Reborn: Apocalypse Ready. War Goddess by My Side novel Chapter 27

Reborn. Apocalypse Ready. War Goddess by My Side

Chapter 27 A Trap

The afternoon passed at its usual steady pace, and before long the final bell rang.

Steven and Bianca walked out together.

Bianca kept her gaze down, but her heart was quietly, stubbornly happy.

She’d made her peace with it. He wanted to come,

that

was a good thing.

Whether there was anything impressive to serve him didn’t matter. It was the gesture that counted.

But the moment they stepped through the school gate, something sharpened in Steven’s awareness.

Someone was following them.

The boost to his Spirit had been making him more attuned to shifts in his surroundings, and right now every instinct he had was quietly firing.

He let his Eye of Insight do the work, glancing back with the casual ease of someone who had nothing on his mind.

He spotted the figures threading through the crowd behind them.

A cold smile found the corner of his mouth.

So they’re going the underhanded route.

Steven stopped at the gate and turned to Bianca with an easy expression.

“Wait here. I just remembered something I need to deal with. Don’t go anywhere.”

Bianca looked up at him. “Do you want me to come with you?” –

Steven shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’ll be right back.”

Bianca gave a small, uncertain nod. “Okay. See you in a minute.”

The gate was crowded with students. She’d be fine out here.

Steven knew their target was him and him alone.

He moved deliberately toward the side of the school building, where a web of narrow alleyways branched off in every direction.

If these two thought they could pull something without consequences, they needed a lesson in how badly that could go..

A small mechanical beetle detached from his person and drifted silently ahead of him.

Steven turned into an alley where the foot traffic had thinned to almost nothing.

Not far behind, Timothy locked eyes with the person beside him.

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11:19 Wed, Jun 10

Chapter 27.A Trap

“Move!”

Then Timothy turned to the young man standing at his shoulder, someone who looked to be around twenty, and dropped his voice to something cold and certain. “Make him hurt. I want him on the ground.”

The young man smiled at that. It was a comfortable, practiced smile. “Easy. I’m not some fool woman like your old homeroom teacher.”

Timothy’s face pulled into something ugly. “You go in first. Get him down. We’ll follow.”

“Done.” The young man moved into the alley without breaking stride..

Steven slowed his pace just enough.

Sure enough, sharp footfalls came up fast behind him.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

Steven turned.

As he’d expected, these two had brought outside help. Someone older, likely a One–Sigil Awakened at most. Manageable.

He arranged his expression into convincing confusion. “You talking to me?”

The young man had tattoos running up both arms and a knife in his hand that he was flipping back and forth with idle ease. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Obviously.”

Steven let a flicker of fear cross his face. “What do you want?”

The young man’s grin sharpened. “Hand over anything valuable. All of it.”

He started walking closer.

Steven let his feet drift backward, step by slow step.

If he was going to play this out, he was going to commit to it.

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11:19 Wed, Jun 10

Inside, he was quietly smug. So this is all the infamous troublemaker amounts to. Tough in front of a crowd at school, and nothing else.

The young man’s pupils froze.

Pain detonated through his skull and sent a white–hot fury flooding up behind it.

“You’re going to regret that!”

The punch had rattled his teeth and drawn blood from his gums. Steven’s strength had climbed, and the number it had climbed to was something this man hadn’t accounted for.

The Divine Sigil light flickered back to life at his feet.

It was the lowest tier of white, but even that translated to physical output that ordinary people had no business enduring.

Steven’s forearm came up on instinct, catching the whip kick that came screaming in.

His other hand moved toward the short blade at his hip.

The kick landed across his guard.

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T

11:19 Wed, Jun 10

Chapter 27 A Trap

And Steven slid back maybe two steps.

That was it. Steven’s thoughts stuttered.

Why is the impact so weak?

It shouldn’t have been. This was a kick enhanced by Divine Sigil strength. Even a low–tier augmentation should’ve sent him skidding back farther than that.

Something settled into place in the back of his mind. Sixteen points of Strength. That number was doing something he hadn’t fully calculated yet.

He quietly set aside the idea of drawing the blade.

The young man stared at where Steven was still standing, barely displaced, and felt his own certainty crack around the edges.

He didn’t have time to examine the feeling before the fury burning through him drowned it out entirely.

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