Sheila was shocked. Henry had just shot out his flames without a second thought, in the middle of enemy territory. She had expected death to come upon them soon after, but instead, she heard the flopping of bodies and the gurgling of liquid. She noticed a trickle of blood right before it was cooked away by Henry's flames.
A few tense seconds passed before Sheila made her move. She sent out that damaging aura of her's, letting it encompass the metal bars. The metal they were made of was strong, but slowly, it was decayed, rusted, and ruined enough for her to push past with ease. Sneaking around Henry's fire, she turned to see her captors lying against the ground, bodily material slurry pouring from their orifices.
There was something else as well. She noticed Henry's status screen, broken. Looking at it gave her a headache, and she knew why. The status screen was something beyond comprehension, something that showed the incarnation of a being. Everything had one, from the smallest pebble to the largest monster. Everything had the capacity to grow, most of the time, though, creatures were too dumb to use them.
That's the main reason why intelligent life dominates the food chain. Ridiculous strength may win at first, but through actively using your status, you can easily surpass any creature's strength. That's also why intelligent monsters are terrifying. Not just those that evolved from monsters, they were on the same level as humans, demons, and others, no. The ones that were truly terrifying were things like Eodum.
They could kill without remorse, come up with plans to kill their betters, and abuse the system to gain great strength. They were true monsters.
Now, the thing all things had in common, from inanimate to animate, is broken. Glitching. Bad. Wrong. She could feel the broken panel's influence on her mind. It was a pressure, uncomfortable and painful. Strangely enough, though, that was all it was. Just a migraine caused by feeling something that doesn't fit with this world.
"Henry, what… What is that? What are you?" Sheila questioned, confusion taking up most of her thoughts with only a little bit of fright creeping at the edges of her subconscious.
Henry looked aghast, completely shocked. She was still… Alive. How was she alive? So far, every time someone has seen his status, they'd die. Their brains wouldn't be able to comprehend it as the ultimate thing in their world was somehow broken. They would have a melt down with blood leaking from their orifices along with their soon to be liquified brain.
Somehow, however, she was still fine. She looked to be a little pained, but that was it. Henry could only voice his confusion, "How… How are you still alive?"
"What?" Sheila responded with her own question.
"You shouldn't be able to look at my status like that." Henry explained, "Everyone who's done that has died. You're fine, though. Hell, I would say it might be because you're a draugr, a type of undead-"
"Not undead; I never died." Sheila corrected.
"Yeah, sure, whatever. That's not the point. Even undead died from looking at my status. Everything has hit the floor because this is a glitch in the world. Because I'm a glitch in the world. You're fine though. Why?" Henry finished.
A word then came to both of their minds. They didn't know why. They didn't know how. The word caused them both to involuntarily speak, "The void."
They didn't know how the word came to be present in their consciousnesses, but it did. They didn't know why, but they both just felt like the answer to Henry's question was the void.
Now, while they don't know it, the reason Sheila can withstand the wrongness of Henry's status is because of the void. The void isn't part of this world nor is it part of any world. It is the space in between dimensions, planets, galaxies, and universes. It is what the lack of something is.
By entering and leaving the void, the two have become something unworldly. The fact that they both absorbed the power of those entities of the void—the two stars, one of holy light and rotting aura, and the flaming star with rings of ice and water—they've gained otherworldly power as well.
Henry snapped the two out of their momentary daze, "Ack! You know what? It doesn't matter! We can talk it over later, but for now, let's just escape."
Sheila nodded and sent out her deathly aura to rot away the bars. Like with her own, the metal fell apart. Once Henry made it out of his cell, he and Sheila peeked out of the tent.
… Shit.
Turns out when Henry tried to block Sheila's line of sight with his flames, he had also drawn a lot of attention from outside. The guards silently got their weapons ready. With Henry's flames glowing as brightly as they were, something was clearly amiss.
A sagely-looking orc stepped out from the masses of soldiers. She yelled at the two, "Come out now! We have you surrounded. Surrender with no further resistance, and we might let you live. Resist, and you die. No further discussion, just death."
They looked around. Yep, they were surrounded. Henry whispered to Sheila, "Hey, do you still have that [Identify] ticket?"
"Yes, why?" Sheila said before her glowing blue eyes lit up with realization.
After a few moments, the two walked out, "Alright, we're coming out; don't attack!"
The two walked out, but instead of sorrowful expressions of being caught, the two were wearing huge shit-eating grins."
The orc mage realized that the two weren't going to follow along with their orders, so she yelled, "ATTACK!"
A shower of arrows ascended from many bows, and the same shower rained down upon Henry and Sheila. Summoning up her [Holy Wall], Sheila blocked the cascade of projectiles. Henry took the [Identify] ticket from his pocket and used it. The ticket disassembled and entered Henry, projecting his broken screen to the masses of demons in front of him.