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

to be dangerous, just... really

The principle was simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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 had made that dangerous breakthrough after being trapped in an endless procession

It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and

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 even gave him the ability to sometimes predict their

The fourth step...

own, with no one guiding him...

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

Dance, he had achieved progress in other aspects

powerful tool he had created

perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of

a limitation

mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had put into

he added another

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

Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from

reason for the limitations Sunny had

uh... let's just

a direction that would eventually lead him to