When Yi Chen pushed open the door to the special private room, the visual support Little Grape provided from within him had already taken in everyone present, roughly reading their respective illnesses and pathogen concentrations.
Blood Emperor Pride needed no introduction. Yi Chen did not even need Little Grape to observe him; he could sense that the Blood Emperor was stronger than during their last clash. Presumably, once the lesion hatched a new "qualification," it would be the Blood Emperor's turn.
Aside from the Blood Emperor, the other members were also extremely special, each fully representing the pathogen core of their respective Source Plague Zone.
To the Blood Emperor's left,
sat an extraordinarily burly existence, so broad that only a custom-made oversized chair could accommodate his backside.
He was not obese, merely wider than an ordinary person.
His entire body was wrapped in a dark-gray skin-sack coat. His face was covered by a Human Skin Mask with holes cut out only for the eyes, and the eyeballs visible through them were shot with blood.
A gigantic tombstone-shaped shield was embedded behind him.
His name, Griman Brent, was carved onto it. The shield was formed from layers of compressed connective skin-sacks, using the skin factory's most advanced compression-stitching technique. The raw material came from Griman's shed skin.
The shield's Surface Layer had the most peculiar design. Through a special stitching technique, eleven severed palms of different categories had been embedded in it.
All those severed palms came from Griman's predecessors—in other words, the original-skin existences who had once ranked just below the Factory Director.
The palms retained their former wills, further increasing the shield's impact absorption and blocking attacks of any kind.
Griman was hailed as the most powerful shield of the current age.
Besides excelling at defense, he could also