The Shadow attacked with the vicious strength of a true monster. Knowing perfectly well that his strength was not enough to block her sword, Sunny desperately moved the Midnight Shard to deflect the strike to the side.
The countless hours of practice and hundreds of thousands of times he had repeated his katas had not been in vain: his body moved with lightning speed, placing the blade in the path of the Stone Saint's weapon at just the right angle. Feeling the impact reverberate in his bones, Sunny gasped from the pain and stood his ground.
Guided by the Midnight Shard, the Shadow's sword glided to the side and missed his body by a wide margin. However, before Sunny had time to congratulate himself, the Saint simply continued moving forward and slammed into him.
Being hit by her shield felt like crashing into a stone wall at high speed.
Flying back, Sunny impacted against an actual wall and rolled to the floor. A small yelp escaped from his lips.
Getting distracted from her food for a moment, Effie glanced at him and called:
"Sunny? You're alive?"
He weakly raised a hand and brought his thumb and index finger together in the shape of a circle.
"...Yeah."
The huntress smiled.
"Good! Don't die yet, alright? It's going to be really inconvenient for me to get out of here without your help."
Sunny gritted his teeth.
'...Is that all you care about?'
"I'll try."
Slowly rising to his feet, he staggered and had to lean on the wall for balance.
The Stone Saint returned to her spot and stood there indifferently, not paying any attention to his furious glare.
With a heavy sigh, Sunny walked back to stand in front of her, raised the Midnight Shard, and spat:
"Again."
***
Over the course of the next few days, Sunny often wondered if he had really gone mad. Otherwise, why would he willingly subject himself to this torture?
His life now consisted of only three things: spending time with Effie, practicing with the Stone Saint, and exploring the cursed ruins.
Out of the three, the time he was spending in the deadly maze of the Dark City was by far the least dreadful. He even found himself enjoying it a great deal.
Once you begin thinking about a cursed ancient ruin teeming with abominable creatures as a comforting place, you should really start thinking about your life choices...
And yet, Sunny knew that he was on the right track.
Painful as they were, his training sessions with the menacing Shadow had turned out to be even more advantageous than he imagined. Every bruise, every cut, every drop of blood that he spilled was making him stronger.
After a long period of stagnation, his technique was finally improving again. And it was doing so with noticable speed.
The best thing about it was that he had not even scratched the surface of the immense didactic potential of the [Battle Master] Attribute. For someone like him, who had never received a formal education in combat, it was simply a boon.
It was a hidden treasure.
Back when he had observed the Shadow in the fight against a carapace centurion, he had noted her distinct battle style.
The taciturn creature fought with the firmness of stone, combining flawless defense with devastating offense. Each action was efficient and perfectly calculated, with blocks, dodges and deflections leading into deadly ripostes. It was solid, indomitable, and inevitable.
However, this was not the only battle style that the Stone Saint was perfectly proficient in. Rather, it was something that she used based on her current weapons and opponents. Back when her original fought against two harrowing Fallen Beasts, her style was reckless and brutal, disregarding any form of defense in favor of an endless onslaught of vicious attacks.
Although there were some foundational similarities between them, these two techniques were vastly different. It seemed as though she was able to switch between countless styles to suit the situation.
Sunny couldn't wish for a better sparring partner.
His own style — or rather, the kernel of one that had been given him by Nephis — was flowing and unpredictable. It focused on adaptability and making it impossible for the enemy to anticipate your next move. The more Sunny fought against the Stone Saint, the more he realized how extraordinary it actually was.
However, it didn't mean that this style couldn't be improved. In fact, Sunny suspected that it was actually designed with the intention of being able to incorporate various elements from other sources. If so, it was a perfect foundational style to learn.
All of this made him wonder where this strange style had come from, and if Changing Star had taught him its basics for a reason.
In any case, he was determined to make sense of it, improve his mastery of the things he had already learned, and begin to incorporate elements of Stone Saint's stark technique into his own.
However, this was easier said than done.
At first, fighting against the menacing Shadow appeared to be almost impossible. Every time he gave her the command to attack, he would inevitably end up on the floor in mere moments, groaning and consumed with pain. His whole body was bruised black and hurting terribly. If not for the tenacious enhancement of the Blood Weave, Sunny did not know if he would have been able to continue.
Or at least continue at an acceptable rate. With its help, however, the speed of his recovery was considerably faster. It was almost inhuman. Because of that, he was able to train more intensely and for longer periods of time.
Just as he had expected, every defeat taught him something new. Losing to a superior opponent was the best way to improve, indeed. Back in the real world, many people were foolishly obsessed with their pride and lived for nothing but to achieve victories against others.
Not Sunny, though. He was perfectly content with losing time after time, as long as he continued to become stronger with each loss. The only person he wanted to defeat was the version of himself from the last fight, over and over again.
Just like that, he had slowly begun to put up at least some resistance to the Stone Saint. At first, he was happy with being able to deflect one attack. Then, two. Then, several.
Before too long, he stopped counting the number of attacks and started counting the number of seconds he remained on his feet. It was just a couple at first, then four or five, then a dozen. Finally, he was able to fight with the menacing stone knight for vast amounts of time, sometimes even up to a minute.
Even Effie seemed to be impressed. She usually paid little attention to his training, but after some time, Sunny noticed her glancing in his direction more and more. At first, he thought that the unruly huntress simply enjoyed watching him suffer in his suffering, but then he realized that she was actually trying to learn from his mistakes, too.
Sunny didn't mind.
His movements slowly became more confident, purposeful, and precise. His body, while damaged and bruised, was brimming with strength and agility.
He was maturing.
It was then, when his spars with the Shadow turned less one-sided, that Sunny noticed something strange.
And when he did, everything changed.