Liam squinted open his eyes, blinking a few tis until his vision returned to him.
"This can't go on," Liam said, cursing under his breath.
Groaning, he sat upright and took a short look around.
He was alive.
That was good news.
His circumstances were still the sa. That was the bad news.
And he felt a little different for so reason.
Liam didn't know what it was.
He just felt a bit disconnected in this… cage.
It felt like he wasn't even alive. Like he was dreaming and, any second, he could wake up from it.
'Is this what a coma feels like?' Liam thought. 'Sha I can't hear anything, though.'
Nevertheless, Liam saved those strange thoughts for later.
3,000 ters on the x-axis…
And another 3,000 ters on the y-axis…
What exactly could Liam do with this knowledge?
Well, one, the space he was in definitely wasn't infinite. That was a good thing.
It was looped around, which… in hindsight, wasn't much different than having an infinite space, but still.
At the very least, the answer lay within this 3,000 x 3,000 space devoid of any features.
The Opposition was a balancing force.
No matter how difficult or impossible a task appeared, it was doable with the tools at hand.
Doable didn't always an easy.
In fact, for soone like Liam who'd defied so many cultivation rules, his task was very close to what was defined as 'impossible'.
'What tools do I have?'
'Just a strengthened body.'
'And my mind.'
'I don't have the King's Eye, though.'
'Why?'
'I should have been allowed to keep it, damn it.'
'My blood trails are the only thing different to this place.'
'Does the answer lay there?'
'Definitely… it definitely does.'
'My ntal energy can't sense anything out of the ordinary.'
'Despite being a Tribulation centered around the sea of consciousness… there's not much I could do with it.'
'So much for balance.'
'Or am I doing this wrong?'
'I can use Hone…'
When Liam entered his sea of consciousness, the slash given to him by the Eternal Sword was still there.
Other than that, the golden barrier of his ntal sphere hadn't gone any change.
It was normal.
But Liam was barred from using any spells, and his ntal waves seed to be a little darker than usual.
'So I have my body, my blood, and my mind.'
3 tools.
Liam's eyes went distant.
Silence.
Liam's eyes were aid towards the white ground, but it seed like he wasn't focused.
'Right…'
'Right. I should get up now.'
'Should I just douse this place in blood?'
'There's nothing else to do except that.'
'I just need to… 'conquer' the whiteness with blood.'
'Blood is the only way.'
'Except now, I have to worry about falling unconscious and exhaustion.'
Liam got up.
Then, he dug his claws into his left arm.
Blood gushed out from five different holes punctured into his flesh.
Pulling out his claw from the wound—
SQUELCH!
—Liam rubbed the bits of flesh and blood between his fingers.
The consistency of blood was just perfect in Liam's opinion. Not as thick as water, not as viscous as honey.
'Right. Back to the task at hand.'
He was about to stab himself once more, but then quickly rembered that he wasn't supposed to.
One stab was enough.
Right after, Liam started running as fast as he could in different directions.
He was a painter with a red brush, and the white void was his blank canvas.
He ran this way and that way, leaking bits of blood and gri.
After a full day and a half — at least, by Liam's estimate — he'd replaced just 1,200 ters of white with red.
And that was a lot!
It was only possible through pushing his body to its utmost limits and utilizing his blood loss.
But it was…
Out of 9,000,000 square ters.
How in the world was he supposed to get all of this cleared out?!
'Calculation wise, if I clear 1,200 ters a day, out of the 9,000,000 remaining, I'd need…'
'7,500 days to finish the whole thing.'
'That's…'
'More or less…
'20 years.'
Liam slumped to his knees. Partly out of exhaustion, partly out of mild despair.
To his knowledge, the longest recorded ti a person had remained inside the Self Tribulation, was roughly 7 years.
For the average Zenith, most trials lasted barely a month or two.
It may seem short, but being in a coma made it feel longer than it was.
And now?
Well, Liam had broken the world record for longest coma, that was for sure.
But the more Liam thought it over, the less dramatic it appeared in his mind.
'As long as I'm able to wake up, that is.'
'I'll work on clearing as much ground as I can and I could probably cut down those years by a bit.'
'There's also Hone to use.'
Liam's thoughts trailed off as his eyes closed, and his consciousness slowly fell into an abyss.
Weeks passed.
As if he wasn't already a self-isolating person, being stuck with just his morbid thoughts was too much.
Even for him.
He even began talking to himself!
Usually, there was so sort of background noise that drowned out his paranoia and blaring mind.
Now, there was nothing.
***
One and a half years later.
Liam woke up from his sleep and instantly sat upright – a practiced movent he'd done thousands of tis already.
There was a dark, distant look on his face.
Thousands of cut wounds scarred his body, making him seem like so sort of tortured animal. His hair was long, unkempt and dried with red blood.
In front of him was a purely white space.
Behind him, was a fresh coat of red paint as far as the eye could see.
Using a hand, Liam caressed his arm.
Then, dug his nails into it.
The skin ca off like dirt under a fingernail, followed by strips of blood trickling down his forearm.
Liam smiled.
A mont later, he dug into his stomach and caused a wide gash on his abdon!
Right after, he did the sa to his legs, torso and chest, essentially marring himself.
Then, Liam laughed.
With how disconnected he now was to himself, Liam didn't see himself as a person anymore.
Now, he saw himself as an entity.
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