Copies of Oath Breaker oozed out of himself as they all spoke in unison.
"That hit of yours was beyind weak! Was that your maximum?" taunted the sin as he kept multiplying, in the sea of himself everywhere, finding the original when nothing seemed to differentiate them was next to impossible.
Iustus retained his composure as he thought about the situation, the growing mass of armored sins seemed to slow down and the already declining light lowered even further.
'Oath Breaker, he's a deceiver but possessed the power and resistance of a powerful knight, I can't trust my senses with him, while I didn't notice any decline in his life force when I hit him, I certainly felt like I damaged him, which one is to be trusted?' wondered the hero as he slighly bent his knees as some of the doubles charged at him while others kept appearing, slowly trying to surround him.
Iustus was unarmed but it didn't matter, he couldn't figure how to imbue his mana into objects without destroying them anyways, so he just tried to somewhat imitate Chastity but since he had no clue what to recite, he just brought his hands together in a prayer before putting his palms the ground.
Unknowingly, he was mimicking Idolatry more than he was Chastity but the result was good enough, he felt his attack being slightly more powerful than it would have been without his additional motion.
All around him, like spears planted into the ground, his mana shot upward and easily pierced the bodies of the various doubles, causing them to turn to sludge before reaching him.
He cleared a big chunk of them in an instant but they kept coming, and the original was most likely hiding, he could change his shape to other things Iustus had been told, he could be an insect crawling around, a tree or even a blade of grass, he could also be charging amongst the doubles, he wouldn't go down with a single attack after all.
One thing that worried the hero was that he didn't have a good grasp of what the doubles were capable of, he had been told about everything the lesser had done in the past, create double of other people, using materials to make doubles but he had no clue what were the limits and specificities of all of those.
As he mowed down the endless stream of doubles coming his way, trying to move around like chastity had done while also attempting to only use the exact amount of force neccessary to dispel the clones, as he believed Temperance did, never using excessive force for any attacks.
However for the other virtues applying their techniques was either too difficult or impossible since Iustus didn't have a good grasp on what they did exactly.
Trying to do like Patience had done only resulted in him getting punched in the face and this allowed him to see that the clones seemed capable of hitting just as hard as the lesser sin himself, he highly doubted he should be capable of hitting much harder, if he was that much stronger than his clones, he could had gone in and severely wounded him since the start but he chose to remain hidden away.
There was only one other virtue he had an understanding of and that was mostly because it was a rather simple to see.
"Oath Breaker, what is it that you want?" asked Iustus, the clones didn't stop their movements but all responded in unision nonetheless, although the hero felt like it took more time than it should have.
"I want to be someone else, wear their skin until it becomes more satisfying to shed it!" they all said, putting the aside the bizarre way to say it, taking into account just what kind of ability he had, Iustus had to guess that he meant to impersonate people.
The hero had to think for a moment since he couldn't just tell him that it was alright, Kindness would always try to find a middle ground, also the sin clearly seemed to take enjoyment in impersonating to hurt others, as Iustus could easily understand considering how he had managed to get the upper hand against Gregory back then.
"I'm willing to work with you to find a way for you to engage in impersonation without-" Iustus spouted what came to his mind, hoping that Oath Breaker would fill in the blanks himself but he was interrupted before he could, not by an attack, they hadn't stopped at all after all but by a singular voice.
Looking over, Iustus saw the shape of the lesser sin appearing from the darkness of the woods.
'Is that the original? Did he went off somewhere?' wondered Iustus but his intrigue soon turned in abject disgust as he saw a few other clones behind the one he believed to be the original.
Each of them were carrying people, he had gone off to get hostages!
"Don't even bother trying to reason with me little hero, I am insane! All of us lesser sins have our minds consumed, eaten away by the curses bestowed upon us by the heavens, we are rejected by light, so we learned to enjoy the darkness, can you learn too?" spoke Oath Breaker as the clones holding people captives shifted one of their hands into a blade and pressed it against their necks, drawing blood.
"I was in a hurry so I took however came first, I was planning to take children only, since people seem to care about them more..." he explained as he grabbed the one child amonst the people by the head and just dangled his unconscious body around as if he was an object.
"I don't get it, they are weaker, dumber than adults and generally unpleasant to be around, I posed as fathers a few times but I couldn't bear it, I despise these little shits so much, were we all like that once? Impossible, I refuse to believe I was ever like that" he went off as Iustus almost popped a vein seeing all of this.
Taking a few hits without even trying to dodge, he inconsciously let off way too much energy and vaporised the clones around him away.
"Whoa! So scary! Are you going to blast me and my hostages like that too? It would be perfect you know? I truly believe that you won't but there are not even ten people here, their lives don't matter in the grand scheme of things, come on, go against your will and erase us all at once" the sin mocked him as he thightened his grip on the young boy's skull.
"Heh? Here I thought mushy skulls were only for infants" chuckled Oath Breaker.
"Were you not just like them once? How can you disregard their lives so easily?" asked Iustus, the anger absent from his voice but clear as day on his face.
"I was never like them, all we have in common is our ancestry but don't we all? I am Oath Breaker of the lesser sins! And I can be anyone else!" he proved his words by shifting his form to various other people, some total strangers, some people Iustus knew and assuming the form of other sins as well.
"I don't even need to replicate their powers to pass as someone! My own, hard earned skills are enough! The gods weren't angered by my oath breaking but by my talent that surpassed theirs! Yes! I am godlike! Just like the cardinal sins!" he was about the crush the child's skull in his mad rant as Iustus moved.