Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then chuckled.

"No... that's crazy! It would never work."

Then, he stared at the wall some more.

...Would it?

'No way.'

The thought that had crept into his mind while he was thinking about the limitations of the Shadow Shell was so out there that it seemed utterly ridiculous. But the more he thought about it... the fewer reasons to discard it he saw.

'No, that's... that's a bit too strange, even for me.'

And yet, he could not find a logical reason for why it wouldn't be true.

Sunny hesitated for a while longer, then furtively looked around.

Then, he cleared his throat, stood up, and left the office.

If he wanted to test this bizarre theory, he needed to do it somewhere more private.

He left the Valor compound and made his way to the nearby dormitory, where most of the government staff still remaining within the siege capital lived. There, he entered his living quarters - which were a bit more spacious and had better amenities than that of both mundane and Awakened government workers - and locked the door behind him.

Being an Ascended had its perks.

to stand watch - two outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally going over

didn't seem to be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

shadow an enemy, copying the very essence of their combat technique. After doing so, he

first step allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved that breakthrough while fighting Nephis in

to shadow much more sophisticated styles, and do it much faster. It also gave him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more esoteric components of the truly advanced battle

Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with

the bloody arena of the Red Colosseum, he had submerged himself into their perverted, demented, rabid minds... which allowed him to intuitively feel what the abominations he fought would do, but also put his own sense of

on the practitioner. It required one to truly accept the formless nature of the shadows and let go of their actual self - which, of course, posed the risk of losing it forever. Sunny had made that dangerous breakthrough after being trapped in an endless procession of harrowing dreams by Nightmare

using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance his mastery of Shadow Dance without

battle intent and combat intelligence of those beings he shadowed even further, allowed him to actually perceive the flow of essence through their bodies as opposed to just feeling

The fourth step...

was also something he had to invent all on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't even sure what the correct path

of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much,

had stagnated in mastering Shadow Dance, he had achieved progress in other aspects of

tool he had created by

able to create shells of other creatures. In fact, its role was perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never be able

there was a limitation to

mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had put into making it as flexible and adaptable as possible, it was still a relatively

if... he added another

of his Dormant Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability, Shadow Manifestation, and his Aspect Legacy, Shadow

- Shadow Dance - was missing

reason for the limitations Sunny had to

let's just try

discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the