Location: Myriad Realms, Yellow Plains, Freedom Fighter's headquarters.
"Just like how you erased your friend and her husband from this world?" Wyatt quipped, a menacing sneer tugging at his lips.
Sansa's frown deepened. Something about the way he phrased it felt... off. The words gnawed at her, unsettling in a way she couldn't quite place. Yes, Ellen had been her friend first, but the way Wyatt said it—it was as if they were strangers to him.
That didn't make sense.
How could there be such distance between a child and his own parents?
Wyatt didn't give her time to dwell on it. His voice cut through the moment like a blade, "Where are Baylor and Ned?"
He already knew it was impossible for Sansa to add Baylor to her Paw Clan, her feeling for him would not allow her to do so but as for Ned… If she had successfully brainwashed him, she wouldn't have needed an imposter, nor would she have shown up personally in the Yellow Plains. That meant she had failed because of some reason. It appears Ned wasn't to be underestimated causing Wyatt to reevaluate the captains of the Freedom Figthers.
Sansa tilted her head slightly. "They're safe." Then, as if bored with the topic, she shifted her focus back to him, a sly smile curling on her lips. "It's astonishing, to see you, an orphan, manage to cut the strings of the Southern Princess and the royal family and rise to become one of the richest in the Card World—and steal everything from me."
Her voice darkened, a bitterness creeping in. "I should have killed you along with your parents. Huh, Ellen continues to get in my way even now."
Her fingers drummed obsessively against the arm of the stone chair, her manic energy making the room feel even heavier.
Wyatt scoffed, leaning in slightly. "Then you should've finished what you started yourself instead of hiding behind your puppets and allies like a coward."
He let that jab sink in before twisting the knife deeper, "You know everything I took from you was what my mother gave you out of pity."
Listening to Wyatt's words Sansa's entire demeanor snapped.
"She didn't give me anything," she snarled, her voice echoing through the domain. "I took everything I wanted!"
Her expression twisted into an unsightly grimace, raw and unfiltered. Wyatt smirked, his tone laced with mock sympathy. "Keep telling yourself that. It was Ellen who made Baylor promise to move on by marrying you."
Wyatt blatantly lied. He had no clue what had actually happened between Ellen and Baylor in the past as they part their ways. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was how easily he could use it to chip away at Sansa's mind, "Baylor only married you because he promised Ellen he would."
The moment the words left his lips, he could see it—the flicker of doubt, of rage, of something deeper festering beneath the surface. And that was exactly what he wanted. He did not want her to figure out what he was up to.
Baylor was her obvious weak point. Unlike the other two mischiefs that worked on erasing their weak points, she protected her weak point with her life making herself vulnerable and limiting her growth.
Arriving at Lil Red Storm, Henricks wasted no time. He immediately met with Dalie Wyatt, who handed him two E-rank Anti-Matron cards.
"Just equip one in your grimoire," Dalie explained, his tone crisp and businesslike. "You'll be able to see anyone influenced by the Matron's origin card. They'll appear with a red hue—pinpointing every single spy she's planted within the Freedom Fighters."
Henricks nodded, absorbing the weight of what these cards meant.
While he had been questioning the fake Baylor, Wyatt had already unraveled the true identity of the imposter's robed companion. Using his Primordial Pupils, he had recorded the unique soul pathway arrangements of the Matron. From there, he developed a card that could help identify any card apprentice whose memories had been altered by her.
Without wasting a second, he relayed the recipe through the Demon Codex to Dredre, who was beside Ceed and Dalie. He had instructed them to produce two of them. Dredre quickly procured the necessary ingredients from the Devil Merchant Code, while Dalie set up a large-scale array formation to manufacture two of Anti-Matron cards.
Back in the present, Henricks equipped on of the anti-matron cards in his grimoire. Almost instantly, a faint glow flickered in his vision—proof that the card was active.
"Appreciate it," he said, giving a curt nod before storing the other in his card holder. Without wasting another moment, he turned and left, bidding a quick farewell he headed to his next stop, the Plague Palace.
Henricks teleported away with purpose, arriving at the plague palace, ensuring that Plague Doctor Joy was free from the Matron's influence he handed over the last Anti-Matron cards and wasted no time filling her in.
He told her everything—the shift in power with Wyatt taking over the Freedom Fighters, the Matron's role in Ned's disappearance, and her attempt to seize control of the organization through a fake Baylor.
Joy listened intently, her expression darkening with each revelation. Without hesitation, she equipped the card and scanned the plague palace. Her eyes widened slightly as the truth settled in.
"If she was able to kidnap Ned right from headquarters without any of us noticing," she muttered, "then that means we have way more of her pawns hiding in our ranks than we thought."
Her gaze flickered across the wounded lying in recovery, a cold realization sinking in. That one in every twenty-five patients in the Plague Palace were glowing red. They weren't just wounded fighters but were Paw Clan spies.
"Yeah, they really are a menace," Henricks muttered, his jaw tightening as he met Joy's gaze. She folded her arms, her expression unreadable. "And what does Wyatt plan to do with them?"
Henricks exhaled, glancing out the window of the Plague Palace toward headquarters. "He says he can save them all," he said, turning back to her. "So he wants you to capture them alive using your plague."
Joy smirked, the corners of her lips curling upward in a mix of amusement and grim satisfaction. "Good thing I've been preparing a plague just for an occasion —ever since our last run-in with the Matron."
As soon as she finished speaking, a massive tide of plague erupted from the Plague Palace, spreading through out the headquarters like a tsunami, swallowing everything and everyone in its path. The regular members of the Freedom Fighters were unaffected while Matron's spies were all forced into a deep sleep.