Shadow Slave

Over the next few days, Sunny slowly grew somewhat accustomed to life aboard a giant, floating metal coffin. Of course, the thought of being separated from the bottomless abyss of dark water by just a few layers of alloy was not too comforting… but at least he did not think about it too much anymore.

What helped Sunny the most was the fact that he was simply too busy to entertain frivolous thoughts.

His schedule was packed to the limit. There was so much he had to do…

Most of his days were still dedicated to trying to improve the level of cooperation between the members of the cohort. Now that they had left the Northern Quadrant, there was no spacious gymnasium for them to practice in. The Dreamscape pods were a thing of the past now, too.

Of course, there were some facilities available on the giant battleship, as well as the whole upper deck, but none of it was sufficient to put six elite Awakened fighters through the paces. Still, there was a lot they could do to learn how to work well together.

From low-intensity training to mental exercises and games, anything that could give the members of the cohort a glimpse into how their comrades thought and acted was a step in the right direction. Sunny's insights that he had gained thanks to Shadow Dance helped a lot, as well.

Slowly but surely, his soldiers were clicking together and learning how to fight side by side. Belle's swift and mercurial nature, Dorn's solid and calculated approach, Quentin's stalwart persistence, Samara's steadiness and deadly aim, Kim's mastery of sight and quiet competence, Luster's spirit and inexhaustible bravado… guided by Sunny, all of it was slowly melting together.

The cohort had not reached the point where they could move as a single organism yet, but at least they were already able to reinforce each other's strengths while simultaneously covering each other's weaknesses.

Sunny had gained a deeper understanding of their powers, as well. For example, Belle's ability to sharpen his sword was actually more complicated than he had fought — as it turned out, the actual effect surrounded the blade with an incredibly thin, invisible displacement field instead of actually making the edge sharper.

Kimmy could not only share visual perception between several people, but also mix and match it as the situation demanded. She could see the weaknesses of the enemy, but simply channeling her point of view to a fighter in the middle of furious battle would have been too disorienting. Instead, she was able to transfer only the vision of the vulnerabilities, almost like a composite overlay that lighted the chosen spots up.

distance he could maintain between himself and the target while channeling the beneficial effect. If there

did not react to Luster's presence at all… which was a big disappointment, considering that Sunny had stripped himself of Serpent's support in order to protect

did I

a great effect on him, anyway. The young Awakened was not able to

busy modifying their Memories. The process was long, arduous, and complicated,

passive sharpening effect of the enchanted straight razor. He had somehow managed to transfer the

the onyx

six charms that he had presented to the members of the cohort. Each carried an altered version of

this accomplishment so important. It was the first time Sunny succeeded in not only copying and

a lot of essence to sustain its effect. The version Sunny imbued into the six weaker charms was more modest, but also much

destructive rifle into a Memory. Sunny had really wanted to, but no matter how hard he tried, the high-tech weapon was just too intricate, complicated, and

object was, the larger its size and mass, the harder it was to integrate the rudimentary weave into it. Perhaps if he knew more, he would have known how to overcome this limitation. But as things stood, Sunny had to abandon

'Oh well…'

Rhino into

bed as he stared dejectedly at the heavy rifle. The battleship vibrated subtly around him, but its

Of course, as an Ascended, he could easily

Or was it third?

put the heavy rifle aside and threw the unused soul shards into the maw of the Covetous

it. I