Eika winced as the air became ever more frigid, stinging her eyes. Even with a C rank constitution, she had enough resistance to cold and heat that the snow only lightly bothered her, but now the air itself felt like it was freezing around L. Eika closed her eyes and covered them with her hands, trying to stem the tide of freezing air blasting her face. L's hands burned as frostbite tore into them, icy fire had exploded from her palms, and had set her sword alight, the flame bursting forth from the "cracks" in the blade. The Ice Orc, for the first time, showed signs of pain, it tried to recoil and escape the sword buried in its chest, but the sword refused to budge. As the skin on L's hands cracked, first a glow, then flames erupted from the orcs mouth. After a few moments, the orc collapsed, shortly followed by L. As the air returned to its normal chill, Eika unshielded her head. "Oh no!" She ran over to L as quickly as she could. When L had first used her demonic power, Eika and Luna were the only one’s conscious enough to witness the aftermath. Back then, Eika had honestly thought L had died. If the Champion of Good had not shown up, and told her that L was not dead, but in something called a coma, she would have probably never learned that L was alive and needed care. "Please! Please I can't find Luna on my own! I can’t heal you like Alice can!" As Eika desperately tried to turn L over, the orc's body she had fallen on began to rapidly dissolve. To Eika, it looked like dust being blown away in the wind. 

"Please stop shaking me." L groaned as Eika pushed and pulled her in desperation. Eika gasped and started crying when L spoke. "You’re alright! Eika is so happy! I thought you were going to die like last time! I did not know what to do and V is too far away to help and I still need to find Luna and..." L grunted "Please be quiet and help me up." Eika closed her mouth, and helped L regain her footing in the snow. Eika was happy to see that her body did not seem to be horribly burned by the icy fire this time, but she gasped when she saw L's hands. They were deeply cracked open, but were cold enough that they were not bleeding. "Oh no! OH NO! What do I do?!" Eika exclaimed in horror at L's destroyed hands. L shook her head, "Nothing, I think I’ll recover before long." Eika closed and opened her mouth a few times before managing a response. "Eika does not know much about this sort of thing, but I don't think your hands are going to work again!" L removed a piece of cloth from her item box, it fluttered in the wind before landing on the snow. "I will be ok. I have dealt with frostbite before and I know the symptoms. This is not normal frostbite. Mainly because I can still feel my fingers and they are in horrible pain. Normally if parts of your body become completely frozen, you can’t feel them." L furrowed her brow and looked at her frozen, broken hands. "Or maybe it is normal frostbite, but my regeneration is already restoring them. The main point here is that I don't think I’m going to lose my hands." L grunted again as a muscle spasmed in her arm. Eika wished she could help; it was obvious L was in terrible pain. "Girl, use the cloth to sheath my weapon, we have to move quickly. I doubt Luna would be able to bring down one of those things."

After a few attempts, and the use of several more pieces of cloth, Eika managed to get L's sword sheathed. "We gotta find Luna, but... maybe you should go back to V? You can’t fight without your hands!" L considered for a moment before shaking her head. "I’m under orders to find the girl. I will either find her, find what's left of her, or not come back at all. Besides, I assume by the extreme shooting pains in my arms that my hands will repair themselves relatively shortly. Hopefully they at-least become able to hold a sword before we find another one of those things. Or the Champion of Vermin, or his pets. Eika dubiously looked at L's hands. "If... if... Well, Eika will not stop you. I guess." Eika started to continue into the canyon, totally focused on avoiding any potential threats. As they trudged through the snow, L grunted occasionally. Roughly twenty minutes into their renewed exploration, L muttered under her breath. "Maybe it would have been better to have just lost my hands." Eika pretended not to hear, but as far as Eika's hearing was concerned, she might as well have just screamed her words. If the pain was that bad, Eika wondered why L did not even want a moment to rest. Was L always like this? Eika shrugged, she supposed she was, she had not been given very many orders that required her to be away from V, perhaps this was simply her dedication to "honor." Eika never really understood her obsession. In the wilds honor was not very important, although, Eika supposed that she herself did have a certain pride in being the best rabbitkin slave she could be. Was that honor?

Both traveled alone with their thoughts for a time, luckily for them, the canyon was not extremely wide, which helped their search. On the other hand, the snow and environment made searching for anything difficult. It had also become cold enough that Eika had begun to shiver, although L was still comfortable. As they slowly trudged northward, L's instincts flailed. She could feel that they had entered Ice Orc territory. Something about this stoked the frozen fire within her, angering her. Aware that it was not a naturally occurring thought of hers, L reasoned that somehow, there was enmity between demons and the Ice Orcs. It would explain why her power was nearly begging to be unleashed on it when she was fighting it. Although, if they were some sort of racial enemy, one would think the Ice Orc would have been resistant to her demonic side, not vulnerable to it. One would generally assume that if two races were rivals, if one side was weak to the others methods of attack, the rivalry would not last long. Normally L would try to focus on the world around her when searching for someone, rather than internal struggle, but she needed something to distract her from the blinding pain in her hands. As she thought upon her body’s relationship to the Ice Orcs, her own thoughts answered her. Do I truly wish to know the answer? Unleash the fire, "burn away the falsehoods of the Gods!" L stopped walking for a moment, confused by the sudden direction her own thoughts had taken her. "Burn it, reveal what is hidden!" It was a strange experience; her sudden thoughts were clearly not... normal... she supposed was the word. But they also did not seem foreign. In theory her demonic body could have its own personality, separate from her soul. Perhaps this was the consequences of a mortal soul in a demonic body? Your own thoughts becoming invaded by... yourself? Almost unthinkingly, L opened her status.

┌——————┐
Name: Lil
Age: 21
Race: Demon | Other
Titles: Consigliere
Occupation: Divine Slave
Class: Divine Samurai Lv 4 2672/3000
Skills: "Combat Maneuver Lv 3", "Combat Awareness Lv 3" "Regeneration Lv 4, Sleep Immunity Lv ∞"
Blessings: Blessing of The Lady Protector
└——————┘

Interestingly, she was rather close to leveling up. She had no real reason to check her status often, so it was a pleasant surprise. Although, she was not entirely sure why she had opened her status. "Burn! Unleash my fire!" L nodded to herself as her thoughts continued to flow outside of her natural inclinations. She searched for the fire inside of her, always flickering in her heart. As she touched that inner fire, it roared to life. Once again out of her control. "Hello?" Eika was standing in front of L, waving her hand in front of her face. "H..hello?" A worried look had slowly formed on Eika’s face. L barely registered the girl as the flames tore from her. Although, her fire was not physical... it was burning her status? As flames engulfed her race, it felt like there was a fire inside of her very soul. The agony was overwhelming. Eika let loose an "Eek!" as L fell to her knees.

┌——————┐
Rule Violation In Progress!
└——————┘

Another status message had popped up in L's rapidly fading ability to comprehended as the pain blinded her, it felt as if her very being was freezing over. The status message regarding the rule violation also caught fire. Burning away into frozen ashes. "L!? Are you ok?!" Eika's voice was full of panic as L dropped face first into the snow.

Sometime later, L bolted upright with a start, and then immediately held her head. The pain was terrible, although, she realized that it was not really her head that was hurting, but rather some... other part of her. As she looked around, she realized that she must have collapsed, the girl seemed to have dragged her under a rocky outcrop, slightly protecting her from the falling snow. Although, Eika was nowhere to be seen. As L regained her footing, she also realized that her hands had become operable again, although they still had small cracks in them, and were actively bleeding now. "You're awake!" A clearly relieved voice hit L's ears, although she could not see where the voice was coming from immediately. Eika suddenly popped out of a nearby snowdrift that was against the canyon walls. "I dug under the snow and hid, I left a little window area so I could see and hear, but I did not want to be standing out in the snow if any of those monster things came by and you were asleep for like thirty minutes I went and looked around at first I think I found some dead animals so we are on the right trail we should get going if you feel good enough." Eika's words flowed unceasingly, her anxiety about Luna, and her relief over L awaking made her nigh on incomprehensible. "What happened are you ok?" She finished, almost as an afterthought. L shrugged "I... guess? My demonic power started bu- oh, right." L brought up her status.

┌——————┐
Name: Lil
Age: 21
Race: Demon | Archdemon
Titles: Consigliere
Archdemon of Honor
Occupation: Divine Slave
Class: Divine Samurai Lv 4 2699/3000
Skills: "Combat Maneuver Lv 3", "Combat Awareness Lv 3" "Regeneration Lv 4, Sleep Immunity Lv ∞"
Blessings: Blessing of The Lady Protector
└——————┘

L considered for a few moments; she supposed it was not surprising information really. The God of Honor had mentioned that only the leaders of the demon race had the power to subvert the divine rules, and she had displayed the ability to ignore the rules of the system before, such as sleeping when she was made immune to the condition. She smiled to herself, as the concept of an Archdemon of Honor was amusing to her. "I am apparently the Archdemon of Honor." She announced to Eika. Eika's eyes expanded to their limit "Owowowh! That's amazing!!! Probably? I don't really know what that means but it sounds super cool! Can you like, fly? I heard demons can fly! Wait, maybe you can Archfly? Wait... I don't think that's a thing. What if-" Eika was cut off by L, "We should probably keep looking for Luna." L had no patience for Eika's nonsense even in the best of times. "Oh! Right!" Eika lead L further northward, and gestured to some patches of blood and fur that the falling snow had partially obscured. "I have not seen or heard any animals down here since we arrived. I doubt these are the remains of local wildlife. It must be one of the vermin." Eika spoke confidently. "The only answer is that Luna... uh... somehow... killed them?" L shook her head. "That seems unlikely, but they are probably from the vermin champion. Perhaps he has started eating his own pets?"

Shortly after finding the remains, Eika found an intermittent trail of blood, it was impossible to tell who or what the blood belonged to, but they had a fairly good guess. After another few minutes, Eika flagged L to keep quiet. L stopped walking as Eika strained to listen. A confused look crossed Eika's face, she moved toward L and whispered "I... don't know what I'm hearing. I think it could be a bunch of small animals, which would make sense, but the sound... isn't quite right, there is a sort of like, clattering type of noise." L nodded, and signaled Eika to follow her as she took the lead. As they moved forward slowly, a shadow began to take shape in the snow ahead of them. As the got a little closer, L realized it was a body lying in the snow. A large body, if she had to guess, another Ice Orc. As she drew even closer, she realized that it was missing its legs. As it came properly into view, Eika’s face blanched. It indeed was a legless Ice Orc. On its chest was a host of rats, chewing into it like they would a piece of wood, it appeared to Eika almost as if they were making a nest inside the still living orc's chest. "No one deserves this!" Eika cried out reflexively. "Ca... can you kill him?" L shrugged "Maybe? But it has no legs and a giant hole in its chest. I don't think "trauma" can kill these things. As L approached, she was able to get a good look inside the orc's chest cavity. It was solid grey all the way through. She supposed that explained the lack of blood. L stabbed the orc in the head as the rats hissed at her from its chest. As L predicted, this did not... do anything notable. "I'm sorry but I don't think we can really... do anything about this."  Eika took out her sword and began killing the rats easily enough. "We can at-least do this much..." The orc did not seem to be in any pain, just very angry, however it seemed to be unable to use its arms for some reason or another. As L watched Eika kill the rats, a burning hate of the orc started to creep over her. "We need to move on." L gestured into the snow ahead, she was worried that if she stuck around, her hate of the orc would overwhelm her, causing her to use her fire again.