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.

outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally going over what he was

didn't seem to be dangerous,

The principle was simple.

mastered 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

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

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

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

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

go of their actual self - which, 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

could 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,

The fourth step...

was also something he had to invent all on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't

went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much, much harder to

Dance, he had achieved

tool he had created by bringing together various facets of his

create shells of other creatures. In fact, its role was perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of the desired form,

there was a

managed to make his mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he

what if... he added another ingredient to

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

Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from the

perhaps, was the reason for the limitations

let's just try

direction that would eventually lead him to the next step of Shadow