Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2682: Sansa’s Gambit

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Guild Headquarters

"Wyatt, who did you think of when I said I implanted a Memory Bomb in your sweetheart?" Sansa suddenly asked, her tone laced with a disturbing curiosity about my love life.

My eyes widened as realization struck. Maybe it was all three of them—or none of them. Perhaps it was someone else entirely. Someone that Sansa believed to be my sweetheart. Or worse, every woman in my life.

As my thoughts spiraled, I received news from my calamity daughter gems. To my shock, none of the three remembered receiving a message from Sansa. Even if she had buried the memory of the text deep within their minds, there should have been a record of it in their grimoire text logs. Yet none of them had any such record.

It made me wonder whether this was all, in fact, a bluff—just as I had thought at the beginning. Time was ticking, and I was right where I began.

"Wyatt, are you too busy asking them whether they received a text from me?" Sansa asked lightly. "Don’t bother. The Memory Bomb can not only duplicate my memories in the victims’ mind infinitely but also hide itself deep in the target’s mind along with every memory of me they possess. Make it hard for one to simply erase it from their memory. That means they won’t remember receiving the text at all, and you can just erase the memory bomb from their memories."

She took her time, clearly enjoying herself, taking pleasure in my desperation. Soon, she smirked, adding, "And don’t bother checking their grimoire text logs either. There are many ways to send someone a message. It doesn’t have to be the grimoire network."

Listening to her, I realized she was right. For someone with her means, she had countless methods to arrange for a message to be delivered to her target by someone who had no idea what they were carrying, someone merely doing their job. The thought ignited murderous intent within me. Sensing it, she smiled and reminded me casually, "Would you look at that? There are only five minutes left."

I was out of options, and if I didn’t act soon, I would be out of time as well.

I couldn’t leave Sansa behind to rush to Susan, Anna, and Jill’s rescue. Nor did I dare bring all three of them into the Celestial Rule Domain to test and save them.

What if I left Sansa and she immediately detonated her Memory Bomb? And what if everything she said was nothing more than an elaborate bluff?

In that case, by bringing all three of them into the Celestial Rule Domain, I would be delivering three perfect scapegoats straight into her hands—three anchors for her to hide within. Once she managed to hide within any one of their memories, it would become extremely difficult for me to do anything to her—let alone kill her.

"Wyatt, do you give up?" Sansa asked. This time, her tone was neither playful nor indifferent, but professional. As the time limit closed in and my indecision persisted, she chose to strike. "Wyatt, I’ll be honest with you. While I have you tied down here, my people are busy implanting Memory Bombs into every citizen of Sky Blossom City. We’re using every message delivery method available, every service the citizens rely on."

She continued looking down South, "The Supreme Leader, the Emissary of Light, and their forces are two hundred and fifty miles from the city, ready to attack at my signal. I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t given them my answer. My signal will be my answer."

Her eyes locked onto mine as she proposed, "That means my offer to you is still on the table. Join hands with me. I’ll erase their forces in one fell swoop while you stall the Emissary of Light. Once I’ve finished off the Supreme Leader, I’ll rejoin you. As for Gideon Grim, we’ll need to stay alert—but his forces pose no threat to me here."

She exhaled softly, monitoring my micro-expersions, as she remarked, "Honestly, Wyatt, I never wanted our cooperation to begin with me threatening your people and your city. But you’re just as unforgiving and vindictive as I am." A faint smile tugged at her lips. "Along with your eyes, that’s what I like about you."

She waited for a heartbeat, letting the reality of my situation sink in, before asking, "So, Wyatt—what’s it going to be? Will you join hands with me, or massacre your entire town by killing me... or keeping me trapped in here?"

I was astonished to realize that I wasn’t keeping Sansa trapped in my celestial blood rule domain at all. Instead, she was isolating me from the city, giving her paw clan the window to spread her Memory Bomb throughout it, turning every citizen into her hostage strapped to a bomb.

It seemed her new application of Memory Bomb was far more versatile than I had understood. Funny how a single technique, when applied properly, could become so much more.

"You think you’ve got me, don’t you?" I said, letting out a long sigh as I finally did what I had resolved not to do. Sansa had proven herself a worthy opponent. I slowly stepped toward Sansa, adding, "I have to admit, your Memory Bomb is something else. You were meticulous. Careful. But once again, you underestimated me."

Sansa’s indifferent expression cracked as she felt the weight of my murderous intent closing in. She realized then that I had made my decision—and it wasn’t the one she had hoped for.

According to her calculations and everything she knew about me, that should be possible, but her mind reflexively recalled my answer from earlier, when she had arrived here through my memory of her and threatened me with the lives of Susan, Anna, and Jill:

’Go on. Show me whether I love those three as much as you love your husband. I want to know.’

She stared at me in horror, misunderstanding that I was a bigger psychopath than her.

"You don’t care about those three?" she asked frantically. "What about the lives of innocent citizens? If I die, they all die!"

"When you don’t care about them," I replied coldly, "why should I?"