Trapped In Elysium: A Virtual Reality Nightmare-Chapter 107: We move at first light

The silence lingered after Borik’s question—thick and heavy, pressing on all of them like a storm about to break. Borik’s brow furrowed deeper, his voice cutting through the weight in the air.

"What does Nexus Corp mean?" he asked, eyes flicking from Liam to Sophia, then to Marcus, confusion blooming like fire behind his irises.

Liam didn’t even glance his way. He kept his gaze fixed on the ruined scroll, the crumbling blueprints of a city long dead, long cursed. His jaw clenched. He wasn’t answering.

Borik looked to Marcus next. "Marcus? You’ve been with him the longest. You all know something. Tell me—what is it?"

Marcus, leaning against a tree trunk, arms crossed tightly, didn’t move. His eyes were distant, locked on the dying embers of the campfire. "Doesn’t matter," he muttered.

"What do you mean it doesn’t matter?" Borik asked again, a touch of frustration now creeping into his voice. "You speak of this... Nexus Corp. It means something. It’s not a house or a tribe. I’ve never heard it spoken among men, elves, dwarves, or any beast that walks the land. What is it?"

Still, no one answered.

"Jason?" Borik tried. "Eleanor? Sophia?"

Sophia looked away, rubbing the back of her neck as if something itched there she couldn’t scratch. Jason just stared at the grass beneath his boots, lips tight. Eleanor sat still, hands folded across her chest like she was trying to keep something inside from exploding.

Mariel didn’t even look at him.

Sera, confused and watching them all, finally leaned toward Borik, whispering something, but Borik waved her off. His patience was cracking. He wasn’t used to being in the dark.

"Why won’t you speak!?" he barked, slamming a closed fist into the ground beside the scroll.

"We’re not obligated to answer your questions," Liam finally said, quiet but sharp, rising to his feet. His eyes locked on Borik’s now. "You say you’ve led others before us. You say we were chosen, sent on this suicide mission. You didn’t ask where we came from. You never did. And maybe that’s for the best."

Borik stared up at him, anger written plain on his face. But he didn’t say anything.

Liam took a slow breath, forcing the tension back down. Then he stepped over the scroll, his shadow falling over the etched lines and forgotten walls.

"How do we proceed into the ruined city?" he asked, his voice hard again. "You’ve seen the map. You’ve studied it. So guide us, Borik. If you’re really here to lead, then lead. Enough riddles. Enough history. How do we get in, and how do we survive what’s waiting for us?"

Borik looked at him for a long time.

And this time, he didn’t argue.

He simply looked down at the scroll again, fingers moving slowly over the edge of the ruined palace.

The jungle around them whispered with the wind, but no one spoke.

They were too close now.

And there was no turning back.

Borik’s fingers hovered above the faded scroll, tracing the brittle lines of the old city as if he’d walked those very streets a hundred times in his dreams. Everyone gathered closer again, silent, their breaths barely louder than the wind stirring the leaves around them. Only the quiet hum of the jungle kept the moment from turning into something completely still.

"There," Borik said, his voice low and gravelled, like he was speaking into a tomb. He pointed to a crooked path along the outskirts of the crumbled city walls, the trail sketched so faintly it could’ve been mistaken for a tear in the parchment. "That’s the northern gap. It’s one of the few parts of the outer wall that’s fallen in entirely. If we enter there, we’ll avoid the main gates. Whatever guards the front... we won’t have to face it. Not yet."

He shifted his hand slightly, tracing the path through the inner streets. "Once inside, we take the old merchant quarter. It’s half-collapsed, but there are tunnels under the stones—delivery passages that used to run beneath the stalls. If we stay low, we won’t be out in the open. But the tunnels..." His eyes met Liam’s. "They’re not exactly safe either. Old traps. Collapsed beams. Maybe worse."

Liam crouched beside him, studying the map. "Where does that route lead?"

"To the back of the palace," Borik answered. "There’s a collapsed wall near the servants’ quarters. It’s the only way in without walking straight through the front hall. And no one with a head on their shoulders walks through the front of that palace."

Eleanor frowned. "You’re saying you know all this, but you’ve never been here?"

Borik gave her a glance. "I’ve studied every scrap of writing left behind by the dwarves who tried. I’ve read their logs... listened to the elders retell stories of the ones who made it past the gates but never came back. This route? It’s the only one that gave anyone even a whisper of a chance."

Marcus crossed his arms, uneasy. "You sure about that? Because a wrong turn in there and we’re feeding vines for the rest of eternity."

"I’m sure," Borik said. "As sure as anyone can be about a city that eats people."

Jason muttered something under his breath, but didn’t say it loud enough to be heard.

Borik moved his hand to the center of the scroll—the ruin of the palace itself, a jagged shape, its once-proud spires now nothing more than crumbled outlines. "Once we get into the lower halls, that’s when the tests begin. The old kings... they didn’t just want to protect what they had. They wanted to make sure no one unworthy ever touched it. The deeper we go, the more the city fights us."

Sophia exhaled, rubbing a hand down her face. "Sounds like a death sentence."

"No," Liam said quietly, still staring at the map.

Everyone went silent.

Borik nodded, slow and grim. "You wanted the truth. That’s it. There’s no shortcut. No way to skip the trials. If we want to get to the tomb... to that chest... we walk the path they left behind. Or we die in the ruins like all the others."

Liam didn’t say anything anymore at that moment. He stood, his eyes moving over each face in the group—Mariel still distant, Von tense, Marcus grim, Jason suspicious, Sophia worried but resolute.

Then Liam looked down at the ruined city drawn in fading ink.

"We move at first light," he said.

And nobody objected.