Staring at the dirt covering my face, I had to admit that this was a novel experience. On earth, there was that saying about burying someone alive, but actually experiencing it was something else. On the other hand, I felt angry. It wasn't some crazy volcanic explosion type of anger, but the subtle welling of humiliation fueling a slow, persistent fire that was roiling around in my nonexistent 'gut.' Even if there had been a swarm, it galled me that I had literally been run off by the gnats of the magical world. There was only one answer to regaining my dignity as a man... no as a lich.

“But, first, I gotta get out of here...” Sighing mentally, I decided to start with my current predicament. Circulating mana through my body, I found significant portions of my body had been damaged by all the stone and dirt burying me, though I was still mostly intact. If I had been actually 'alive' in the normal sense of the word, things would have probably turned out much different. It took a bit longer, but the mess wasn't something that [Sculpt Body] couldn't fix. So, eventually I was back to crawling through a narrow passage I was able to carve out using [Greater Stone Manipulation], while heading towards where I sensed my subordinates through our mind link.

Meanwhile, I was reviewing everything I knew about the damn Mana Spores. Number one: They were relatively weak, with just the as their primary form of attack with the explosive death as a secondary blow. Number two: They attacked everything around them in swarms, letting their numbers do the talking. Attack one, expect to face them all. Number three; Leave one in an area with high mana concentrations, expect there to be many more eventually. They fed on the mana from their environment, replicating themselves until some natural trigger in the swarm limited their numbers. Number four: Their dead 'bodies' essentially became the foundation of some mana stone veins. To my chagrin, that was something I had not remembered until the last minute when the attack began. The result was being ambushed by a bunch of flies.

There was also one another thing, of course. A mana stone vein like the one I had encountered was not something low tier mana spores could have produced in a few centuries. It left me with a sinking feeling, wondering how many centuries, if not millennia Neduzar had been sealed away. That and why the mana stone vein was where the Soul Focus and Mana Pool had been. It was too much of coincidence for there not to be a connection.

My thoughts were a bit chaotic, but I was a bit relieved when I finally saw a shadowy extension poke through the wall of rubble in front of me. It twisted around a bit, before orienting towards my direction. Then, I heard a familiar, “Eattttt...”

“Yeah, yeah... I'm fine. Now get your lazy asses in gear and start digging...”

“Eaatt...”

I could almost feel the regret on the other end of the mind link, and if I had eyes, I would have probably been rolling them. “Going to have to increase the 'reeducation' after this..”

When I finally got back to open tunnel space, I found Slith bobbing around busy metal eaters, that soon backed off. I saw Bas further away also digging at some of the tunnel sides, casting in some places. It was a crude method to reinforce the tunnel, but it showed that the undead basilisk was at least learning somewhat.

“Dieee...”

“Eaaatt....”

Ssshsssshhhk!

The welcoming would have probably scared the shit out of any sane person. Watching shadowy tentacles and massive claws waving at me along with a monstrous skull with burning green eyes shaking its bony head, I felt somewhat comfortable instead. It was like being welcomed back to work after taking a couple sick days off. However, glancing back at the collapsed tunnel behind me, I realized that I was on the verge of another battle... if not war. I had no idea how many of the mana spores were infesting the mana vein region.

So, I needed to rebuild an army, but remembering the explosions and collapsing tunnels, it felt like an impossible battlefield. It made me realize how crazy or maybe desperate the Japanese and later the Viet Cong had been to use tunnel warfare. A few tons of rock and rubble was enough to crush almost anything and everything I could currently pull out of my bag of tricks.

Just then, out of the corner of my vision, I saw a shadowy tentacle insert itself into a nearby wall before emerging out of the rubble in front of me. The tentacle seemed to become more concrete for a bit before yanking out a scoop of debris. “Spirits...” Looking back at Slith, who was busy using four tentacles to dig, I suddenly had a plan forming in my head.

Slith paused a bit, looking back at me as it 'scratched' itself with a tentacle. “Eattt?”

“Can it work?” Deciding to put my idea to the test, I cast , and with a small swirl of dark smoke, a floating mass appeared in front of me. It looked like a sawed off metal eater, missing its rear half and with its claws being nothing more than shadowy masses on its side. With a quick mental command, the ghost entered the rubble blocking the tunnel. I kept my metal contact with it, monitoring its status. The longer it stayed inside the rock/dirt, the weaker the mana structure of its body became and more mana was consumed from its soul. Just when I thought it might cross the line of no return, I pulled it back to the open tunnel space.

The shadowy figure was in tatters, looking like some wild cat had shredded it. However, a few minutes of observation, gave me the answer I was hoping for. The ghost slowly reformed its body, as its mana levels increased. If I had a mouth, I would have probably been grinning like the Joker as he planned his next escapade. “Boys! It looks like we got some work to do!”

“Dieee?”

“Eaattt?”

SSSHHSK??!!