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 within - and stood there for a

be

The principle was simple.

The essence of his battle art was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an

simpler battle styles. He had achieved that

him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more

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

and starting to shadow not only humans, but also Nightmare Creatures. In the bloody arena of the Red Colosseum,

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 harrowing dreams by Nightmare and having his

an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance his mastery

comprehend the battle intent 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

The fourth step...

own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't even sure what the correct

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

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

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

- without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never be

a

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

what if... he added another

Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability, Shadow Manifestation, and his

Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing

for the limitations Sunny

uh... let's just try

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