Shadow Fiend slowly "stood" up—not physically, but as his Shadow Body stabilized in a more condensed, more humanoid form, hovering above the ground.
He still had no features, yet his dark gray outline gave off an incomparably clear, utterly "complete" feeling.
It was as if the very concept of shadow had taken on a small but tangible incarnation at that moment.
He "opened" his "eyes."
They were not physical eyes, but two points of even deeper, shadowy light that seemed capable of drawing in one's mind, lighting up where his eyes should have been.
"...Senior." Shadow Fiend's voice rang directly within Ming Xin's sea of consciousness. It was no longer weak and intermittent, but low and steady.
It carried the texture of metal tempered through fire, along with a trace of... unfathomable depth.
"You're awake." Ming Xin carefully examined Shadow Fiend, feeling both relieved and inexplicably cautious. "How do you feel? Is your new power stable?"
"The power... is immense... and also... unfamiliar." Shadow Fiend seemed to be adapting as he raised one "hand," the edge of that palm formed from pure shadow.
Even space around it seemed to warp and dim slightly. "The 'Initial Embers'... have already begun to merge with my origin.
I can feel... my connection to this Shadow Plane... growing closer. I can even... vaguely sense... certain... deeper things."
"What deeper things?" Ming Xin pressed.
"...They are difficult to describe..." Shadow Fiend fell silent for a moment. "They are like... the 'veins' of this darkness...
And like... ancient 'echoes' slumbering in the deepest depths... There are also... some... cold, malicious 'gazes'... scattered in very distant places."
What he described was of a piece with the fragmented visions he had encountered while absorbing energy, only clearer and more directed.
This perhaps meant that while Shadow Fiend gained