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, mentally going over what

to be

The principle was simple.

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 intent, and even their

him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had

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 and used by the Awakened, thus incorporating special ways of guiding soul

during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration Sunny had received after being decimated by the Princess of War

Creatures. In the bloody arena of the Red Colosseum, he had submerged himself into their perverted, demented, rabid minds... which allowed

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, of course, posed the risk of losing it forever. Sunny

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,

him to actually perceive the flow of essence through their bodies as opposed to just feeling it intuitively, and even gave him the ability to sometimes

The fourth step...

invent all on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't even sure what

of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much,

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

tool he had created by bringing together various facets of his skills, Attributes, and Aspect

the most important - without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would

was a limitation

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 rigid

what if... he added another ingredient

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

Dance -

was the reason for the limitations Sunny

uh... let's

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