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.

apartment, two within - and stood

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

The principle was simple.

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. After doing so, he could predict their

He had achieved that breakthrough while fighting Nephis

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

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

was 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

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 the risk of

using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance

he shadowed even further, allowed him to actually perceive the flow

The fourth step...

his Aspect Legacy, but it was also something he had to invent all on his own, with no one guiding

beyond battle techniques... and would be much,

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

tool he had created by bringing together various facets of

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

was a limitation to

mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had

added another ingredient to

Shadow Control,

Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from

for the

uh... let's

succeeded... Sunny felt that he might just discover a direction that would eventually lead him