SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts-Chapter 294: The Explosion Upstairs

The light flashed before both their eyes, Lord Raegon grinning like a crazed fellow while Damien frowned. He seemed... frustrated.

Boooooooom!!

The explosion ripped through the upper floor of the castle like a hammer made of flame.

A blinding surge of crimson and orange burst outward, engulfing tapestries, splintering furniture, and reducing the arched ceiling to screaming embers.

Windows shattered. Walls cracked. The pressure wave surged downward like a fist from the gods.

In the grand hall below, one of the marble support pillars snapped, crashing into a crowd of guests with a thunderous roar.

"Ahhhhh!!" Screams erupted.

Goblets clattered. Dust filled the chamber as nobles stumbled over fallen debris, their once-pristine garments stained with soot and blood.

Three were dead.

The string quartet had stopped playing.

Guards yelled. Servants scattered. Some tried to flee the hall entirely, while others gawked upward at the fresh hole in the ceiling—a gaping wound bleeding fire and smoke.

And through that chaos, Lord Raegon believed, for a brief second, that he had succeeded.

He could feel the heat crawling over his face, licking at his brow like fingers made of hate. The pain didn't register. Only the satisfaction did.

He'd die here, but so would Damien.

He smiled—

Until he saw the flames freezing midair.

Not in time. But in reality.

They curved. They folded. They collapsed inward like paper caught in a whirlpool, being sucked away by a vacuum unseen.

A chittering hiss echoed in the space between reality.

From within the swirl of smoke, a shape crawled forward, small, pale, and semi-translucent, its eyes like dark sapphires glinting in the flickering light. Four arms moved in rapid sequence—two braced against the ceiling above, two clutching the edges of a black flame it devoured hungrily.

It was Luton.

The Stellar Slime summoned by Damien.

It had arrived unbidden, sensing its summoner's life at risk. It didn't wait for orders. Its wide, gelatinous mouth opened impossibly wide, and with a guttural rumble that tore through the very essence of the room, it consumed the explosion. All of it.

Flame, pressure, shrapnel, heat—it vanished, absorbed into the being's ever-hungry core.

And just like that, the room went dead silent.

Luton landed on the scorched carpet with a soft plop, like a raindrop hitting a pond. It blinked slowly at Damien, then began wobbling as though it hadn't just eaten magic-laced destruction.

Damien stepped forward from the smoke, untouched.

His clothes remained immaculate. His hair didn't shift. His eyes, though—they burned colder than the winter frost.

Lord Raegon stared in disbelief, his mouth agape, one eye twitching. The bed beneath him was half-charred, wood blackened and cracking. His robe was singed at the edges. His beard still smoked.

Damien smiled.

He walked casually toward the bed, then leaned down and gently patted Raegon's right shoulder—the one that no longer had an arm.

Raegon flinched as if slapped.

"Let's talk," Damien said, his voice soft as silk, but sharp as glass.

He pushed lightly, forcing the older man to sit fully on the edge of the ruined bed. Raegon said nothing, still staring at Luton, who now skittered up to it's resting place atop Damien's head and settled on it like a satisfied predator.

In the ballroom, panic had metastasized.

Nobles were trampling over one another in flowing gowns and shining shoes, some bleeding, others shrieking. Guards ran in every direction, many unsure whether to guard the exits or rush upstairs.

A captain barked orders over the chaos, demanding confirmation—Was it an attack? An assassination? A magical experiment gone wrong?

No one knew. No one could answer.

But they all knew this: something terrible had happened above them. And it wasn't over yet.

Back in the scorched bedroom, Damien stood with arms behind his back, staring down at the broken man who once tried to bend kingdoms to his will.

"You never wondered why Westmont resisted you?" Damien asked. "You thought it was just pride. Ego. Maybe even stupidity."

Raegon stayed silent, his jaw tightening.

Damien circled slowly, like a vulture deciding which part to pluck first.

"They didn't want your rule because they saw what you truly are. A man too weak to lead without fear. Too proud to earn loyalty. A tyrant who thinks conquest is legacy."

"I am legacy," Raegon rasped, voice cracked. "I've built cities. Crushed warlords. I brought order to—"

"You brought chains," Damien cut in, his tone still calm. "And they never asked for your order."

Raegon turned his face away. "Then why are you here? To mock me? You've proven your strength. You could have killed me. Twice now."

"I'm here," Damien said, lowering his voice, "because I still believed you might choose a better end than this. That maybe, just maybe, you'd understand what you've done."

Raegon looked up slowly. "So this is a negotiation?" he asked, eyes suddenly hopeful. "Peace?"

Damien laughed. Not cruelly, but like someone who'd just heard a child offer to build a house with sand.

"No," he said. "You tried to kill me. Twice. You tried to kill the spirit of an entire city."

He leaned down.

"You would have lived a peaceful life… if you hadn't invaded Westmont. You would have lived a long one if you hadn't schemed to attack again. And you might have walked away tonight…"

Damien's grin widened.

"…if you hadn't just thrown a bomb at me." freeweɓnøvel.com

"Wait..." Raegon tried to bargain with Damien but he was too late.

"Summon Fenrir." Damien ordered his system.

The door shuddered as Fenrir emerged from a portal that appeared behind Damien.

The Monstrous Wolf, ten feet tall at the shoulder, snow-white and death-silent, stepped into the ruined chamber like a ghost. Its fur shimmered and fluttered under the wind, its eyes glowing both radiant and dangerous.

Raegon gasped. His legs twitched but couldn't find strength to stand.

Damien stepped aside, letting Fenrir's shadow fall completely over the ex-lord.

"I'll give you a head start," Damien said, eyes narrowed. "You run. Let's see how far you get."

Raegon shook his head. "You wouldn't—"

"I would."

And then—he whistled.

Fenrir bared its fangs.