As he saw the thousands of copies intent on killing him, Liam's gaze calmly assessed each and every one of their faces.
They were all worried. Anxious. Paranoid. There were so many versions of himself! What was he going to do?! How was he going to get out alive?!
But the real Liam was calm.
He had no such worries.
He hadn't even gotten up from his seat.
It wasn't like he wasn't thinking things over.
Of course he was.
But now that he looked at himself less as a person and more of an 'entity', Liam found that human behaviors were outdated for soone like him.
He could still sense those specific emotions. But he could never express them genuinely again, nor go back to how he originally was.
'Was my sanity sacrificed for a Rank 4 sea of consciousness?'
Silence.
Liam scoffed under his breath.
'I'm not an Ashura. I'm not a human. I'm definitely not a Shifter.'
'I'm not Liam Royce. Not Darius King, either.'
'I'm sothing else.'
'What use is sanity if it holds you back?'
On the other hand, all the Liams were actually real!
The previous copies Liam faced were lacking in one departnt or the other.
Yet, the ones before him were undeniably the real thing.
Perhaps ford through his own consciousness.
"Living is overrated, boys," Liam said as he rose to his feet, cracking his shoulders and stretching his torn muscles.
"Now, hear out for a second. I haven't seen another soul in quite so ti, and I'd love to have a friendly chat."
"Why don't we sit down and have a brief talk? I've always wanted to know what a conversation with myself would look like."
"This doesn't have to end with a fight. We've always been civilized, right, guys?"
The other Liams were absolutely shocked at the real Liam's sight.
After all, they had never thought they could turn into sothing like this!
No matter how much torture or pain Liam had gone through, he had made it out in the end as more or less the sa person.
Burned alive, frozen alive, stabbed through every orifice of his body, and much more, had never been enough to render his mind broken.
And yet, here he was, a sarcastic nace that was a glaring contrast to Liam's real personality.
"This... couldn't have happened through normal ans," one Liam said with a grimace.
"This is the Self Tribulation we're talking about. He was being changed and he didn't even realize it."
The other Liams paused with conflicted expressions, each one processing it in their own way.
But they were all the sa, so the thoughts that ran through their heads were more or less identical.
The real Liam raised his brows in slight surprise.
"Maybe. But I don't think I could have done anything against it."
"I an... you're all literally ," Liam added with a small laugh. "Given the sa circumstances, you would have done the sa things in the sa exact way."
There was a mont of silence.
"I can't deny that you might be right..." one Liam said in response, "and there's a chance that we both might just die if I kill you."
A pause.
Liam felt a 'but' coming.
"But what if that wasn't the case? What if I could kill you and take your place, reverting this change entirely?"
Liam laughed.
"Unreasonable, selfish and stupid. You just want to be the one to live and take my place." Liam spread his arms. "Look around you. They're all thinking the sa thing."
Silence.
The Liam copies were stunned for words.
"I see," a Liam further ahead said under his breath. "I... actually agree. Think of the bigger picture."
Just then, the Liam in question stabbed himself in the head, dying. He fell to the floor with a faint thud.
"Wow. I, uh... didn't actually expect that," Liam said, pleasantly surprised. He smiled. "Well, there's an example we should all follow."
Since all the Liams were the sa, Liam presud that they'd all follow the sa line of action.
But there were slight deviations that erged amidst their thought processes.
Like branches of a growing tree splitting off the trunk, their decisions were in slight contrast to one another, despite being from the sa idea.
"No use risking mutual destruction for a small chance of survival," another Liam said. "For the greater good."
SHIG!
Another had killed himself.
Liam made a grin. It was different from the usual kind he would make. Less cold but sohow more eerie.
Quite frankly, seeing himself kill himself for himself was a strange delight.
CHIKH!
SHK!
CHIG!
A wave of thuds rang out as more Liam's killed themselves one after the other.
They were wise. Sacrificing themselves for Liam's guaranteed existence was the safest option.
After a while, though, the thuds stopped.
By then, more than 1/3 of the Liams present had died.
...But the rest stubbornly remained alive.
"No more for the greater good?" Liam asked out loud, but the only responses he got were murderous looks.
"Fools," Liam growled, but there was no anger in his voice. Just disgust. "Co, then."
Liam clenched his four clawed fists.
He waited patiently for the first move.
Who doesn't love a classic brawl?
A pair of Liams slowly approached him from the sides, their four claws outstretched.
And yet, just as Liam contemplated rushing them, another pair of copies had launched themselves upon the two!
SHIGG!
KRSH!
The first two Liams spun around to try and block, but the elent of surprise was not on their side.
SPLURT!
One of them had died, while the remaining Liam lost three arms, but managed to kill one of the assaulters by the skin of his teeth.
Unfortunately...
"What... are… you doing?!" one of them gurgled with blood as a claw jamd his throat.
"We'll eventually betray each other. I'd rather give the real us a fighting chance," said the other.
A second later, the two jamd their claws into each others' necks, essentially turning the exchange into a kamikaze move.
Both died.
Silence.
A second later, the simple assault prompted a massive battle between the thousands of Liam copies.
1/3 wanted to kill Liam and take his place, and another 1/3 wanted to fight for Liam's survival. Another 1/3 had already killed themselves.
Liam laughed loudly in the middle of it all.
It was a civil war!
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