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.

outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally

seem to be dangerous, just... really

The principle was simple.

three steps of Shadow Dance to date. The essence of his battle art was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an enemy, copying the very essence of their combat technique.

first step allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He

second step vastly elevated his comprehension of the fundamental principles that governed all battle techniques, allowing him 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 arts - those created

techniques in the Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration Sunny had received after being decimated

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 self, if

third step of Shadow Dance was 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,

served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through

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 it intuitively, and even gave

The fourth step...

on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't even sure what the correct path was, let alone how

the next steps of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be

Shadow Dance, he had

it was the Shadow Shell - a powerful tool he had created by bringing together various facets of his

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 to construct it from the shadows, and that was what his Aspect Legacy allowed

a limitation to Shadow

shadows were truly shapeless and formless, while Sunny was not. Even if he had managed to make his mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much

he added another ingredient

Dormant Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability, Shadow

Shadow Dance -

that, perhaps, was the reason for

let's just try

that he might just discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the next step of Shadow