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.

Sunny sent his four shadows to stand watch - two outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally going over what he was about to do.

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

The principle was simple.

Sunny had 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 very essence of their combat technique. After doing so, he could predict their movements, the flow of their battle intent, and even their thoughts.

The first step allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved that breakthrough while fighting Nephis in the Crimson Spire.

The 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 essence through one's body.

He had achieved that step after collecting a vast library of techniques in the Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration Sunny had received after being decimated by the Princess of War pushed him to a breakthrough.

The third step... was the hardest one yet. Sunny had started his journey toward mastery of it by expanding 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 of self, if not his very soul, at risk.

The third step 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 of harrowing dreams by Nightmare and having his personal memories blocked.

In the end, he 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 Dance without losing himself.

That third breakthrough enhanced the speed with which he 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, and even gave him the ability to sometimes predict their thoughts. © 2024.

The fourth step...

That was where Sunny had hit the wall. Shadow Dance 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 correct path was, let alone how to reach the next stop on it.

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

However, while he had stagnated in mastering Shadow Dance, he had achieved progress in other aspects of his personal power.

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

Shadow Dance also played a role in 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 was what his Aspect Legacy allowed him to do.

However, there was a limitation to Shadow Shell.

After all, shadows were 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 thing.

But what if... he added another ingredient to the mix?

Right now, Shadow Shell existed as a combination of his Dormant Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability, Shadow Manifestation, and his Aspect Legacy, Shadow Dance.

His Awakened Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from the equation.

And that, perhaps, was the reason for the limitations Sunny had to deal with.

'Well... uh... let's just try this.'

If he succeeded... Sunny felt that he might just discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the next step of Shadow Dance.

Breathing in deeply, he activated Shadow Step and dissolved into the shadows.

There, in their dark embrace, Sunny himself was a shadow - formless and shapeless.

But he did not need to be.

While fighting the Ravenous Fiend, he had changed his form in this state to possess sharp claws. His shadow form was, too, infinitely malleable.

So, Sunny concentrated and started to slowly change his shadow form... into the shape of himself.

It was a strange endeavor, to turn himself into a shadow, only to then turn the shadow into himself. But that was exactly what Sunny wanted to do.

It was a bit like constructing the shell of the shadowspawn, only instead of shaping the shadows around his body, Sunny was shaping his body - his shadow body - instead.

Of course, he knew the shape of himself the best. Which was why recreating it was much easier than summoning the fiendish form of the shadowspawn.

Eventually, the incorporeal shadow assumed the form of Sunny's body. It had arms and legs, a torso, fingers and toes, and a face that was a perfect rendition of Sunny's face.

It matched his physical body perfectly - not that it needed to. Starting from becoming himself was just the easiest thing he could do for that test.

Satisfied with the result of the shaping, Sunny spent some time in the dark embrace of the shadows, drifting.

'I wonder...'

Then, he took a deep mental breath, activated Shadow Manifestation...

And manifested himself back into the waking world through it.