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.

sent his four shadows to stand watch - two outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally going over what he was

be dangerous, just... really

The principle was simple.

to shadow an enemy, copying

him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved that

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

collecting a vast library of techniques in the Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration Sunny had received after being decimated by the Princess of

the hardest one yet. Sunny had started his journey toward mastery of it by expanding his horizons and starting to shadow not only humans, but also Nightmare Creatures. In 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

much more demanding 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

self back together by 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

breakthrough enhanced the speed with which he could comprehend the battle intent and combat intelligence of those beings he shadowed even further, allowed him to actually perceive the flow

The fourth step...

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

far beyond battle techniques... and would

Dance, he had achieved progress in

tool he had

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

a limitation to Shadow

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

what if... he added another ingredient to the

now, Shadow Shell existed as a combination of his Dormant Ability, Shadow Control,

- Shadow Dance - was missing from the

for the limitations Sunny had to deal

uh... let's just try

discover a direction that would