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.

- and stood there for a few minutes,

to be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

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 movements, the flow of their battle intent, and

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

much faster. It also gave him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more esoteric components of the truly advanced battle arts -

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 War pushed him

of the Red Colosseum, he had submerged himself into their

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

dissipating pieces of his true self back together by using his True Name. It served as an anchor for

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 of essence through their bodies as opposed to just feeling it intuitively, and even gave him the

The fourth step...

where Sunny had hit the wall. Shadow Dance was his Aspect Legacy, but it 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 was, let alone how to reach

only felt that the next steps of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much, much harder to conceive and master for that

in mastering Shadow Dance, he had achieved progress in other

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

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 him

there was a limitation to Shadow

not. Even if he had managed to make his 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 ingredient to

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

Dance

perhaps, was the reason for the limitations Sunny had to deal

let's just

that he might just discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the