There's seconds of silence drawn to what feels like hours, this entire chamber left to suffocate underneath the horror, the violation, the very presence of this Demon.

We can't move. One of the thought processes shouts it over the emergency channel in Sophia's brain. Body, Priority One Order: move the muscles. High-Court Tianci Prostration, as practiced five times ten minutes ago. Now!

But they can't hear the direct order, its voice lost amongst the carnage inside that girl. A vast mind palace in the midst of a congressional riot, thought processes in a Consciousness Committee blaring with alarms and screams as everything begins to fall apart.

Soul be damned this entire thing is about to puke! Some thought reports, pointing over towards another one who was, as of this moment, literally regurgating half-digested political analytics all over the chamber table.

The visual cortex is overstimulated! Another reports. We're experiencing a class nine vertigo event! We gotta stop looking at the throne!

Because that throne of obsidian was higher than anything this poor girl had ever seen before, its shape above a mountain of steps and flanked by needle thin protrusions of arcanite like rays of black sunlight.

And each portion was just slightly misadjusted, each part drawing her closer, whispering death like the tortuous edge of a skyscraper calling for a jumper.

Sophia Elise the Eighth feels her pulse roaring in her head, feels her irises widen and unfocus in a blur of…

Has this dress always felt this itchy?

Why is it so uncomfortably hot in here?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Why does everyone need to stare at me without their eyes? Why must they all be here in this place, judging me?

DO NOT VOMIT. The gaseous spirit of that vast parent world screams as everything from the motes of dust to the throne itself anxiously chews on their nails. BY THE TRAITOR'S NAME, DO NOT PASS OUT.

Ok ok ok ok ok. She mentally slaps herself, hard, five times in a row, letting the shock run across her incorporeal form. Focus. Like Mother always did whenever she was faced with a difficult situation. We are the daughter of the Silver Throne, we are Sophia Elise the Eighth. We could be the next Empress of the entire Ensolian Imperium for Goddess' sake (well not really now, cause of this whole marriage thing to Zai). All we gotta do is…

The body next to her goes through the motions, as rehearsed.

Ok. Perfect. We'll follow his lead. Just… just mirror him and everything will be okay.

The Crown Prince of the Tianci Dominion prostrates before his father, before the Lord of the Dominion. The child of that monster's sacred essence gives his fear and fidelity to the master of it all.

But still, Sophia Elise the Eighth does not bow.

Bad news. Sophia's own self talks to her, a final postmortem of this monumental failure of herself. If we even dare move our head down, we will fall face first onto this carpet and seize in a puddle of our own vomit.

Whatever we do, do not even think of moving this head down from its upright position lest we ruin the reputation of everyone and everything we stand for!

And so the Fourth Princess of the Ensolian Imperium keeps her head straight, and stares at the Lord of the Dominion.

She stares at this frail, thin, graying wreck upon the throne of Tianci.

At the nation built atop blood and murder, wracked by the war waged by the Axial Powers and starvation by the cruelness of an uncaring universe. The nation whose own blood has soaked this cursed soil, whose own citizens craft explosive devices in hidden alleyways and gnaw on the bones of street dogs.

She stares at the rotting emptiness of this place.

The Ensolian Imperium stares at him.

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