Trapped In Elysium: A Virtual Reality Nightmare-Chapter 167: How is it possible

Liam was terrified. There were no words to fully describe the dread that rippled through his body as he knelt there, powerless and shaking. His hands trembled against the damp grass of the endless field, and his chest heaved as if it was being crushed beneath a mountain. The very air around them crackled with an ancient, overwhelming energy, and each breath he took felt like inhaling the weight of centuries.

He made the mistake of glancing up—of looking directly into the king’s eyes.

In that moment, something snapped within him.

It wasn’t pain in the usual sense. It wasn’t a cut or a burn or even something as harrowing as being impaled. It was a violation of something deeper—something buried in his soul. Like a dam of memories and burdens not his own had suddenly burst into him. His head snapped back, and his mouth opened in a raw, broken scream. The sound that came from him was not just his voice, but the voice of a hundred echoes, crying out through time.

He saw burning cities, treacherous thrones, dying men with blood on their lips. He saw betrayals etched in gold, kisses poisoned by deceit, and eyes—dozens of eyes—watching from behind masks. He felt wars that had ended before his time, loss that had scarred bloodlines, and vengeance that was never truly satisfied.

And at the center of it all was the king.

That same towering figure now standing before them, cloaked in an invisible force, face carved from grief and rage. His eyes glowed—not with fire, but with a cold, searing light that tore through the illusions of the world like a god dissecting mortals.

Liam collapsed forward, panting, his nails clawing into the soil. He was sweating so profusely it felt like he was melting from the inside. He could barely hold his head up. The echo of the scream still rang in the air, sharp as shattered glass.

And then the king spoke.

"Who dares disturb the sacred sleep?" The voice was deep, but not just in sound. It echoed inside them, within their minds, their bones, their lineage. It was a voice that belonged to the kind of men who never died easily—men whose names were carved in time, and whose wrath was remembered by the winds.

Neither Liam nor the queen answered.

They couldn’t.

The queen, kneeling beside Liam, dared not look up either. Her heart thudded in her chest like a prisoner pounding against iron bars. Her lips trembled, her fingers dug into her own thigh to fight the building panic. She had expected trials. She had prepared herself for illusions, for pain, even for death.

But this was something else entirely.

This was judgment.

Pure, unfiltered judgment from a king of old—one whose soul had never truly found rest, because the truth had never found him.

Then the king’s gaze drifted.

Away from Liam.

Onto her.

The moment their eyes met, she felt it—the shock. Not his power this time, but something far more personal. She saw confusion flicker across his cold expression. Then hesitation. Then recognition. The intensity in his eyes changed. They softened, even if only slightly.

"You..." he said slowly, as if dragging her image out of a memory long buried. His tone shifted—no longer just the voice of a furious monarch, but that of a man who remembered.

"You... I know you."

The words fell like hammers.

Liam, despite his pain, raised his head and turned to look at the queen. She was frozen—completely still. Her face paled, her lips parted, and her breath caught.

The king’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling in uncertainty. "You were there... you were..." he trailed off, a wave of emotion beginning to crack through the divine-like presence he had upheld moments before.

"I remember... They told me you betrayed the crown... that your blood was poison."

He stepped forward now, his massive form silent but weighty, like thunder without sound. "But I remember. I eventually saw the truth....but it was too late."

He paused just a few feet from them. Liam was still kneeling, but his body was less tense now, transfixed on the shift unfolding before him. The queen slowly, shakily raised her head.

"I was no traitor..." she whispered, voice weak but filled with old wounds. "I was your queen. Your wife. Your companion in every council and war. But they lied, So they destroyed me... and you believed them."

The king flinched. It wasn’t physical, but in his aura—like something cracked.

His shoulders dropped slightly. His glowing eyes dimmed. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"I... was lied to."

Those words hung in the air like a funeral bell.

The field around them darkened a little. Not ominous, but solemn. As if the world itself mourned the truth that had just been uttered for the first time in centuries.

The king looked down, as if seeing his own hands for the first time. "I let you burn," he said, more to himself than anyone. "I sat on the throne and watched it happen, thinking I was saving the kingdom. Thinking I was punishing a traitor. But the real traitors... they stood behind me."

Tears gathered in the queen’s eyes.

Not because she wanted his remorse.

But because some part of her—the human part, the part that had died long before her soul was corrupted—had always wanted to hear those words. The truth. That she had not been the villain. That her death had not been justice, but tragedy.

Liam stayed quiet.

He didn’t know this pain. He didn’t live through their history. But he could feel it. The rawness of it. Like being in the middle of a storm that wasn’t his, but still soaked him to the bone.

The king looked between the two of them, something ancient and weathered behind his eyes.

The wind in the field had gone still, like even the elements were holding their breath.

The king stood in silence, staring at the woman before him—the woman he had once called queen, whose name had once been carved beside his in the old texts of a forgotten empire, whose memory he had buried beneath centuries of false truths and poisoned whispers.

And yet here she was.

Alive.

Her skin, though paler now, held the warmth of blood. Her lips trembled not with memory, but breath. Her soul had not passed into the beyond—not truly. And that truth, more than anything, disturbed the natural order of things.

His eyes narrowed.

"How is it possible?" he asked, voice low now, less like thunder and more like an old blade unsheathed in the dark. "How are you here—in flesh, in form—after all these centuries? What sorcery tethered your soul to this world?"

Liam turned slowly toward her, confused. He hadn’t thought to ask. He hadn’t dared to.

But now, with the king’s eyes locked on her, even he could feel the pressure of the question hanging over them like a blade.

The queen raised her head. Her breathing had steadied, but her gaze was far away, looking past the king, past the field, into the shadows of time that still haunted her.

"I didn’t live," she said quietly. "Not in the way mortals understand life."

Her voice didn’t shake. It had weight now—aged and solemn, like stone worn smooth by centuries of storms.

"My body died, as it should have. But my soul—my soul was caught in the echo of the betrayal. Cursed, sealed, shackled to the palace where I had once ruled beside you."

The king didn’t blink.

"Your Palace became my prison," she continued. "And every year, I watched time carve through stone and flesh alike. I wandered the halls as shadow and spirit... forgotten, unnamed."

Liam swallowed hard. He had never heard her speak like this. There was no sharpness in her tone, no bitterness. Just truth, ancient and cold.