SSS-Ranked Awakening: I Can Only Summon Mythical Beasts

Up in the highest balcony of the colosseum, where the glow of enchanted sigils dimmed the noise from below, a conversation unfolded behind thick soundproof barriers. Ones mounted by the leaders of the academies themselves.

Dean Oryll of Wyrmere, regal and severe in his layered robes, stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His sharp gaze was fixed on the magical projections hovering before him, each showing the progress of a trial participant.

Behind him, seated calmly in a carved obsidian chair, was Dean Godsthorn, ElderGlow’s ancient Dean.

His white hair fell to his shoulders in silky, unbound strands, and his long beard was tucked neatly beneath a gold-trimmed mantle. Despite his age, his eyes remained sharp—steel forged in experience.

“You went beyond the council’s agreed framework,” Oryll said without turning. “Illusion-class spirits. Elemental constructs. A Warden. If the guilds get word of this—”

“They won’t,” Godsthorn replied, his voice calm and quiet, but iron beneath. “I asked for the escalation.”

Oryll’s eyes narrowed. “You asked me to override the council’s safety protocols.”

“I asked you to make the trial real.”

Oryll finally turned to face him. “These are students, Godsthorn. Not soldiers.”

Godsthorn raised one of his hands, his skin still looking smooth despite his age and then snapped his fingers.

Click!

A projection crystal floated to the center of the room, zooming in on Damon’s mirrored battle—blood on the ground, his clone pressing him hard.

“They will be,” the old dean said. “Sooner than we like. Do you think the demons will wait for people to finish training? The war with the demons will soon be upon us and you know that. The only reason why we haven’t been affected until now is because the Dunters and Mercenaries are still capable of pushing the demons back.”

“When the war starts for real, we’ll have no choice but to get involved and so will they.” Dean Godsthorn was staring far into the distance as he spoke.

Silence.

Godsthorn tapped the edge of his chair.

“In the real world, nothing waits for readiness. It pounces. Demands. Devours.”

Oryll remained silent, but his jaw tightened.

“I gave you a condition,” Godsthorn added. “Test them hard, but protect them when they’re about to break.”

Oryll gestured to a sapphire rune circle beneath the platform. “We’ve placed extraction seals in every path. At the edge of failure, they’re withdrawn. If they’re about to die, they’ll be pulled out.”

“Good,” Godsthorn said. “Then let the lesson begin.”

In one of the Thornevale student’s path called the Path of Obsidian Precision

Kaelis, the spear-wielding prodigy of Thornevale, moved through a corridor of shifting blades—rows of floating obsidian razors that spun, rotated, and danced in the air with deadly grace.

She never paused.

Each step was calculated, each deflection of her silver glaive exact. Sweat trickled down her temple, but her eyes remained cold and focused.

Behind her, Serik, her teammate, wasn’t so lucky.

A misstep.

The blade didn’t slice deep, but it cut the bridge of his foot—and in this trial, one mistake was all it took.

The razors around him surged like predators sensing blood.

Kaelis spun, eyes wide. “Serik—!”

“Arghhh!!” Serik shouted, raised his hands, and channeled a defensive barrier.

Wooooongg…

The barrier was forming too slow.

Swiiiiishhh…

The blades came.

But just before they could reach him—a pulse of bright blue light enveloped his body. The razors passed through empty air.

Serik vanished, ejected in a flash of sapphire energy, and reappeared—half-conscious—in a healing ward far above the arena.

Kaelis watched for a beat longer, her jaw tense, then turned back toward the path ahead.

Only then did an announcement ring out but none of the participants could hear it. “Participant Serik has been eliminated and withdrawn from the Trial of Divergence.

Inside the path, Kaelis continued to advance, unwilling to fail or be attacked. “Keep watching, old men,” she murmured under her breath. “I’m not done.”

~~~~~

Crowgarth – Path of Brutality

The Crowgarth team had been dropped into a crucible of sheer violence.

Tavros, their beast-like leader, fought through waves of golem-like monstrosities crafted from bone and molten rock. His arms bled freely from gashes, but he fought on, swinging a greataxe larger than most shields. With each roar, the earth cracked.

His teammate, Lirra, darted among the chaos with dual whips alight in red flame, weaving strikes that cut clean through golem limbs.

But their third member, Grent, was losing steam.

He had survived the earlier pressure chamber, but here, faced with three enemies converging at once, his defenses crumbled.

“No—!” he gasped, raising a crumbling shield sigil.

A boulder-sized fist slammed toward his head.

Blue light flashed.

Grent vanished just before the blow landed, his scream cut off mid-air.

The arena crowd murmured. Another extraction.

In the observation chamber, Dean Oryll raised an eyebrow. “That’s two out already.”

“They shouldn’t have made it to Year Three without learning situational awareness,” Godsthorn said coolly.

~~~~~

Wyrmere – Path of Echoing Will

Here, trials weren’t physical.

They were psychological.

Each corridor twisted memory, shame, ambition, and fear into weapons. The Wyrmere students fought no beasts—but battled their pasts.

One of them, a boy named Renn, stood trembling before the image of his sister—the one he failed to protect years ago in a demon stampede. It wasn’t like he could’ve done anything but the path tormented him with it regardless.

But Renn grit his teeth.

“Not real,” he whispered.

He stepped forward. The image grew, warped, screamed.

Still, he moved. Through it.

It faded.

Far behind him, another student fell to her knees, clutching her head.

“I can’t—I can’t—”

Her heartbeat spiked dangerously.

Extraction seal pulsed.

She was gone.

But Renn remained.

He didn’t smile.

He just kept walking.

~~~~~

Still in the trial, within their respective paths, Damon, Anaya, Celeste, and Daveon all neared their final rooms. Each had blood on them now. Each had bruises, exhaustion, and that gleam in their eyes that came not from success—but from having survived something worse than expected.

They didn’t know about the other teams.

They didn’t know about the altered trial.

They didn’t know about Godsthorn’s gambit.

But somehow, they each understood the same thing in their own way:

This wasn’t just any test.

It was a mirror.

Of the world they were going to face once they left ElderGlow or worse, once the demon war starts.

Where there would be no extraction sigils.

No safety.

No do-overs.

Only choices.

And consequences. And Deaths!