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"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.

"Like last time? You used it close range?!"

"Yeah. I just need to be careful to not use it before the boss room, then at the boss room I take it out quickly, and come back here all healed up."

Aleesia brought a hand in front of her mouth, truly concerned.

"But… this can\'t work, that\'s too much pain, nobody normal can handle this…"

"I\'m getting Aura out of here. »

Without waiting any longer, he opened his dungeon window and went to [2-1-S].

As quickly as he arrived, he disappeared.

Aleesia dropped to the ground, her face still in disbelief.

Around fifteen minutes later, Mori was back again.

"Quick. A torch!"

Panicked, she got up stumbling upon herself and quickly went for another available one. She ran to him, and sat next to him again, doing her best to burn his stump.

"Fuck! Just let me do it!"

He forcefully took it again, properly burning himself as he breathed through his teeth, screaming here and there.

He threw it on the ground again, picking up the spear and leaving once more.

Once he left, the room became totally silent again, only her and the cat.

She could feel her own heart pumping.

She could hear her breathing, it was surprisingly loud.

She got up again after a moment, going toward the torch.

The sound of Mori coming back stopped her.

"Another torch!"

"Wait… you\'ve already beaten a boss?"

"It\'s been like half an hour, have you not moved? Fuck, the torch!"

You\'ve been standing there for around 45 minutes.

Really? Thought Aleesia.

She ran toward the next available torch, and back to Mori.

As she was about to try again and apply it to him, he simply took it from her, and applied it himself.

"I can-" she started.

Mori\'s screams cut her off, as he burned himself again. His attention was stuck on his arm, as he burned its butchered extremity.

He let the torch fall to the floor again.

"Mori…" said Aleesia.

He was gone as she finished saying his name. The room going back to silence.

It felt like no time had passed, as he came back again with his cut-off arm bleeding again.

This time, however, he didn\'t bother asking her to get the torch, he went to it himself, and applied it himself.

Aleesia stood there, blankly watching as it happened.

She could barely smell the burnt skin anymore, it felt surreal.

Once Mori was done, the same pattern repeated, leaving her in a silent room.

She couldn\'t tell how many times he left and came back. He barely even looked at her as he came back.

He always went right for the torch, and left. He would come back for a split second, healed, and leave again.

It felt like a bad dream.

He has gone insane, she thought. Or I have.

It was like a routine he had mastered. He knew exactly where to go, and what to do.

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.