"Eat it? Can you even eat this thing? Should I grind it into powder and mix it with water?"
Tony stared blankly at the Source of Life Shanks had shoved into his hands, unsure what to do.
"Hey! The real question is why he has to eat it!"
Loa chimed in from the side, then turned to Shanks and waited for an answer.
"Because he got the Blood Marrow Worms to accept him! And he managed not to lose himself in all that killing. That's no small feat!" Shanks grinned, flashing eight gleaming front teeth. "You're not the only ones with information on Blood Marrow Worms!"
Shanks rummaged through his trouser pockets for ages, then spread his hands sheepishly toward Benn Beckman.
"Heh. Uh, do you have it?"
“Yeah. I'm used to this by now.” Benn Beckman rubbed his forehead wearily, then took a cigarette pack from his coat pocket and pulled a yellowed sheet of paper from inside its lining.
"Blood Marrow Worms and Blood Worms aren't exactly the same thing, but Titan's instincts take precedence over the parts that were mixed into the Blood Marrow Worms later."
"So what's written here should apply to this kid too."
Loa took the paper and studied it closely.
It turned out the Bibi hadn't been the first to try letting Blood Worms inhabit a human body.
The document, written on Stomach Island long ago, recorded the process and results of Blood Worm infestation in detail.
Of course, they hadn't been called Blood Worms back then. They'd been called Titan Splitters.
Strangely, although they had split off from the immortal Titan, these things weren't like ordinary tissue. They couldn't survive on their own!
The document speculated that they were like the Titan tissue on Stomach Island that had lost its vitality and