A civil war of Liams.

Liam never thought he’d see the day.

Then again, he never thought he’d go a little coocoo and lose his sanity, but what’s fair is fair.

He was the epicenter of all the carnage. In all four directions, blood and grime sprayed in the air, coloring even the skies red.

Liam smiled to himself.

“I feel the urge to say something edgy, but I can’t find the words.”

He spotted a ripped off hand a few footsteps in front of him, trampled on by a group of Liams as they tore each other’s guts out.

“What do you think, hand? Are we the good guys?”

The hand remained silent as blood continued to spray.

Liam nodded in agreement.

“You make a good point. Of course we are! We’re the—”

“Stop talking to the hand, bastard!” a copy shouted from behind Liam, lurching at him like an uncoiled snake.

“I’m literally you,” Liam said with a laugh, easily dodging to the side with a quick step, then ducking to evade another two swipes at his neck. “Jeez. Have a little grace, man.”

“I’d never say things like that!” the copy shouted with narrowed, murderous eyes, a disbelieving look on his face. “You’re not me!”

Liam gave him a hurt expression, clutching his chest and staggering backwards.

“My feelings…”

The copy rushed him again. Angrier this time.

Liam didn’t dodge. That’s what the copy would do, and that’s what the copy expected Liam to do.

But Liam was not the copy.

Instead, as the four claws swiped at his head, torso, hip and shoulder, slashing into them, Liam didn’t counter with his arms at all.

He countered with his mouth.

Fangs sank deep into the jugular vein. Blood gushed into his mouth like a juicy fruit. Teeth clamped around the copy’s neck like a rat trap.

Light from the copy’s eyes faded. He fell to the side with a thud, joining the pile of corpses littering the filthy ground.

Liam spat out the lump of veins and muscle, then cleaned his lips, before moving to the next victim.

The previous Liam would never be able to do that.

He probably would have fought for twenty straight minutes, then maybe won by the skin of his teeth.

Too rigid. Too focused. Too narrow minded and anxious.

Liam had evolved!

He could just avoid thinking altogether.

He was no longer bound by the same things his lower versions were bound by!

No longer restricted or contained!

He could ‘laugh’!

He could ‘joke’!

He could ‘smile’!

But he wouldn’t feel anything but pure disgust and abhorrence, and a slight bit of unhinged sadism.

“This is getting boring now, though,” Liam said, frowning as he looked over his copies fighting for his sake. “Let’s get this wrapped up.”

On both sides, there was just 1/3 remaining.

Liam patiently waited for the two sides to duke it out. There was no point in getting involved. It would all come to an end, soon enough.

Instead, Liam was scrolling through the piles of corpses, tearing out pieces of bones and shaping them together using fibers of muscle.

He was making a sword!

Out of the dead copies’ flesh!

Using a femur as the edge, and turning the ulna — the forearm bone — into a handle worked best.

Slowly, Liam used his sharp nails to scrape the weapon into shape.

A few moments later, it was completed.

Liam looked at it with awe.

“The Liam Blade…” Liam muttered under his breath, raising the macabre weapon into the air.

Liam’s bones were naturally black due to the Dark Wraith tempering method, which he unfortunately couldn’t use any more.

Wrapped around dense flesh, the black sword had a jagged, serpentine form, but was on par with even the Black Blade in terms of sharpness.

Some time later, the vicious sounds of flesh being ripped apart and blood splashing against the ground came to an abrupt stop.

Just 2 copies remained, a few hundred meters away.

Liam sent them a questioning look, subtly nodding towards the sword in his hands.

He had a sword.

They just had their fists.

They were not the same.

The Liams cursed quietly… but they made it this far.

“If you can’t kill two of me,” one Liam said seriously, “you don’t deserve my body.”

Liam clicked his tongue in annoyance, then sighed.

A second later, Liam slowly crouched, tensing his muscles and preparing to launch forward.

The copies narrowed their eyes and did the same.

But with his three free hands, he grabbed handfuls of guts from the visceral floor, mixing them with broken nails and shards of bone.

Only after that did he shoot forward.

WHOOSH!

All three of the Liams present used Hone.

As soon as Liam was close enough to the two of them, he feinted a slash with his sword at the first copy, causing him to dodge.

CHIKH!

Just then, the remaining copy slashed off his lower right arm, then moved to stab him in the rear.

But Liam’s facial expression didn’t change at all.

Instead, he swiftly altered his sword’s trajectory mid-swing, while flicking a handful of intestines in the copy’s eyes.

SHING!

The copy’s eyes were instantly blinded as nails and sharp bone fragments tore through his eye sockets.

A moment later, his head was severed by the bone sword.

The remaining clone reappeared behind Liam’s back.

KRSH!

A claw burst through Liam’s back, exploding through his chest, causing immense pain to shoot through his mind, body and soul.

…Good.

Pain made him feel alive.

Liam smiled broadly with a mouth full of bloody teeth.

He reversed the grip on his blade, pointing the tip towards his stomach, then stabbed himself as deep as he possibly could.

The sword seared through his stomach, but managed to skewer the remaining copy like a kebab at the same time.

The copy attempted to release his grip on Liam’s chest, but Liam gripped it firmly in place with his free hands.

A moment later, the bone sword twisted, then made a wide arc out of the clone’s stomach, causing the Liam’s entrails to pour out.

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