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.

within - and

seem to be

The principle was simple.

of Shadow Dance to date. The essence of his battle art was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an

simpler battle styles. He had achieved

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 -

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

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 feel what the abominations he fought would do, but also put his own sense of self, if not his

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

end, he had pulled the dissipating pieces of his true self back together by using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he

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

The fourth step...

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

far beyond battle techniques... and would be much, much

mastering Shadow Dance, he had

of it was the Shadow Shell - a powerful tool he had created by bringing together various facets of his skills, Attributes, and Aspect

played a role in him being able to create shells of other creatures. In fact, its role was perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of the

there was a limitation to

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 training

if... he added another ingredient to

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

- Shadow Dance

perhaps, was the reason for the limitations

let's

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