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,

be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

three steps of 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

step allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had

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

vast library of techniques in the Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan.

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,

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

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 was able to advance his mastery of Shadow

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

The fourth step...

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

only felt that the next steps of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much, much harder to conceive and

Dance, he had achieved progress in

powerful tool he had created by bringing together various

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, Sunny would never be able to construct it from the shadows, and that

there was a limitation to Shadow

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

added another

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

Dance - was missing from

perhaps, was the reason for the

let's

direction that would eventually lead