For the first time since arriving in this world, I was confused. Lichopedia had no records of what I was seeing, which meant this was something beyond what Neduzar had known back before he was sealed. I was standing in the corridor leading to the fortress zone that held the Mana Pool and Soul Focus. However, instead of a rubble filled corridor or even the usual weathered scenery, I was looking at a glowing, red barrier, like the surface of a lake blocking my path. If I had to compare it to anything back on earth, the show Stargate came to mind, but instead of being awe inspiring, the thing blocking my way gave me a very bad feeling. It was hard to explain, but there was something very wrong about it, and that was something coming from a lich manipulating an enslaved soul in a body manufactured from dead enemies.

When I first learned about this aberration from the sole surviving mid tier Mana Spore, I almost thought the creature was showing me some bizarre dream it had. It had spent a couple hundred years pretty much slumbering in the Breeding Pens area without doing much other than splitting off low tier mana spores, so my doubts about its memory weren't exactly unfounded. However, a couple of ghosts that I sent to recon this corridor had also shown me this place. Honestly, I didn't know what to think anymore. It was like finding out the game guide I had been given was missing a complete section.

Part of me was tempted to try to dig out of the fortress and maybe try to enter the fortress zone with the Soul Focus and Mana Pool from another direction. However, when I sent out my ghosts through corridor walls to see if I could bypass the blood red barrier blocking the corridor, I learned that the barrier extended sideways as well. It was almost like it was encompassing or cutting off a portion of the fortress.

While it seemed like I could possibly pass through the red barrier, I held off exploring, not wanting to be impulsive or experiment just yet. . Nether Slith nor Bas knew anything about this thing, since their memories after being reborn as undead were partially scrambled. That left the metal eaters as my last potential source of information.

So, I made my way back to the Metal Works zone, planning on having a talk with the metal eater queen. Of all the creatures I had met so far, she was probably the only one that seemed to be at an adult human's level of intelligence. Moreover, I had been meaning to discuss some things with her anyway, since she had partially lied about exploring most of the fortress. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, since her children had honestly been surprised about running into the Mana Spores.

However, there was something off about her unwillingness to expand her area of influence. I had thought about it more and more since killing the basilisk and slime and then finding the mana spores, but it didn't make sense for the queen to have left all these mid tier creatures alone for so long in range of her nest. It was like living next to known serial killers, while waiting for them to kill again.

In the metal works, I ran across a mid tier metal eater, and using [Mind Speak], I forcefully conveyed my intent to visit the queen in her lair. Bas, along with the three Wraith Spores floating behind me, made it clear that I had business to take care of and that I didn't plan on waiting on the queen's arrival like last time. I felt the vacillation in the metal eater, as it fidgeted its claws and tail, but then my wraith spores floated forward, almost looming over it. That did the trick as the metal eater scurried off through a nearby corridor, and I followed with my subordinates.

Truthfully, I had thought about it a few times before summoning the new wraiths, as the mechanics of maintaining mid and high tier summons was much different from low tier ones. While the higher tier summons didn't require mana from me, each of them added pressure to my soul. It was like trying to walk a bunch of dogs while avoiding being dragged off by them or attacked by them.

With the addition of the four of new summons, my soul load was close to its limit. Six total mid tier souls were difficult to keep suppressed through my link to them, since most of them, especially the newly summoned ones, still held a lot of resentment and anger towards me. It would take time to tame them all to the point, where I could probably decrease the pressure and load they were putting on my soul. Still, they had increased my subordinates' overall strength to a point comparable to a human duchy from Neduzar's memory... which was a bizarre thing for an abandoned fortress.

As I entered a series of tunnels passing metal eaters scurrying by, I began reviewing my memories, trying to look at strength of my forces currently without measuring them against the exaggerated power that Neduzar had amassed before he was sealed. The almost atypical gathering of such large numbers of magical creatures in one area reminded me of a wildlife park. However, the question still remained if this gathering was some crazy coincidence or not.

When I finally reached the queen's central chamber, I finally got my chance to get some answers. The large metal eater was resting on a pile of metal ore, as her eyes darted between me and the my summons. Casting [Mind Speak], I asked the first question that I had using images. “How did you find this place... the fortress?”

The images that came back at me were logical about her leaving her mother's swarm, somewhere in the desert, and walking to the fortress, while passing by various dangers. It would have looked like some Animal Planet documentary, except for the fact the queen kept moving in the same direction no matter what.

I sent back some images, trying to convey my next question. “What made you walk in that one direction?” The queen, who had been still up til now, rose slightly on her bed of ore.

She stared quietly at me, before answering that she was told to guard. “By who?” She didn't know the answer. No... it was more like she just knew she had to, just like she knew she had to eat metal to survive.

I stared quietly at her, and I could feel the tension in her mind. Around me, all the mid tier metal eaters had gone alert, facing my subordinates and myself. My summons were no different, as I could sense their emotions fluctuating as they began sizing up their opponents. Still, the conversation needed to continue.“Who or what were you told to guard?”

Her answer was going to determine her fate, and she knew it as well myself. Still, she firmly replied without hesitation. The image of metal works zone of fortress popped into my mind along with a series of tunnels, halls, and corridors. Comparing the layout to my own memories of fortress, I realized she was essentially a perimeter guard, securing metal works zone of the fortress. The same had probably been true of the slime and the basilisk, and it maybe even applied to the mana spores. However, it still did not clarify if she was guarding what lay inside the fortress or she was guarding against it. As far as I knew so far, there were only two things in the inner portions of the fortress: my main body and the that blood red barrier.

That wasn't all. as she slowly moved to the side, asking me to follow her. My mind was spinning with what I had just learned, as conspiracy theories kept popping up and vanishing. However, I kept enough control over my faculties to make my summons stand down, as I followed the queen over to a nearby chamber. I had my doubts about her, but with my current strength, she was not a real threat. In a nearby dug out chamber, I found a large, long dead creature. What had once been a Sand Worm was now nothing more than a husk and some bones, but it was obviously big enough to have been a mid tier creature. I was surprised the queen had left it mostly intact after killing it.

However, the queen's next message threw a curve ball at me. Her mental images showed her arriving at the fortress to find a dying Sand Worm and taking over its territory. The images also showed her fighting with some other creatures that had been her neighbors back then, neither of which included the basilisk or the slime that I had killed. Instead, her memories made me think of something crazy. “Changing of the guard.... The old one dies, and the new one takes over.”