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

seem to be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

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. After doing so, he could predict their movements, the flow of their battle

allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He

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

after 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

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

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, of course, posed the risk

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

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

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

Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much, much harder to conceive and master for that

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

a powerful tool he had

Dance also 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 desired form,

there was a limitation to

malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how

if... he added another ingredient to the

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

Dance - was

perhaps, was the reason for

uh... let's just

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