Deeply stunned, Sunny whispered:
"Scary…"
A few moments later, Nephis sighed and recalled her flames. Sunny allowed his shadow to slid back to the floor.
Changing Star looked at him and asked, her voice unsure:
"How did it feel?"
Sunny remained silent for a while.
Eventually, he forced out a pale smile and said:
"Like a dream…"
***
They stayed in the dojo for the entire night, experimenting with the strange and frighteningly powerful application of their unnatural bond. There were many things they had to explore, even though it was too dangerous to test the limits of this new power here.
The last thing Sunny wanted was to completely wreck the foundation of his home. It wouldn't have been fun if the whole building suddenly collapsed…
Still, there were a lot of things that they have discovered.
First, both Sunny and Nephis could be enhanced by the white flames and the shadows. All of this might could be concentrated on one person, or shared between them in any proportion they chose. Mixing any light into the shadows or even one shadow into the radiant light made the end result more powerful.
Secondly, the same could be done to their Memories. Pouring all of their power into the Cruel Sight, for example, made it somewhere around fifteen times deadlier. This scale of enhancement went well beyond the confines of its Rank, making the somber spear as powerful as a Transcendent weapon. Applied to an armor, the augmentation was just as strong.
However, doing so would have been a bit wasteful. Memories had no souls, and as such, the part of Changing Star's flames that made a person's soul more active and resilient was wasted on them.
…It did, however, affect Shadows and Echoes.
Sunny and Nephis tested the full augmentation of their combined Aspects on Saint first, and then on the Echo of a six-armed Ascended Demon that Changing Star possessed.
The result was as frightening as what Sunny had experienced himself.
As the dawn painted the world in shades of pale violet and lilac, the pair was still cooped up in the underground dojo. Although neither spoke, their eyes were full of thought.
Both understood what their discovery meant. Each of them bore a Divine Aspect. Each was immensely powerful when compared to other Ascended.
When two bearers of Divine Aspects combined their power, however…
Imagining what they could do was indeed a bit scary.
After a while, Sunny glanced at his communicator and flinched.
"Crap! It's morning already! I am going to be late for my lecture!"
He looked at Nephis, suddenly realizing how tired and spent she looked. Using her Ability so much must not have been easy…
She simply nodded.
"You can go if you wish. I'll… I'll rest for a while."
Sunny hesitated for a moment, then nodded and used Shadow Step to jump to his closet on the second floor of the house.
A few minutes later, he was already running out of the door, wearing civilian clothes that Kai had helped him pick a while ago.
Changing Star was left alone.