Reborn: Apocalypse Ready. War Goddess by My Side novel Chapter 23

Chapter 23 An Invitation

Finished

“We reviewed the security footage from last night. The whole fight with the Bloodfang Rat.”

“Right. Pretty impressive, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah… it was…”

Peter’s eye twitched. “Jesus Christ! Kid, is it physically impossible for you to have a normal conversation? Keep it up and I’ll deck you.”

Steven grinned. “Relax. You’re going to give yourself a stroke.”

Peter fumed quietly. He was a Three–Sigil Divine Adept. People treated him with deference wherever he went. And this absolute menace of a teenager was sitting here like he owned the table.

“Talk,” Steven said. “I’m listening.”

Peter opened his mouth and then genuinely didn’t know where to start.

This kid operated by rules that Peter hadn’t been issued.

He decided to just say it outright.

“You ever think about joining our squad?”

Steven blinked at him.

“Me? I’m eighteen. You want to send me out there to get killed? Where’s your conscience?”

Peter was gripping the table hard enough to leave marks, and he genuinely considered walking

out.

He fixed Steven with a look that could have curdled steel.

Steven laughed and waved a hand. “Joking. I’m joking.

“Which squad out of Rowenville are you with?”

Peter straightened up with the particular pride of a man who’d earned something.

“Humble as I am, I represent Rowenville’s number one Awakened Squad. Team Ashen.

“Kid, you have no idea how lucky you are right now. Divine Envoys and Divine Adepts have begged our captain to let them in, and he turned every single one of them down.

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“What’s your ranking on the Awakened Squad Rankings?”

The question hit Peter like a brick.

“Do you enjoy making people miserable? Is that your hobby?”

“What? I’m just asking. Getting to know each other is kind of the whole point here.”

Peter’s temple visibly pulsed.

“Do you have any idea how few squads actually make the Awakened Squad Rankings? You think just anyone can get on that list?”

“Oh,” Steven said. “So you didn’t make it.”

Peter made a sound like something had been punctured inside him.

He breathed in. He breathed out. He was calm. He was a professional. He was absolutely not about to strangle a teenager.

“How do you even know about the Awakened Squad Rankings? Your school covers that already?”

Steven shook his head. “I know a little.”

Of course he knew.

In his past life, the Awakened Squad was as familiar to him as his own heartbeat.

An Awakened Squad was an independent unit, operating outside the military’s direct chain of command.

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In his previous life, Steven had somehow made it onto a ranked squad despite being only a Three–Sigil Divine Adept.

“Short answer: our captain saw something in you. The way you handled that Bloodfang Rat, start to finish, told him you’re worth developing.

“And Divine Sigil’s not a hard requirement. A warrior who’s built enough through origin crystal technology can still earn a place in a squad. It’s been done.

“But that’s the exception, not the rule. What caught our captain’s eye is that your combat instincts are genuinely abnormal.”

Steven gave a small nod. He knew exactly how extraordinary that fight had looked.

Taking down a level one Bloodfang Rat at eighteen, without a Divine Sigil or any form of Awakening, was right at the edge of what any ordinary person could survive. Most people who tried it simply didn’t walk away.

He’d only managed it because he was carrying the muscle memory of a lifetime.

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“Take some time to think it over,” Peter said. “Awakened or not, Rowenville is still your home

base.

“And don’t go making the mistake of thinking we’re not worth your time. Team Ashen has a real name in this city.”

Steven was quiet for a moment.

Peter wasn’t wrong about that.

Awakened students who completed Divine Awakening stayed local at first, running through the Awakened Academy system in their home city, building strength and experience close to home.

Those who never awakened took a different road: the SAT, a university placement, a future built on a different kind of ambition, still local.

Only the exceptional students, who reached a genuinely rare level of performance in one area or another, ever got pulled upward toward higher–tier cities and the more advanced training that came with them.

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