SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts-Chapter 500: So That’s How You Work

The Forest of Twin Disasters did not sleep.

It breathed.

Mist clung low to the ground, curling around roots and broken stone, drifting between ancient trunks that had witnessed too many deaths to bother reacting anymore.

The deeper one went, the thicker the air became, laden with mana so dense it pressed against the skin like invisible fog.

Damien welcomed it.

He rolled his shoulders once, loosening muscles still sore from the previous battles, and stepped forward without summoning Fenrir, without calling Skylar, without even letting Aquila take to the skies.

Only Luton remained.

The slime hovered beside him, its translucent body pulsing softly, eager but restrained. It understood its role today.

Storage and consumption. Nothing more.

"This time," Damien murmured, eyes narrowing as he sensed movement ahead, "I do it myself."

The mana beasts responded to his presence almost immediately.

They always did.

A low rumble rippled through the forest floor, followed by the sound of snapping branches and heavy breaths.

From between the trees emerged the first of them, massive quadrupeds with stone-like hides and glowing veins of emerald mana running beneath their cracked skin.

Verdant Hornbacks.

A single species. They were large and durable. And worst of it all, they were aggressive and they hunted in herds.

The first one charged without hesitation, lowering its head as its thick horn scraped against the earth, sparks of mana flaring where it struck stone.

Damien didn't dodge.

He stepped forward.

His fist slammed into the beast's skull with a concussive crack that echoed through the forest. The Hornback's head snapped sideways, its charge breaking mid-step as its massive body skidded across the ground and smashed into a tree hard enough to split the trunk.

Damien inhaled slowly.

Again.

The second Hornback attacked from the side. Damien pivoted, his heel digging into the soil as he twisted and drove an elbow into its neck. Mana surged through his limbs, reinforcing muscle and bone, turning his body into a weapon refined through countless battles.

The beast collapsed, legs buckling as its spine snapped.

A third lunged from behind.

Damien sensed it a heartbeat before impact.

He ducked low, letting the horn pass over his head, then grabbed it with both hands. The weight was immense—several tons at least—but he braced, mana roaring through his core as he twisted violently.

The Hornback was lifted clean off the ground and hurled into another charging beast.

They crashed together in a thunderous heap.

Damien didn't wait. He moved.

For the next hour, the forest became a battlefield of broken stone-hides and shattered trees. Hornbacks poured in from all directions, drawn by the death cries of their kin and the overwhelming presence of a human who refused to retreat.

Damien fought barehanded.

He punched. He kicked. He crushed skulls and shattered ribs, each strike precise, brutal, efficient. Mana flowed through him like blood, reinforcing every movement, sharpening his reflexes, pushing his body beyond its previous limits.

He felt it.

The growth.

Each kill fed something deeper than strength—a refinement, a honing of instinct and control. This was what he had been missing when he relied too heavily on his summons.

This was his path.

By the time the sun shifted overhead, dozens of Hornbacks lay dead.

By dusk, there were hundreds.

Luton moved silently behind him, absorbing corpses Damien kicked aside, its body swelling slightly before compressing again as it stored everything within its Universal Space. Essence cores Damien needed were carefully separated by Luton. Pure mana cores, glowing steadily, untouched by demonic taint.

These were not for sale.

These were fuel.

For Aquila, for Lin, and for Fenrir.

And eventually, for whatever awaited him deeper within this cursed forest.

A particularly large Hornback emerged as night fell, its hide darker, its mana denser, its roar shaking leaves loose from the canopy.

Damien smiled. "Finally."

The beast charged.

Damien met it head-on.

Their collision split the ground beneath them, a shockwave tearing outward as fist met skull. The Hornback staggered but did not fall, swinging its massive head in a wide arc.

Damien ducked, rolled beneath its body, and drove both palms upward into its abdomen. Mana detonated on impact, ripping through flesh and bone alike.

The beast collapsed in a heap.

Damien stood over it, chest rising and falling, sweat dripping from his brow, hands trembling faintly—not from exhaustion, but exhilaration.

He had lost count somewhere past two hundred.

Luton pulsed beside him, satisfied, its surface shimmering faintly with absorbed essence.

Damien wiped blood, mostly not his own, from his knuckles and looked around at the devastated clearing.

Three hundred.

Roughly.

And he wasn't done yet.

He rolled his neck once more, eyes sharpening as he turned deeper into the forest, toward thicker mana, toward greater danger.

"If you're hunting me," he said softly, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice, "then come faster."

As he said so, Damien stepped forward to meet them.

~~~~~

The Forest of Twin Disasters did not forgive recklessness.

Damien knew that better than anyone.

After the blood-soaked rampage against the Verdant Hornbacks, he did not immediately continue hunting. Instead, he slowed down deliberately. His breathing steadied, his mind cooled, and his awareness expanded outward like ripples in water.

Strength without preparation was stupidity.

And Damien had not survived this long by being stupid.

He crouched atop a jagged rock formation overlooking a natural clearing, one he had passed through several times during his previous hunts.

The terrain dipped slightly inward, forming a shallow basin surrounded by dense trees and broken stone. Mana flowed here more smoothly than elsewhere, converging faintly toward the center.

A perfect feeding ground. And now a killing field.

Damien reached into Luton's Universal Space.

The slime pulsed once, and a long, dark object slid out and dropped neatly into his palm.

A magic trap.

Half a foot long, metallic but inscribed with intricate rune patterns that faintly glowed when exposed to mana. At the top was a shallow circular platformempty for now.

Damien studied it briefly, then nodded.

"Cheap," he muttered. "Simple. Effective."

He pressed the trap into the ground.

The soil parted as if welcoming it, the lower half sinking smoothly beneath the surface until only the platform remained visible, flush with the forest floor. Damien reached back into Luton's space again and withdrew an essence core.

Grade Five.

Pure mana.

He placed it gently onto the platform.

The runes flared once and athen vanished.

To the naked eye, nothing remained. No glow. No sound. No visible mana fluctuation.

But Damien felt it.

The trap had armed itself.

He didn't place many.

Only five.

One at the center of the clearing. Two closer to the treeline on opposite ends. And two more hidden along a narrow path where mana beasts often traveled.

That was all.

Overusing traps bred complacency. And worse—it dulled instinct.

Damien straightened and brushed dirt from his hands.

"Let's see how well you work."

He left the clearing entirely, moving deeper into the forest, where the mana density thickened and the air grew sharper against the skin.

Grade Three beasts lived here.

True predators.

Unlike Grade Four and Five mana beasts, which often relied on raw size and brute force, Grade Three beasts were different. Faster. Smarter. More dangerous.

And far more valuable.

Damien's senses picked up the first one before he saw it.

A distortion in the air. A shift in mana flow.

He pivoted just as something streaked toward him from the left.

Claws flashed.

Damien ducked low, feeling the wind shear over his scalp, then drove his elbow backward. It connected with something solid—and very much alive.

A shrill screech echoed through the trees as the creature was flung aside.

Shadow-Scaled Lynx.

Grade Three.

Its sleek, obsidian-black body melted into the shadows between the trees as it landed, glowing red eyes locking onto Damien with unmistakable intelligence.

It circled.

Damien didn't chase.

He stood still, muscles relaxed, breathing even.

The lynx struck again—this time from above.

Damien stepped forward instead of back.

The beast overshot.

His fist slammed upward, catching it beneath the jaw. Mana surged, compressing violently at the point of impact.

Bone shattered.

The lynx's body spasmed mid-air before crashing lifelessly to the forest floor.

Damien exhaled slowly.

"One."

Luton flowed forward and absorbed the corpse smoothly, leaving behind only a faint disturbance in the dirt—and the glowing essence core, which Damien picked up and stored.

He moved on.

The second encounter was louder.

A ground-shaking roar announced the arrival of a Cragback Basilisk, its stone-plated body slithering through the undergrowth, yellow eyes filled with predatory hunger.

Grade Three.

Damien rushed it.

The basilisk spat a stream of compressed earth shards, but Damien weaved through them, letting several graze his skin without slowing. He leapt, landed on its back, and drove both hands down.

Mana detonated.

The creature screamed as its armored plates cracked inward, spine snapping beneath the force.

Damien flipped off its collapsing body before it hit the ground.

"Two."

Again, Luton cleaned up.

The hours passed.

Damien hunted relentlessly.

A Thundermaw Ape, its lightning-charged fists torn apart before it could land a single blow.

A Wind-Crested Raptor, too fast for most humans, but not fast enough for Damien.

A Mireborn Colossus—its regeneration rendered useless when Damien pulverized its core directly with a mana-infused strike.

Each fight pushed him further.

His movements grew sharper. His timing more precise. His mana control tighter, more economical.

He felt himself changing.

Not explosively.

But fundamentally.

When he returned to the clearing hours later, the forest was quieter.

Too quiet.

Damien stepped into the basin calmly.

Nothing happened.

Then, a roar split the air as something massive lunged from the treeline.

A Fang-Tusk Behemoth.

Grade Three.

It charged directly toward the center of the clearing.

Toward the trap.

The moment its massive foot crossed an invisible boundary, the ground erupted.

Runes flared violently as a lattice of glowing symbols shot upward, wrapping around the beast in an instant. Chains of pure mana materialized, binding its limbs, neck, and torso mid-stride.

The behemoth slammed into the ground, trapped, roaring in confusion and rage.

Damien watched with quiet approval.

"So that's how you work."

The essence core on the trap shattered, dissolving into pure energy as the runes intensified.

Damien walked up to the immobilized beast.

It struggled harder the closer he got.

He punched once.

The roar cut off abruptly.

Luton absorbed the body as the trap crumbled into inert scrap.

Two more traps triggered that night.

One caught a twin-headed Dire Elk.

Another ensnared a massive burrowing serpent that never even understood what had happened before Damien ended it.

He dismantled the remaining traps afterward, satisfied.

Few used.

Maximum effect.

By the time Damien stopped, the moon hung high above the canopy, pale light filtering through broken leaves and drifting mist.

He stood atop a ridge overlooking a distant section of the forest.

Below, nestled among twisted roots and jagged rock formations, he could see them.

Demonic nests.

Faintly glowing structures. Warped terrain. Corrupted mana patterns that stood out like scars against the forest's natural flow.

Grade Four demons.

Several groups. He had seen them before.

Ignored them.

Not because he feared them but because timing mattered.

Damien clenched his fist, feeling the weight of the essence cores stored within Luton.

"Soon," he murmured.

The Forest of Twin Disasters remained silent.

But Damien knew.

The real hunt was about to begin.