Around East Pillar Mountain, spiders of all sizes poured in from the sky, the treetops, and the ground. They darted between the trees, spinning webs, and soon formed a glowing white ring of webbing more than a hundred meters across.
Even from the summit of South Pillar Mountain, Fang and Elder Vogt could see the glowing structure in the distance, as large as a stadium.
"Do these spiders make this much of a racket every night?" Fang looked terrible. When he had just searched the camp, he had discovered that their two most important High-Ranks were missing, and a foreboding feeling had seized him.
"I haven't seen a sight like this in several hundred years." Vogt looked even worse. "But the last time something like this happened, a Demigod fell!"
"Commander!"
The adjutant's voice suddenly came from the Magic Mirror in Fang's hand.
"We searched the whole camp, but couldn't find Commander Yavenni or Lord Magic Pattern Tiger. We asked the members of the Elf Knights, but none of them had seen her!"
Fang's face darkened further. "Find out right away whether His Majesty Landen knows about this!"
"Roar—!"
A tiger's roar suddenly rang out from within the web, like the desperate cry of a trapped beast.
"It's over..." Fang muttered.
As the webs around them grew denser, the tiger's roars came more and more frequently. Yet the Magic Pattern Tiger and Yavenni, who were being thoroughly suppressed by the spider Demigod, could do nothing but run in circles around it.
"I can't go on," Yavenni said bitterly, taking advantage of the spider's pause to catch its breath. "Put me down and run. That spider wants me. Use fire to burn through the webs and escape!"
"What do you mean?" The Magic Pattern Tiger, darting around in every direction,