After some probing, Werther's fingers touched something hard.
Cold sweat covered his face. If not for his sheer willpower, he would have passed out.
He pinched the hard object between two fingers and pulled his hand from his chest.
Splurt!
Another gush of blood followed, but a Silver-Blue crystal now rested between Werther's fingers.
The crystal was small, yet it held terrifying energy.
A bloody wound gaped in Werther's chest. Tuski sprang into action, covering it with transparent fur.
Werther's face was pale, and cold sweat ran down his cheeks.
What he held was the Thunder Core, the source of the lightning within him.
As soon as Vice Admiral Tsuru mentioned the Thunder Core's abnormality, it had erupted, sending a flood of lightning toward Werther's brain.
But the Thunder Core had been inside Werther for too long. The consciousness within it, at once strange and familiar, could not fully control it.
Werther acted without hesitation. The moment he noticed something wrong with the Thunder Core, he tore it from his body.
He would never allow such an unstable threat to remain inside him.
Once the Thunder Core left his body, it grew even more active, spilling lightning in every direction.
Werther coated his hand with a thick layer of Armament Haki and gripped the Thunder Core tightly.
He did not know what the consciousness inside it was, but he had strengthened the Thunder Core to this point with his own life force. He would not let anyone else have it.
Crack.
Cracks spread across the Thunder Core's surface.
"Are you insane?" A voice reached him from within the Thunder Core.
Werther froze at the familiar consciousness. As he remembered it, its owner should have vanished long ago.
The consciousness did not belong to a stranger or some visitor from beyond.