Vanessa stood rooted to the spot, oblivious even when Victoria tugged twice at the hem of her clothes.
Time seemed to have stopped at that moment.
She looked at the throne above, her expression shifting from bewilderment to blankness, mingled with surprise and fear.
What had she seen?
Vanessa could not quite remember.
She blinked. It seemed to be an aged, obese man sitting up there, beckoning to her, yet it also seemed to be a strapping young man with a piercing gaze.
But when she looked again, it seemed to be a mass of rotting, stinking flesh mixed with twisted limbs, spilling down from the throne and covering half the palace.
She turned to look beside her. Victoria's face had become a simple pattern on an articulated limb, with faintly visible fissures within it. Eight eyes looked at her with concern. "Vanessa, what's wrong?"
It took almost all the courage Vanessa had to suppress the urge to scream.
"I... I seem to be hallucinating. It's getting worse..."
She forced the words out through clenched teeth.
She had vaguely sensed something was wrong earlier in the Imperial Palace, but she had paid it no mind.
Contact with [Secret History] could cause mild hallucinations. There were too many secrets in the Imperial Palace, and Victoria had told her about this beforehand.
She should not use spirituality to resist; she only needed to gradually adjust.
Yet after coming all this way, her condition had not improved at all. Instead, it had rapidly deteriorated.
"Relax. Don't resist my power."
The muffled, indistinct voice rang out with an eerie rustling, as though a monster were struggling to imitate a human voice.
Four of the spider's articulated legs climbed onto her neck and face. Their stiff bristles pierced her skin, and blood ran down the