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.

the apartment, two within - and

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

The principle was simple.

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

him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved that

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 essence through one's

his first duel

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 him to intuitively feel what the abominations he fought would do, but also put his own sense

self - which, of course, posed the risk of losing

served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance his mastery of Shadow Dance without

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 even gave

The fourth step...

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

beyond battle techniques... and would be much,

in mastering Shadow Dance, he

had created

perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never

was a limitation to

truly shapeless and formless, while 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 relatively rigid

if... he added another

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

Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from

that, perhaps, was the reason for the limitations

uh... let's just try

a direction that would eventually lead