Michael stepped across the threshold behind Del, and that was when it all went to hell. Del's shielding did fend off the worst of it, which is why he did not drop to his knees while screaming and clutching at his head. However, his body noticeably tensed, becoming almost completely rigid. This time when his jaw set, his upper teeth bit down into the soft tissue of his lower lip, bringing up little pinpricks of crimson all along the inside of his lip. His heart beat so fast he thought he might have a heart attack any moment, or perhaps already was.
His eyes were no longer affixed on Del. They were wide, so wide it hurt, and staring out into the vast expanse of Azathoth's kingdom. The place seemed to undulate and change with each passing second, but these were the things he knew: There were a thousand flutists and likewise that many drummers, all playing their own song and yet simultaneously the same song, the music beautiful and horrible at the same time. Behind that were moans and groans of pleasure and pain, shouts of horror and joy, many times at the same time. Flashes of color danced along his perceptions, some he knew, many he didn't.
Above it all, there was a throne of pure black stone, or a material that looked like stone. He didn't dare look to it's inhabitant just yet, instead finding his vision drawn to a roiling black cloud that flew here and there throughout this horrifying place. Somehow he knew the name of that cloud, that terrible entity, and it came to him unbidden. Nyarlathotep.
The cloud made a sound akin to a cackling, though it sounded as if it came from the slimy, gurgling throat of a frog. Even though this was memory, Michael thought for a moment that perhaps it could perceive them even as they stood...and then realized that it could. Could the throne-sitter? Quite probably.
All these thoughts were pushed out of his mind as his gaze settled on one piece of familiarity amidst all this chaos: Himself. The sight of his body was almost enough to get him screaming, in anger and horror and disgust all at once. Only Del's warning before they began kept him quiet, his teeth biting down even more deeply on his lower lip.
His body knelt at the foot of the throne. Knelt like a servant before the black throne of the daemon-sultan Azathoth, and only now did Michael let his gaze travel up that throne to take in it's king.
It was too much for Michael to perceive. Azathoth was all at once an undulating gray gelatinous mass of particles, a giant beetle overrun with a strange, viscous black fungus, a leper with constantly changing proportions, a void of nothingness, and a young king dressed in furs and robes with an obsidian crown upon his head and a too-large sword in his right hand.
He attempted to close his eyes, but a voice invaded his mind and deafened all of his senses as it spoke. Watch and learn, boyo! Nyarlathotep. It was no use, try as he might his eyes would not close more than halfway. So it was that he beheld Azathoth stand and climb down from his throne, each step a deliberate show of nonchalance. He watched his body hold out his left arm, forearm up, without ever looking up from the ground, which was not ground at all but merely a starry void. Azathoth's sword, to his gaze unwieldy, carved it's mark into his arm with the grace of Zorro carving his Z. And then the daemon-king simply turned, climbed back up the steps to his throne, and sat once again.