Trapped In Elysium: A Virtual Reality Nightmare-Chapter 127: She takes every ounce of it

The air in the room had grown stale, thick with smoke and sweat and something far more unnatural. Liam’s arms were burning, his chest heaving with every breath. Every deflected arrow, every narrow dodge, chipped away at his strength. Beside him, Marcus looked no better. His axe hung at his side, shoulders sagging, blood from the graze on his thigh soaking into his trousers.

But the spirit? It wasn’t tired.

It hovered lazily in Sophia’s body, as if this were some twisted game. Her eyes—those black, endless pits—bore into them like holes burned into the world itself. Her face wore that ever-present smirk, lips curled in that same maddening grin that had followed them around the chamber since she first appeared.

She drifted slowly now, in a smooth, spectral arc, circling them as though admiring prey that had run a good race but was finally slowing.

And then—she stopped.

Right in front of Liam.

Just a few paces away.

The torches flickered behind her, casting her shadow wide across the wall, a towering demon clothed in a familiar face.

She tilted her head again, neck cracking faintly with the motion.

"You know..." she began, her voice soft and venom-sweet, the words rolling out like oil.

Liam didn’t answer. His grip tightened. His stance widened.

The spirit’s smile deepened.

"This one..." she said, motioning vaguely to the body she wore like a dress, "...she likes you."

The words hit Liam like a fist to the gut.

He flinched—but only slightly. Just enough for the spirit to see it.

She grinned wider.

"Oh, yes," she purred. "Thoughts full of you. She tries to bury them. But they’re there. Always there. Like little embers in her chest. Soft. Pathetic."

Marcus took a step forward, jaw clenched, but the spirit raised one finger and waggled it at him, almost playfully.

"Nuh-uh. This part’s for him."

She turned her gaze back to Liam.

"I wonder what happens," she whispered, "when the thing you care about... bleeds."

And before either of them could move, she raised her hand.

With a flick of her wrist, the spirit summoned a blade—not steel, not stone, but something woven of darkness and pale light—and dragged it across Sophia’s forearm.

The slice was deliberate.

Precise.

Shallow enough to avoid true damage.

But deep enough to bleed.

Blood dripped, red and raw, down her arm and splattered to the stone floor.

Liam’s heart seized.

The blade vanished into mist again.

Possessed Sophia held her wounded arm out in front of her, the blood gleaming in the torchlight. She smiled at Liam—not with victory, not with rage—but with cold, amused satisfaction. As though she’d just proven something.

Liam didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

He could barely breathe.

The sight of that cut, on her, even if she wasn’t truly there right now—it burned through him in a way no wound ever had.

"She’s watching, you know," the spirit whispered, stepping even closer. "She sees everything I do. And she screams."

Another drop of blood hit the stone.

The sound echoed like thunder in the silence that followed.

Marcus looked to Liam, eyes wide, waiting—for an order, for a sign, for something. But Liam said nothing.

He just stared at her.

At Sophia.

At the spirit behind her eyes.

Liam’s hands were shaking now—not from fear, but from rage. His eyes, once sharp and alert, now burned with red fury, bloodshot and trembling with emotion he could barely keep inside.

His voice came low, barely more than a growl. "If you hurt her one more time... I swear on everything—I’ll kill you."

He wasn’t bluffing. Every inch of him ached with the desire to charge forward, to plunge the blade straight through her chest—through it. To burn the damn thing from the inside out.

But it wasn’t just the thing.

It was Sophia.

And she was still in there.

The spirit only smiled wider. Its head cocked again in that same twisted, curious angle, like a child toying with ants.

"You’ll kill me?" it echoed, and then laughed—a deep, grating sound that echoed around the chamber like nails on iron.

"I can’t feel pain," it said, raising Sophia’s wounded arm. Blood still trickled in slow lines down to her fingertips, dripping to the stone floor with soft, rhythmic splats. The wound was shallow—but enough to hurt. "This body? She feels it. Not me. Not even a pinch."

The smile widened cruelly.

"Cut me open. Burn me alive. She takes every ounce of it."

Liam’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth groaned under the pressure. His knuckles had gone white around the sword hilt. The flames crackled louder, reacting to his unspoken desperation.

He looked at her—at it—and saw the truth.

Sophia was still there.

Trapped.

Suffering.

That cut on her arm hadn’t just hurt her—it had broken something in him.

Marcus stepped forward, his breath ragged, still holding his axe at his side. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his leg bloodied, but his eyes burned with the same helpless fire Liam felt.

"What the hell are we supposed to do, huh?" Marcus barked suddenly, voice echoing in the stone room. He took another step, pointing the axe toward her. "You fly. You vanish. You use her body like a damn puppet. How the hell do you fight something that disappears whenever you swing at it?"

The spirit tilted Sophia’s head again.

"You don’t," it said simply.

Then it vanished.

Just like that.

One blink.

Gone.

Silence.

The flames from Liam’s sword hissed louder now, the heat beating against his face like a furnace, but it did nothing to warm the ice crawling up his spine. The room felt heavier. Colder. As though every ounce of hope had been scraped clean from the air.

Marcus turned in a slow circle, his back tense, axe raised halfway.

"Where is it?" he muttered. "Where the hell is it?!"

No answer.

Just their breathing.

They didn’t know what to do.

They couldn’t run.

They couldn’t fight.

They couldn’t save her without hurting her.

And the worst part?

That thing knew it.

And it was winning.