To a common mortal farmer, soil was merely dirt where cabbages grew.
To Frank, soil was a complex, multi-phase granular matrix governed by void ratios, moisture-thickness curves, and the unforgiving laws of geotechnical building.
And right now, beneath the glassy dark rock patio that Princess Ling’er had just cooled, that matrix was failing catastrophically.
Scritch-scratch-scritch-scratch!
Thirty feet below the glass-fused crust, ten thousand Nether-Mole Fiends were burrowing with demonic frenzy. Each beast was the size of a feral hog, equipped with shovel-shaped front paws forged of deep-sea dark-iron and teeth hard enough to chew through Saint-tier jade bone.
They didn’t merely dig. They honeycombed the shale strata, turning dense deep-rock bedrock into porous, air-filled Swiss cheese.
The four-square-mile dark rock slab groaned. Micro-voids formed beneath the stone, causing the foundation to sag by another quarter of an inch.
Frank looked down at the spirit level on the floor.
