"Hiss—!!!"
For the first time, "change" appeared within the frozen tableau.
Wanda's distorted body began to tremble violently. The rotten flesh covering her surface started contracting and melting away!
Yet it did not vanish into thin air. Forced by the torrent of the "true self," it surged like a receding tide toward the single eye on her forehead, frantically gathering and compressing there!
The single eye let out a soundless shriek, one that could nevertheless be felt by the soul!
It struggled desperately, trying to spread the contamination again and even attempting to detonate its last core. But the power of the "true self" was like all-pervading light, firmly locking it down, enveloping it, and purifying it.
Its resistance was futile.
Meanwhile, deep within Wanda's mental world.
This was a wasteland woven from blood-red hues and darkness, its sky a vortex made of painful memories and mad whispers.
At the center of the wasteland, Wanda's true consciousness lay curled up on the ground.
She was no longer the powerful Scarlet Witch, but a fragile, haggard woman covered in wounds.
She clutched two writhing, twisted lumps of flesh made from shadows and blood clots. Her eyes were hollow yet obsessive, her lips trembling as she repeated over and over, "Mommy's here... Mommy's here... No one can take you away..."
A thick, dark-red "tide" had already surged in from the edge of the wasteland, submerging her ankles and calves as it slowly rose, ready to swallow both her and the twisted "children" in her arms.
At the center of the vortex in the sky, that enormous crimson single eye watched the "host" below with cold indifference, like a deity ruling this nightmare world as she was about to be completely drowned.
Until a warm pink beam of light, like dawn piercing heavy