Tuka's Discovery

"Ugh... ah... aaaah!!"

Amid the dull roar of the engines, Tuka, who had been sitting quietly beneath the main mast, suddenly shuddered violently without warning. A gut-wrenching, almost tearing dry heave escaped his throat. He clamped both hands over his ears like iron pincers and collapsed to his knees on the Obsidian floor, his body convulsing.

His clear eyes, once capable of perceiving the spirits of all things, abruptly lost focus. Vast patches of deathly white film surged over his pupils like a tide.

"Tuka! What's wrong?!"

"Hey! Kid, don't scare us like that!"

In an instant, Rain, Keen, Carina, and the others, who had been sorting supplies beside the long table, all changed expression and rushed over. The master thief Carina reacted swiftly, pulling out a portable emergency medical kit. Her slender hands trembled slightly as she tore out high-purity sedatives and hemostatic cotton, trying to stuff them into Tuka's ears.

However, conventional medicine and treatment were utterly useless at this moment. Tuka's deathly white eyeballs rolled frantically upward, while two streams of thick, glaring dark-red blood seeped continuously from the deepest part of his ear canals through the gaps between his fingers, dripping onto the black alloy floor in a horrifying sight.

"No! Normal medicine can't stop it! This isn't a physical injury at all!" Carina's pretty face, usually adorned with a sly smile, had turned completely pale as she looked helplessly at Rain.

"Shaka, Atlas! Bring the mental wavelength detector over, now!"

Vegapunk's main body, seated in the wheelchair behind them, could no longer spare any attention for the reverse surgery in his hands. He stared fixedly at Tuka's near-mad EEG readings on the main display, his aged eyes filled with shock and gravity. He hammered frantically at the virtual panel, pulling up a comparison of the