shadow Dance allowed him to learn much faster, and peer much deeper, than almost anyone else.

In the next thirty minutes or so, he ruthlessly demolished each of his subordinates without even breaking a sweat. Although all of them were very good at what they did, his power and skill were simply too domineering.

a bit of a problem were Dorn and Samara. The former's Aspect was very insidious when used with sufficient foresight. While Sunny was strong enough to shake off the

combat centered around infusing bullets with charged soul essence, she was perfectly capable of simply forming her essence into projectiles without a tangible medium. Even if these soul darts weren't

gymnasium was built with Awakened in mind. Otherwise,

to really slow Sunny down. Of course, he took care to exert

he had a much better understanding of what his subordinates were capable of. Not only had Sunny been able to grasp the core tenets of their battle

of how the cohort would perform in battle and how to command it to achieve the best result, but also helped him come up with an

was not nearly enough time to turn seven relative strangers into a truly coordinated battle unit. The insight he had received due to Shadow Dance helped substantially accelerate the process, but the progress was still insufficient. Hopefully, they would reach at least the minimal threshold of mutual understanding by the time the naval

with the plan, Sunny did not linger before putting it

amusement, the training facility assigned to the cohort happened to include seven Dreamscape pods. These were different from the one he had back home, however. Instead of being connected

personal duels. Sunny was even able to tune the

it. Dreamscape was simply incapable of simulating the true madness and dread of the Nightmare Creatures. The illusory monsters they fought

incapable of

Sunny found something else to really pressure

Himself.

allocated significant time to battles where all six had to contain a single target — their captain. While

Awakened crawled out of the Dreamscape pods and wandered

the gymnasium. Luster was rubbing the shoulder he had bruised in one of the real-world training

is a

his luxurious Memory chair on the other side of the building, studying a topographical

guy is closer to the truth than