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.

stand watch - two outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few

be dangerous,

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

him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved that

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

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

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...

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 being trapped in an endless procession of

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

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 ability to

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

next steps of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques...

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

- a powerful tool he had created

most important - without deep comprehension of the desired

was a

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

what if... he added

existed as a combination of his Dormant Ability, Shadow Control,

- Shadow Dance - was missing from

reason for the limitations

uh... let's just try

just discover a direction