Reborn: Apocalypse Ready. War Goddess by My Side novel Chapter 44

11:24 am

Reborn Aperalypse Ready, War Goddess by My Side

Chapter 44 Forget It

Nelson shot him a leak. “Time, forget it!”

Finished

Steven smiled. “Okay, real talk though, Nelson. I actually can see things coming before they happen.”

Nelson scoffed. “Sure you can.”

“I’m serious. You’re going to awaken a B–rank Divine Sigil.”

Nelson rolled his eyes. “Ugh, a B–rank? Are you cursing me right now?”

Steven just smiled and let it go. It was what it was.

B–rank was still light years ahead of the people who never awakened at all.

Bianca glanced at Steven from across the table.

Why’s he so certain? Is it actually possible? Can I really awaken an SSS–rank Divine Sigil?

Steven raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll stop messing around. The real story is that yesterday after school, I spotted those two skulking around behind me. The second I noticed, I knew they were up to something, so I decided to cover myself.

“I released my ladybug drone. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to catch that much.”

Nelson gave him a slow, deeply impressed thumbs up.

“You’re something else, man.”

He shook his head with a short laugh. “I’m genuinely jealous. Your grandfather hooks you up with stupid advanced gear, and I’m still carrying around this ancient phone.”

Steven glanced down at his wrist where the Starlink sat, the tiny ladybug drone resting there in its housing. In this era, nearly every device had communication functionality baked in.

But Steven’s Starlink went well beyond that, folding in reconnaissance, holographic projection, and a range of other features into something that fit around his wrist.

It wasn’t the most powerful piece of tech in the world, but for most students from the civilian districts, it represented real money.

That was yet another reason Steven always suspected his grandfather wasn’t quite who he appeared to be. Their neighborhood was working class, but Steven had never actually wanted for anything.

Bianca heard the exchange and let her eyes drift, almost without meaning to, to the simple watch on her

own wrist.

It could make calls.

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11:24 am

Chapter 44 Forget It

That was about all it could do.

Finished

Steven glanced over at her “Nothing to be jealous of. Once you’re Awakened and earning divine crystal or beast crystal, you upgrade your gear. Simple.”

Nelson gave him a flat look. “It is not that simple.”

Steven just smiled.

“One thing though,” Nelson said. “At least this happened now and not during the Divine Awakening itself. If you’d been flagged mid–Awakening, the Inspectorate and the Hall of Punishers both would’ve come down on you, and you wouldn’t have gotten a single word in.”

Steven nodded. “I know my limits. If I were already Awakened, I would’ve filed a report before any of this even had a chance to develop. I wouldn’t have left that kind of opening.”

Nelson nodded back, satisfied with that.

After lunch, Nelson peeled off on his own, because even he could tell that being a third wheel right now was a choice he didn’t need to make.

Anyone with eyes could see those two weren’t just classmates anymore.

On the way back to the classroom, Bianca stopped suddenly under the shade of a tree.

“Steven,” she said.

Defending himself wasn’t a mistake.

Neutralizing the threat wasn’t excessive force.

He didn’t kill anyone.

The follow–up inquiry stalled out, and the investigators told him they’d contact him if anything further

came up.

Timothy sat in custody now, and his Divine Awakening was in serious jeopardy. He might miss it entirely. Chris was the unlucky casualty of the whole thing. When Timothy moved, Chris got pulled along in the current, too tangled up in the scheme to distance himself in time.

He ended up in custody too, more swept up than scheming, but locked in all the same.

It was a satisfying outcome.

r

And today was the day that every twelfth–grade student at every Awakened high school across the city had been building toward.

It was the day of Divine Awakening.

It was the same date for everyone, unified and simultaneous across the whole city.

The Divine Awakening was the moment of awakening the Divine Sigil that lived dormant inside every person.

It was also simply called the Awakening.

The process required a specialized apparatus, one designed and produced exclusively by the Divine

Sanctum.

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