Mori fell to his knees as he returned to his room. The pain was intense, blood still dripping from his arm.
Aleesia ran toward him, dropping the silverware she was holding.
"Are you okay?!"
Mori closed his eyes a moment, taking a deep breath between his teeth.
"Yeah. Just take this and shove it on my shoulder."
She followed his finger with her eyes, he was pointing at a torch on a wall.
"You mean..."
"Yeah, burn it."
"But that'll cause more damage... and hurt even more," she said.
"It's fine I'll heal it right back, just do it."
Aleesia had a concerned look on her face, but from his insistent look she got up and went toward the closest one.
She took it, approaching her hand from its flame, the heat quickly stopping her.
"This is insane..."
She then approached him, kneeling next to his damaged arm.
"Alright, now it's important that you keep going and don't stop."
Aleesia was biting her lips, she wasn't cut out for this.
She doesn't have a choice.
"Do it," repeated Mori.
She finally shoved it on what remained of his arm, causing him to scream.
She looked away, turning her head as she couldn't sustain the sight of what was happening.
"Do it properly! Fuck!"
Her looking away made her move the torch slightly out of the way.
She reluctantly looked.
The disgust on her face was showing, the color it had slightly fading. She was pale and silent.
"Fuck! Give it!"
Mori sat better, taking the torch from her hand with his only available hand, dropping the spear in the process.
He took it, and truly shoved it in. The smell of burnt flesh took away any remaining draft of bacon and eggs.
He breathed heavily, while holding on with the pain.
Once he was done he threw the torch on the ground, and picked up the spear.
He didn't say a word, and left for [2-0-1], leaving Aleesia with the burnt smell.
She was staring at where Mori stood moments ago, in disbelief.
She turned toward the cat, looking for its reaction, but it was seemingly asleep.
She stood up as well, took the torch and threw it in the recycler.
She felt sick at the smell.
"This isn't normal." She said to herself.
About thirty minutes passed, before Mori reappeared, fully healed.
"What? How?"
Mori smiled.
"I blew myself up with my remaining arm, using the [Spear of Purity]'s dangerous side, » he said, smiling.
Aleesia frowned.
Aleesia went up against a wall, and sat against it, her head in her hands.
She would shake at times, as Mori's scream came around from time to time.
Screams, however, became fewer and fewer.
As Mori kept repeating the process, it became faster and quieter.
He was getting used to it, he was able to cut his arm in two clean cuts, soon he'd be able to do it with one strike , he thought.
Pain was becoming manageable. It was always as painful, and he felt every second of it as hard as the first time.
Something had changed, however, as he could withstand it better.
The second and third time he had done it, he had a hard time going through with it.
He stood in the S room, after having killed the monster, in silence.
He didn't want to feel that pain anymore, torturing himself this way.
But the image of Aura slowly dying in her room was what kept him going.
She must've been weak, pale, barely able to move around.
It's my fault again. Like Maya and Torryn. He thought.
All he needed to do to cut off his own arm, was picture Aura, the same way Maya and Torryn were, at the end.
When he did, the knife he held was heavier. Suddenly, cutting his own arm wasn't as bad, and didn't hurt as much.
He was flowing through the levels, not due to his cut-off arm, but the spear. A mythic level item at this level made everything extremely compared to what it was before.
He probably didn't even need to use the explosion at this stage, however it significantly sped up everything.
The boss fight that could last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour was cut short to a few seconds.
They couldn't defend themselves from the blast, even with a shield.
One more loop, then the [3-0] boss is next.
Mori smiled.
He had done more progress in one day than he had in the past weeks.
He opened his menu again, the final S room before he would move on to the next set of levels.
He cleared it in a matter of seconds, those goblins didn't stand a chance.
He got on his knees again, and got himself ready to cut off his arm again.
He closed his eyes, breathed deep, and pictured Aura.
In one clean movement, his arm fell once more to the ground, in a puddle of blood.
He turned it around, quickly locating the biggest seal, and proceeded the open it.
It had become quite easy from doing it so often.
He took the knife, and slid it through the seal deep enough, making it open like a dam holding too much water.
It's abyssal depth was comforting, as he looked at it through the hole on his arm.
He got up, ready to leave to be healed again, but no hexes were coming out.
He waited a moment despite the pain, but no eldritch feature ever came out of that hole.
He approached, looking inside.
He saw something move, like waves of darkness.
From his cut-off arm on the ground, a dark spike reached out.
Mori tried to dodge it, sidestepping.
The spike bent, its speed faster than his, piercing right through his arm.
He tried to reflexively grab it with his other arm to take it out, quickly realizing he couldn't.
The spike, like a hook, went around his arm, slowly tightening his grasp on him.
He tried moving backward, but the hex kept climbing.