SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts - Chapter 448 448: An Ingredient
The forest burned with sound.
Branches split and shrapnelled under pressure as airwaves cracked through the Verdant Verge.
Magic essence whined in the air — every ounce of it twisted, heavy, unstable. Two forces crashed together in bursts of blinding essence.
Damien barely saw the first strike. One moment, General Ivaan was a silhouette behind the haze of runes and glowing blood sigils, and the next, the man’s fist crashed through the air like a cannon shot. Damien’s arm went up in reflex — metal met flesh, essence met essence.
Booooom!
The shockwave vaporized the nearest trees.
Damien skidded backward, boots carving lines in the dirt, his breath fogging white from the backlash. Fenrir, crouched low beside him, growled, the shadows around its fangs rippling with condensed killing intent.
Aquila’s cry split through the storm as it dove from above, slicing through Ivaan’s mana barrier with bladed winds.
But Ivaan caught the griffin by the throat mid-dive.
The general looked monstrous — veins of black essence crawled up his neck and across his eyes, his pupils a molten red. His uniform was shredded, his body gleaming with sweat and blood, and yet he grinned through it all like a man seeing a god.
“Damien,” Ivaan said, his voice distorted, layered with something inhuman. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Damien’s blade materialized in his hand, burning black with shadowfire. “You shouldn’t have lied.”
Their collision split the clearing again.
Damien darted forward, blade first, cutting through the smog of red essence. Sparks rained as his sword met Ivaan’s gauntlet; Ivaan caught the edge and twisted, the ground cratering under his feet.
Fenrir lunged from behind, jaws closing around Ivaan’s torso, and for a second it looked like the general would be crushed — but he simply flexed.
The shadow wolf went flying, crashing into the side of a mountain of roots.
“Your beasts are impressive,” Ivaan growled, voice low, animalistic. “But they bleed. They all bleed.”
Aquila dove again, talons flaring gold, but the general spun, catching the griffin’s wing mid-air. A pulse of red essence exploded, and Aquila screeched in pain, feathers scattering like embers.
Damien blinked once, twice — his heartbeat in his ears.
This wasn’t Ivaan anymore.
The man’s essence no longer carried the ordered rhythm of a human core. It was warped, hollow, as though something else was breathing through him. His aura was bloated — a mix of human mana and the corrosive depth of demonic energy.
Fenrir’s shadows wrapped back around Damien as he called the beast close. “We can’t out-muscle him,” Damien muttered under his breath. “We bleed him slow. Hit the seals, and make him divide his focus.”
The wolf rumbled in agreement. Aquila flapped back to altitude, nursing one injured wing but ready to strike again.
They charged together, Damien and both summons in a triangle of chaos.
Aquila’s wind blasts tore through the runic field Ivaan had drawn, scattering blood sigils into glowing dust. Fenrir’s claws slammed into the ground, opening black fissures that swallowed the remnants of the magic circle.
For a moment, Ivaan’s rhythm faltered. The red sigils dimmed.
Damien seized the moment. He vanished in a flicker of shadow, reappearing point-blank before Ivaan and driving his blade toward the man’s chest — but his strike met flesh like stone.
A smile, a grin that wasn’t human, split across Ivaan’s face.
“You think you’re fighting me,” he hissed, “but I’m only the vessel.”
The air shivered. A pulse of essence burst from Ivaan’s chest, flinging Damien backward. His body hit the ground hard, the impact shattering the bark behind him.
When the light cleared, Damien saw it. A hole in Ivaan’s chest, right over his heart. From within that hole, black mist curled like smoke, moving to the beat of a pulse that wasn’t his.
A parasite.
Damien froze, horror creeping into his expression.
It explained everything from the erratic mana, the sudden obsession with the Gate, to the uncharacteristic madness. Ivaan was gone. The man standing before him was a shell — something else puppeteering his corpse.
“You’re dead,” Damien whispered.
“Death is relative,” Ivaan replied with an eerie calm, and then moved.
The next strike came like lightning. Damien blocked one hit, but the second broke through, smashing into his ribs and sending him tumbling. Fenrir intercepted the follow-up, jaws locking around Ivaan’s arm, and Damien used the brief opening to shout —
“Luton!”
The air quivered, and from the ground rose a ripple — the slime burst forth, expanding to the size of a carriage. It lunged, wrapping its gelatinous body around Ivaan’s leg. The parasite-possessed general snarled, kicking hard, but the slime only absorbed the impact.
Then came the counter.
Luton’s surface hardened, flashing like liquid glass, and it devoured a surge of essence Ivaan sent its way. The slime’s body pulsed, rippling with stolen red light.
“What—?” Ivaan growled, stepping back. “It eats essence?”
Damien wiped blood from his lip and smirked, though his arms trembled from fatigue. “I told you, General. You can’t brute-force everything.”
Ivaan’s fury exploded. He roared, sending a massive wave of essence crashing outward, but Luton absorbed that too, its color now deep crimson.
For a heartbeat, Damien thought he’d won ground.
But then the possessed general stopped moving.
Slowly, unnervingly, Ivaan smiled again. “You shouldn’t have shown me how it works.”
He grabbed his own arm — and ripped it off.
The limb disintegrated into mist, absorbed by the black wound in his chest. The parasite’s essence flared violently, doubling, tripling in density. Ivaan’s aura spiked far beyond human capacity, cracking the ground around him.
The Gate’s seals in the distance glowed faintly, resonating with the energy surge.
Fenrir lunged again, but Ivaan’s next pulse of essence sent the wolf crashing to the earth unconscious. Luton, overfed and slow to react, was blasted apart into fragments that quivered weakly before reforming in miniature form.
Aquila tried to protect Damien, diving in front of a massive wave of red light. The griffin’s barrier shattered.
Damien barely saw it coming. One punch sent him flying. His ribs screamed, his lungs burned, his sword fell from his grip.
Ivaan’s laughter rang through the clearing — but it wasn’t human anymore. It was layered, distorted, echoing with something from beneath.
Damien forced himself upright, spitting blood, essence flickering weakly around him. He was running out of energy. Every summon still alive was wounded or weakened.
Still, he gritted his teeth. “You’re not taking the Gate, and you’re sure as hell not taking me.”
He gathered what remained of his essence, calling Fenrir’s power into himself, shadow flames wrapping his arms. He rushed forward one last time. Desperate and reckless.
The ground ruptured beneath their clash.
Sword against claw, light against dark. Ivaan’s blows came faster, stronger, every one shaking Damien’s bones. He tried to dodge, to counter, to strike at that dark heart, but Ivaan was reading him, anticipating him.
Until Damien feinted left and slashed right, his blade cutting across the black wound.
Ivaan screamed. Smoke burst from the hole as if he’d struck a raw nerve. The parasite’s shriek echoed through the air, wordless but furious.
For a moment, Damien thought he’d struck something vital — until Ivaan’s eyes snapped open, glowing with murderous red light.
“You… dare.”
Booooom!
The next blast of essence threw Damien halfway across the clearing. His body hit a broken pillar, bones cracking audibly. Fenrir stirred weakly in the distance, Aquila twitching its wings, both too injured to move.
Damien gasped for air, vision swimming. His limbs wouldn’t obey him anymore. He tried to lift his sword but his hand trembled too much.
Ivaan — or whatever was inside him — stalked forward slowly, each step deliberate. The air itself warped around him.
“Change of plans,” the parasite whispered through Ivaan’s mouth.
It reached down and grabbed Damien by the throat, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. The pressure made his vision blur, spots of color bursting in his sight.
“I was going to kill you,” it hissed, voice echoing with multiple tones. “But your core… your essence… feels exquisite.”
Damien clawed weakly at its arm, his aura flickering in protest. “You… won’t… have it…”
“Oh,” the voice purred, “I will.”
The parasite-controlled general’s grin widened, and the runes on the ground began to glow again — brighter than before, reacting to his presence.
“You’ll open the Gate for me.”
The ground beneath them began to hum, the sound deep and resonant. The blood runes reignited. The Gate pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
And Damien, gasping for air, realized — this wasn’t a fight anymore. He just turned into an ingredient.
