I Died and Became a Noble's Heir-Chapter 437: Anarchy

Through the Soul Link, Jack felt the first clear mental response from his panthers.

’There are three hunters inside the spider’s nest. Stormfang, the Hydra, and the Alpha.’

Jack’s red eyes narrowed behind his visor as he processed this information.

Stormfang, the Alpha panther, and the Hydra.

All three Disaster-class entities had converged on the Voidweaver’s territory simultaneously. Attempting to raid the spider’s carefully preserved food stores.

A second panther’s consciousness joined the report, its thoughts carrying visual imagery:

’The Voidweaver confronts all three adversaries. The web, unfortunately, gives way. Debris and remnants of old prey scatter as the destroyed webs fall. The three intruders seize what they can while the spider endeavors to defend its territory.’

Jack had expected the starvation to drive them to conflict, but having all four Disaster-class entities in one location, weakening each other simultaneously? That was better than he’d planned.

The Mistborn added their own reports through the Soul Link, their perspective different from the panthers due to their ability to phase through the web barriers and observe from inside the fortress itself:

’Spider is massive. Forty feet of chitin and venom. Eight legs, each thick as tree trunks. But it’s panicked. It’s trying to defend food stores while fighting three separate threats. Desperation makes it sloppy.’

Another Mistborn projected tactical details:

’Stormfang circles from above. Uses flight to stay out of the spider’s reach. Strikes with lightning bolts to distract and wound. He’s not trying to kill, he’s creating openings.’

’The Alpha is moving through the webs with impossible grace. Steals preserved corpses, drags them away from the fighting.’

’The Hydra is the most aggressive. Nine heads coordinate attacks from different angles. Fire breath burns through the webbing.’

Jack absorbed all of this information in seconds, his analytical mind building a complete tactical picture of the chaos unfolding in the Voidweaver’s territory.

Four Disaster-class entities. One location. All were weakened by starvation to various degrees. All focused on each other rather than watching for external threats.

The opportunity was almost too perfect.

"Master?" Kaedor’s voice carried concern as he watched Jack’s expression. "The reports from your scouts. They’re not good, are they?"

"They’re excellent," Jack corrected, his tone carrying dark satisfaction. "All three of the other Disaster-class entities are attacking the Voidweaver simultaneously. They’re too focused on the fighting and feeding to notice anything else."

Loryn’s purple eyes gleamed with understanding. "Which means we can approach much closer than would normally be safe. They won’t notice observers while locked in combat with each other."

"Exactly."

Jack closed his eyes again, focusing on the Soul Link with increased intensity.

He’d discovered during his experiments with the bound creatures that the connection was more versatile than simple command transmission. With concentration, he could perceive through their senses.

See what they saw, feel what they felt.

He’d never tried it at this distance before, with so much interference from the surrounding environment. But the panthers were close enough to the conflict, and the Soul Link was strong enough.

Jack’s consciousness slipped through the connection like water flowing through a crack.

For a disorienting moment, he existed in two places simultaneously. Standing in the swamp with Kaedor and Loryn, but also crouched in dense foliage at the edge of the Voidweaver’s web fortress, looking through the eyes of his lead panther.

The sensory shift was jarring. The panther’s vision was sharper than his own in some ways. Better motion tracking, enhanced contrast in low light.

But the color spectrum was different, sounds were amplified and distorted, and the constant input from the creature’s other senses:

Smell, vibration detection through its paws, and air currents through its whiskers created an overwhelming flood of information.

Jack forced his consciousness to adapt, filtering out the excess sensory data and focusing on what the panther was seeing.

The Voidweaver’s web fortress was pure destruction.

What had once been a carefully constructed maze of silk strands. It was now torn and burning in several places.

Massive sections had collapsed entirely, revealing the preserved corpses that had hung there for months.

All wrapped in silk cocoons, drained of fluids, kept as emergency food stores.

And now three invaders were claiming those stores for themselves. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Each one thick as a man’s arm, layered so densely they blocked out light.

Stormfang dominated the airspace above the fortress, its serpentine body coiling through the air.

The Blessed One’s draconic head tracked the chaos below with cold intelligence, its star-bright eyes calculating the best time to strike.

As Jack watched through the panther’s vision, Stormfang opened its maw and released a focused bolt of blue lightning.

The spider shrieked, the limb spasming from the electrical shock, and in that moment of distraction...

The Hydra struck.

Nine heads, each one moving with independent thought and coordination, attacked from three different angles simultaneously. Three heads breathed gouts of flame that set more of the webs ablaze.

Three more lunged forward with fangs bared, aiming for the Voidweaver’s joints where the chitin was thinner. The final three heads positioned themselves defensively, ready to intercept counterattacks.

The Voidweaver was massive.

Forty feet of chitinous horror with eight legs and mandibles that could crush steel.

Its eight eyes glowed with bioluminescent fury as it tried to defend against attacks coming from above and below.

But it was losing.

Jack could see it in the spider’s movements.

The desperation, the lack of coordination, and the way it kept trying to protect its remaining food stores rather than focusing entirely on survival.

Starvation had made it irrational, unwilling to abandon the resources it had spent months accumulating, even when keeping them meant death.

And through it all, moving like a ghost through the chaos...

Jack’s attention focused on the massive panther as it slipped through a gap in the burning webs, its scales catching firelight as it moved.

The creature was easily twice the size of Jack’s enhanced panthers, maybe ten feet long from nose to tail.

The Alpha was stealing.

While the Voidweaver was distracted by Stormfang’s lightning and the Hydra’s coordinated assault, the Alpha would dart in, grab a preserved corpse in its jaws, and retreat to a safe distance. It had already accumulated a small pile of stolen food at the edge of the fortress, hidden beneath fallen webbing.

Precisely the kind of creature that would have learned to coexist with Stormfang by never directly challenging the Blessed One’s authority.

Jack watched as the Alpha made another theft attempt, this time targeting a vast minotaur corpse that hung near the Voidweaver’s central body. The panther moved using the chaos as cover, timing its approach to coincide with another of Stormfang’s lightning strikes.

The Voidweaver’s leg lashed out faster than Jack’s borrowed vision could track.

The Alpha twisted mid-air, avoiding the direct strike but catching a glancing blow that sent it tumbling through the webs.

The panther recovered quickly, landing on its feet and immediately retreating, but Jack could see the slight limp in its gait now.

It was wounded, but enough to slow it down.

The battle continued to rage.

Stormfang circled overhead like a vulture, striking with precision lightning whenever the spider tried to coordinate its defenses. The Hydra pressed its advantage, using its nine heads to create attacks the Voidweaver couldn’t possibly defend against all at once.

And slowly, the spider was being overwhelmed.

Jack pulled his consciousness back from the panther’s perspective, the sensory shift causing momentary disorientation as he returned to his body.

"They’re destroying each other," Jack said aloud, his voice carrying satisfaction. "The Voidweaver is losing. Stormfang and the Hydra are coordinating attacks."

"And the Alpha?" Loryn asked.

"Wounded. Trying to steal food while the others fight. It’s not going to survive much longer if it stays in that chaos."