SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts-Chapter 498: Beating Into Submission

The forest no longer resembled a forest. At least, the area they currently occupied which was a tiny portion of the entire forest.

What had once been dense, layered greenery with roots knotted deep into ancient soil, trunks thick with centuries of growth, was being systematically erased. Not by magic. Not by storms.

By fists. Fists full of magic essence!

Damien and the demon collided again, the impact detonating through the clearing like a thunderclap. The shockwave blasted outward, flattening shrubs, ripping leaves from branches, and snapping thinner trees clean in half.

Garrick, watching from far behind, had long since retreated even farther, instinct screaming at him that this battlefield was no place for a human to stand.

This wasn’t a fight.

It was a contest.

A brutal, unforgiving comparison of physical supremacy.

The demon roared, demonic essence flooding its limbs as it swung a massive fist toward Damien’s ribs. The blow carried no spell or technique. Just raw, concentrated power reinforced by pure demonic energy.

Damien met it head-on.

He twisted his torso and drove his elbow down, essence surging through his arm at the exact moment of contact.

BOOM.

The clash sent both of them skidding backward, boots and claws carving trenches through the soil. Damien dug his heel in, stopping first. The demon followed a heartbeat later, its talons gouging deep furrows into the earth.

The demon laughed again, deep, feral, and exhilarated. It felt alive!

"Yes! This is it!" it bellowed. "No tricks! No sorcery! Just strength!"

It charged.

Damien exhaled sharply, centering himself, then stepped forward to meet it.

Their fists collided.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Each exchange shattered more of the forest. Trees caught stray blows and disintegrated—trunks exploding into splinters, roots torn violently from the ground. Boulders cracked apart. The air itself trembled under the repeated concussive impacts.

They were perfectly matched.

For now.

The demon swung wide, Damien ducked and countered with a brutal uppercut that snapped the demon’s head back. Before Damien could follow up, a knee slammed into his abdomen, sending him skidding across the ground, plowing through dirt and stone until he stopped against a massive oak.

The oak didn’t survive the impact.

Damien pushed himself up immediately, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, eyes sharp, focused.

No fear.

No hesitation.

The demon tilted its head, eyes narrowing. "You should be breaking by now," it snarled. "Humans always do."

Damien rolled his shoulders, essence circulating faster, denser. "You’re not the first monster to think that."

He vanished.

The demon barely had time to react before Damien appeared inside its guard, fist driving forward like a battering ram. The blow slammed into its sternum, compressing demonic essence violently inward.

The demon staggered back three steps.

Its grin faltered for the first time.

They clashed again, bodies blurring with speed, strikes landing faster and heavier. Damien’s movements grew sharper, more precise. Each punch carried more weight than the last—not just force, but intent.

The demon noticed. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Its laughter stopped.

"Impossible," it growled, amplifying its essence further, muscles bulging grotesquely as dark energy wrapped around its frame like armor. "You’re human!"

It swung with everything it had.

Damien caught the fist.

The ground beneath Damien’s feet shattered as he absorbed the blow, knees bending slightly—but he didn’t move back.

Instead, he twisted.

Essence flared.

He slammed his forehead into the demon’s face.

The impact echoed like a bell being struck.

The demon reeled, clutching its face, roaring in fury. Damien didn’t relent. He pressed forward mercilessly, fists raining down in a relentless barrage, each strike faster, heavier, and more devastating than the last.

The demon blocked, parried, countered but it was losing ground.

Slowly.

Inevitably.

Each time it evaded, Damien’s missed blows tore through the forest instead. Trees were uprooted and flung aside like toys. Entire sections of earth collapsed under the pressure of their fight.

They were clearing the land by force alone.

The demon’s breathing grew ragged.

He’s getting stronger.

That realization ignited something ugly in its chest.

It surged forward with a roar, slamming its shoulder into Damien and driving him backward. Damien skidded across the ground, boots carving deep trenches before he stopped himself.

The demon followed instantly, leaping high and bringing both fists down in a crushing overhead strike.

Damien raised his arms to block.

The impact drove him to one knee.

The ground cratered beneath him.

For a split second, the demon grinned againz feeling triumphant.

Then Damien pushed up.

The demon’s eyes widened as Damien rose against the pressure, muscles screaming, essence roaring as he forced himself upright.

"No," Damien said quietly. "I’m not done yet."

He twisted sharply and drove a punch straight into the demon’s side.

There was a sound like cracking stone.

The demon howled in pain, staggering sideways. Damien didn’t stop. He followed, pivoting and delivering a brutal hook that slammed into the demon’s outer shell.

CRACK.

A jagged fracture spread across the hardened demonic plating, black lines spiderwebbing outward from the point of impact.

The forest went still.

The demon froze, staring down at the cracked shell in disbelief.

"You..." it whispered.

Damien stood a few steps away, chest rising and falling steadily, eyes cold.

The demon’s expression twisted—not into fear, but into blind, raging fury.

A human.

A human had cracked it.

"No," it snarled, demonic essence boiling violently as it flared outward in a suffocating wave. "I refuse."

The ground shook as something deep within the demon shifted.

"If brute force won’t break you..." it growled, eyes burning with malevolent light, "...then I’ll stop holding back."

Dark symbols began to pulse faintly beneath its skin.

Damien’s gaze sharpened.

The demon was switching tactics.

It was about to use its innate abilities.

And Damien knew that real battle was only just beginning.

The shift was immediate.

The moment the demon’s fractured shell pulsed with those dark symbols, the air itself seemed to recoil. The forest groaned—not from physical force this time, but from malice. Damien felt it crawl across his skin, that unmistakable pressure that screamed of demonic origin.

"So," Damien murmured, rolling his neck once, "you finally remember what you are."

The demon didn’t answer with words.

It answered with power.

The ground beneath it blackened as demonic essence surged outward, forming jagged sigils that burned into the earth. A heartbeat later, the symbols detonated upward, releasing crescent-shaped waves of compressed darkness that screamed through the air like blades.

Damien moved.

Not fast enough to escape cleanly—but fast enough to live.

He twisted aside, the first crescent ripping past him close enough to shear strands of hair from his head. The second tore into his side as he rolled, slicing through his coat and skin alike, leaving a burning gash that hissed as corrupted essence tried to eat its way deeper.

He hissed softly and pushed off the ground, springing backward just as the third wave cleaved through the spot where his torso had been.

That would’ve cut me in three, he noted grimly.

The demon laughed, bloodied lips splitting wide. "Yes. Yes! That’s more like it! Run, human!"

Dark lances erupted from its arms—long constructs of hardened demonic essence that shot forward in rapid succession. They didn’t move like thrown weapons. They hunted, curving midair, adjusting trajectories with predatory intent.

Damien darted between shattered trunks, leaping, rolling, barely slipping past one lance that pierced straight through a massive tree behind him and pinned it to the ground like paper.

Another tore across his back, shallow but searing.

He grimaced.

Offensive pressure is insane...

He couldn’t keep dodging like this forever.

The demon pressed the advantage mercilessly. The ground erupted with spikes of blackened stone. Chains of shadow burst from the earth, snapping toward Damien’s limbs. Explosive orbs of condensed demonic essence detonated wherever he paused even for a fraction of a second.

It was overwhelming.

And the demon knew it.

"You can’t keep up," it taunted. "This is the difference between beasts and prey!"

Damien skidded to a halt atop a fractured boulder, chest rising and falling steadily despite the blood seeping from multiple wounds. His eyes narrowed not in panic, but calculation.

Patterns, he thought. Every spell has one.

Another barrage came.

This time, Damien didn’t retreat immediately.

He raised one hand.

Essence surged densely. It compressed around his arm, spiraling inward until the air screamed under the pressure.

The demon’s attack crashed into him.

The impact was catastrophic.

A thunderous explosion tore through the clearing, flattening what little remained of the forest nearby. Shockwaves rippled outward, kicking up a wall of dust and debris that obscured everything.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then a figure shot backward out of the smoke.

The demon.

It smashed through trees, slammed into the ground, and skidded to a halt, leaving a trench behind it.

Its eyes widened in disbelief.

"You... countered it?"

Damien stepped out of the dissipating dust, arm still faintly smoking, sleeve shredded, skin beneath bruised and burned but intact.

"I don’t need to dodge everything," he said calmly. "Just enough."

Before the demon could recover, Damien was already moving.

He closed the distance in a heartbeat and drove his fist forward—straight into the already cracked shell.

CRASH.

The damaged plating shattered completely.

Fragments of hardened demonic shell flew outward, revealing what lay beneath—a blackish, wet, meaty surface that pulsed grotesquely with raw essence.

The demon screamed.

Not in rage.

In pain.

Damien didn’t strike the exposed area again.

Instead, he capitalized.

A knee slammed into the demon’s ribs. An elbow cracked against its jaw. A heel smashed into its thigh, buckling the limb. Damien flowed from strike to strike with brutal efficiency, never giving the demon time to stabilize its essence.

The demon tried to retaliate with half-formed spells and flaring essence but Damien was inside its guard now.

Too close.

Too fast.

He kicked the demon upward, launching its massive body into the air, then leapt after it.

Midair, he twisted and drove both fists into its back, forcing it downward like a meteor.

The demon slammed into the forest floor with earth-shattering force.

Before it could even register the impact, Damien followed.

He descended like a hammer.

Both knees crashed into the demon’s chest.

The sound was wet. Final. Crushing.

The demon’s body spasmed violently, essence bursting outward in a chaotic surge before collapsing inward again, unstable and fractured.

Damien didn’t let up.

He straddled the demon’s torso and began punching.

Bang!

Once, twice.

Bang!

A third time.

Each blow caved in bone and muscle alike, splattering black blood across the ground. The demon’s head snapped side to side under the impacts, teeth breaking, jaw cracking.

Damien’s fist grew slick, blackened entirely by demonic blood. It dripped from his knuckles, ran down his forearm.

The demon tried to scream.

Couldn’t.

Its breath came in wet, choking gasps.

Damien finally stopped.

He sat there, breathing steadily, blood dripping from his hand, staring down at the demon’s barely conscious eyes.

Alive.

Just.

He leaned in slightly.

"Now," Damien said quietly, voice cold and controlled, "you’re going to answer some questions."

The demon wheezed, blood bubbling from its mouth.

And for the first time since the fight began, the demon looked afraid.