SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts - Chapter 512 512: Push...
Damien stood beneath the towering canopy, the forest dim even though it was barely past midday.
Luton hovered beside him, its body shimmering faintly with restrained power. It was swollen with essence—dense, compressed, and volatile.
The breakthrough was close. So close that Damien could almost feel it pressing against the slime’s limits like water behind a cracking dam.
But close wasn’t enough.
He exhaled slowly as he spoke to the slime.
“Rest,” he muttered.
Luton wobbled once, almost reluctantly.
‘Cancel Luton’s summon.’ Damien dismissed it with a mental command.
The Stellar Slime dissolved into motes of light and returned to his essence core. The forest felt subtly emptier without its quiet, consuming presence.
Then Damien summoned Fenrir.
The air shifted.
White fur materialized first, then muscle, then the full towering form of the wolf. Fenrir landed lightly despite its size, eyes gleaming as it inhaled deeply.
It liked this forest but it was not for comfort. Rather, it loved the forest for the hunt and thrill that radiated within it’s entirety.
Damien met its gaze. No words were needed between master and summon and just as if they understand each other without having to say anything, they both moved.
The first pack they encountered was a cluster of Ironjaw Stags, massive horned mana beasts whose antlers were lined with metallic ridges sharp enough to split stone. Grade Five individually, but dangerous in numbers.
There were twelve.
They were grazing in a clearing when the wind shifted.
Fenrir lunged first.
It vanished in a streak of white, appearing among them like a phantom. Its jaws clamped around the throat of the nearest stag and tore sideways, blood spraying across the grass.
The herd exploded into motion.
Damien followed.
He didn’t charge recklessly. He moved with intention, slipping between two stags as they lowered their antlers. He seized one by the base of its horns and twisted violently. Bone snapped. The beast collapsed mid-struggle.
Another charged from his blind side.
Fenrir intercepted, slamming its massive body into the stag’s flank and crushing ribs under sheer force. It released its bite only long enough to drive a clawed paw into the creature’s skull.
Damien leapt onto the back of a third stag, driving his fist into the junction between neck and spine. Essence detonated through his knuckles. The beast convulsed and fell.
They moved like a practiced pair.
No wasted motion and no hesitation.
Within minutes, the clearing was silent except for the sound of ragged breathing and dripping blood.
Damien collected the cores personally.
He ripped them from chests with efficient brutality, stacking them in a reinforced storage pouch. He wasn’t letting Fenrir consume these.
These were for Luton.
Fenrir watched him with mild annoyance but didn’t protest. It understood hierarchy. Understood purpose.
Damien gave it one of the weaker cores as compensation.
The wolf swallowed it whole and they moved on.
Deeper into the forest, the mana density thickened.
They found a ravine where Gale Serpents coiled along the cliff walls, their bodies shimmering faintly with wind essence. Grade Four. Fast. Agile. Deadly in tight spaces.
Perfect.
Damien dropped into the ravine without warning.
The serpents reacted instantly, launching themselves from the stone walls like living spears. One shot toward his throat.
He caught it mid-air.
Its fangs pierced his palm, venom burning instantly through his veins—but Damien ignored the pain. He slammed the serpent against the cliff wall repeatedly until its skull collapsed.
Fenrir leapt down beside him.
Two serpents wrapped around its legs and torso, constricting violently. Fenrir snarled—not in pain, but in fury—and flexed.
Muscle expanded.
The serpents burst.
Blood rained down the ravine walls.
Another serpent darted toward Damien’s back.
Fenrir intercepted again, biting through its midsection and shaking violently until it tore apart.
Damien moved forward instead of defending.
He hunted.
He scaled the ravine walls, grabbing serpents by their tails and smashing them against stone. He crushed skulls beneath his boots. He tore bodies in half when necessary.
Venom slowed him slightly, but his essence burned it away.
By the time they climbed out of the ravine, seventeen cores sat secured in Damien’s pouch.
Fenrir’s fur was streaked red.
Its breathing was heavy—but eager.
However, the hunters weren’t done. They were far from done.
Near dusk, they encountered resistance worthy of effort.
A Dreadhorn Matriarch.
Grade Four—but large enough to rival lesser Grade Three beasts.
Its body resembled a monstrous boar fused with plated armor. Thick ridges lined its spine, and its tusks curved outward like scythes. Around it lingered smaller Dreadhorns—offspring, perhaps.
The matriarch noticed them first.
It charged and the ground shook as it advanced toward them.
Damien stepped forward instead of aside.
Fenrir flanked right.
The matriarch’s tusks carved a trench through the earth where Damien had stood—but he had already leapt, landing atop its armored back. His fists hammered downward, targeting the seam between plates.
The beast roared and rolled violently.
Damien was thrown off, slamming hard against a tree. Before he could fully rise, a smaller Dreadhorn lunged at him.
Fenrir tore it apart mid-air.
The matriarch wheeled around, blood leaking from cracked armor plates.
It charged Fenrir this time.
The impact was brutal.
Wolf and beast collided with a thunderous crash that flattened nearby trees. Fenrir’s claws dug into the matriarch’s face, ripping through flesh while its jaws sought the throat.
Damien rejoined the fray.
He circled wide, waiting for the exact moment when the matriarch exposed its flank during a violent buck.
He struck.
One punch.
Fully condensed essence.
The armor shattered.
His fist drove deep into muscle beneath, rupturing internal organs. The matriarch shrieked, staggering sideways as Fenrir seized the opening and tore out its throat completely.
It fell.
Hard.
The remaining Dreadhorns scattered.
Damien let them run.
He stood over the corpse, breathing heavily.
He cut the core free himself.
Large. Dense. Perfect.
Fenrir looked at it.
Damien shook his head.
“For Luton.”
Fenrir huffed but didn’t argue.
By the time night settled across the forest, Damien and Fenrir had gathered more than fifty mana beast cores.
Grade Five.
Grade Four.
Dense. Pure. Potent.
Damien finally stopped in a quiet clearing, moonlight filtering through broken branches.
He dismissed Fenrir.
Then summoned Luton again.
The slime appeared instantly—and immediately sensed the cores.
It trembled.
Hungry.
Damien poured them out before it.
“Eat.”
Luton surged forward.
One by one, the cores disappeared into its body. Its translucent form began glowing brighter with each absorption. The star-like specks inside it multiplied, swirling faster and faster.
The air around them thickened.
Damien stepped back.
The forest seemed to grow quieter, as if sensing something significant.
Luton’s body expanded slightly.
Then compressed.
Expanded again.
Its glow intensified until it was almost blinding.
Damien narrowed his eyes.
“Yes,” he murmured.
“Push…”
