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.

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

didn't seem to be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

of his battle art was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an enemy, copying the very essence of their combat technique.

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

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

Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration Sunny

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,

truly accept the formless nature of the shadows and let go of their actual self - which, of

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,

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...

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 the next stop on

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

Dance, he had

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

its role was perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension

a limitation

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 he had put into making it as flexible and adaptable as possible, it was still a

if... he added

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

Shadow Dance - was missing from

perhaps, was the reason for the limitations Sunny had

uh... let's just

succeeded... Sunny felt that he might just discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the next