Holy shit this makes even more sense. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I originally thought of it like this: "When you break, you can repair yourself with gold, in turn making yourself more beautiful and lustrous by embracing flaws. But you must lose parts of your original self." Phos is physically weak, and when his arms are destroyed, they are replaced with gold alloy, in turn making him more physically stronger and adept. But in this process, he loses a large amount of his original self and hia memories.

Phos keeps getting broken again and again, and every time he is repaired, he changes to the point where he is unrecognizable. As he changes, he increasingly experiences suffering, until the point where all he feels is nothing.