SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts-Chapter 507: Mapping Out The Forest

Morning came quietly.

Not with birdsong—there were none bold enough to sing here—but with a slow thinning of the darkness and the gentle pull of awareness returning to Damien’s body.

He opened his eyes. Somehow, he’d managed to sleep after all that carnage.

Above him, warped branches framed a pale strip of sky, light filtering down through layers of leaves that had survived countless battles.

The bed beneath him, simple but sturdy, was something Luton had produced and placed with surprising care. On either side of him lay his guardians.

Fenrir rested with his massive head on his paws, one eye half-open, its pupil tracking the forest even in rest. Luton sat atop a nearby rock, translucent body faintly pulsing as it finished processing the essence cores it had absorbed during the night.

Nothing had dared approach.

Damien stretched slowly, joints cracking softly. His body felt... good. Not rested in the way of comfort, but charged. Muscles alive, essence flowing cleanly through his core, mind sharp.

"Good," he muttered.

He rose, rolled his shoulders once, and looked around. The clearing bore the marks of last night’s chaos—uprooted trees, crushed undergrowth, scorched patches of earth where demonic essence had burned hot. A reminder that even here, deep in the Forest of Twin Disasters, peace was something you carved out with violence.

Damien waved a hand. "Luton. Absorb the cores." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

The slime responded instantly, flowing forward in a smooth, eager motion. It enveloped the small pile Fenrir had guarded and drew them into itself, one by one, their glow vanishing into its body.

Damien felt the faint tug on his essence core as Luton stabilized and stored them inside its Universal Space.

Fenrir watched, tail flicking once, then relaxed again.

With that done, Damien didn’t rush into another hunt.

Not yet.

He stood still, eyes lifting to the canopy above, then further, imagining the forest from a higher vantage. He had been moving reactively, carving through beasts and demons as they appeared. Effective, yes.

But inefficient.

"I need a better picture," he murmured.

The thought crystallized quickly.

Damien raised his hand and summoned Aquila.

Wind surged as the griffin materialized, massive wings unfurling with a low, resonant cry. Aquila shook itself once, feathers ruffling, then lowered its body instinctively.

Damien mounted smoothly, settling between its shoulders.

"Up," he said simply.

Aquila leapt.

The forest fell away beneath them as powerful wings beat, carrying them above the treetops in moments. Cool air rushed past Damien’s face, sharp and clean, carrying with it the scents of resin, damp earth, and lingering blood.

From above, the forest looked different.

Less chaotic.

Patterns emerged—clearings shaped by old battles, ridgelines where mana beasts favored nesting, darker patches where demonic essence lingered stubbornly. Rivers cut pale lines through the green, and in the distance, faint distortions marked areas where mana behaved... strangely.

Damien scanned it all carefully.

This section of the forest lay close to the edge of the island. Mana density was moderate, beasts plentiful but mostly capped at Grade Four. Few apex presences. Good hunting ground—but not where the truly dangerous things slept.

He considered descending.

Then paused.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"...Why stop here?" he asked himself.

He was airborne. Safe. Fast. Unbothered by terrain. Most threats in this forest were bound to the ground—or at least limited by it.

A realization clicked into place.

He could map it.

Not just roughly. Properly.

Damien exhaled slowly, decision made.

"Hold altitude," he instructed Aquila.

The griffin adjusted its wings, leveling out into a steady glide.

Damien then did something he’d almost forgotten to do. "Cancel summon on Fenrir."

He canceled Fenrir’s summon.

"And cancel Luton’s summon as well." He repeated the process with Luton who had been left alone after cancelling Fenrir’s summon.

The white wolf vanished in a soft dispersal of mana, its presence retreating back into Damien’s core without resistance. Luton followed a moment later, dismissed just as smoothly.

For a heartbeat, Damien was alone in the sky with Aquila.

Then he summoned Luton again.

The Stellar Slime appeared beside him, hovering awkwardly in midair before stabilizing itself with faint pulses of mana.

"Produce materials," Damien said.

Luton wobbled, then complied.

From within its Universal Space, it extruded a thick sheet of paper—dense, durable, faintly enchanted to resist tearing. Ink followed, sealed in a small container, then a long feather, its quill sharpened and ready.

Damien took them all with practiced ease.

Aquila adjusted slightly as Damien leaned forward, anchoring himself with his legs. Wind tugged at the paper, but Damien pinned it down with one hand, his essence subtly reinforcing his grip.

He looked out over the forest again.

"Alright," he murmured. "Let’s get to work."

He started with landmarks.

Aquila circled slowly as Damien sketched broad outlines—rivers first, then elevation changes, ridges and ravines marked with careful strokes. He noted mana-dense zones with small sigils of his own creation, areas where essence thickened unnaturally.

Whenever Aquila passed over a nest, a lair, or a place that felt wrong, Damien marked it.

Demons here, Beasts there. Unstable mana areas.

Time passed unnoticed.

The forest rolled beneath them in vast, living waves. Shadows shifted as clouds drifted overhead. Occasionally, something large moved below—too slow, too distant to pose a threat—but Damien logged it anyway.

His mind worked steadily, almost calmly.

This wasn’t just for survival.

This was preparation.

If the demon’s words were true—if intelligent demons had been sent here for him—then this forest was no longer just a training ground.

It was a battlefield.

And Damien refused to fight blind.

He marked deeper zones where Aquila refused to descend instinctively. Areas where even from the sky, something felt... watchful. He didn’t linger over those.

Yet.

By the time Aquila completed its wide circuit, the paper in Damien’s hands was no longer blank. It held the beginnings of a map—imperfect, but far better than anything that existed before.

Damien studied it, eyes sharp.

"Not bad," he said quietly.

Aquila let out a low, satisfied cry.

Damien rolled the map carefully and secured it, then tapped Aquila’s neck.

"Let’s head back. For now."

The griffin turned, wings angling downward as they began their descent.

Below, the forest waited—vast, violent, and increasingly aware that something dangerous was moving through its heart.

And this time, Damien intended to know it better than it knew itself.