Reborn: Apocalypse Ready. War Goddess by My Side novel Chapter 544

Chapter 544 The Carrier

He wore a face that couldn’t have looked more harmless.

He greeted every single person around him with the same warm smile.

Finished

Steven’s gaze locked onto him, and there it was, plain as day: a massive knot of beast power coiled around- his Divine Sigil.

It was deep, inky green, through and through.

It was bigger than anyone else’s on the entire platform who carried that same corruption.

Denser too. More concentrated.

A few dozen young competitors surrounded him, all decked out in matching white athletic hoodies, clearly moving as one unit.

And within that cluster. Steven counted over 20 of them carrying that same sickly green beast power woven into their Divine Sigils.

Steven’s focus sharpened to a knife’s edge.

The young man was making his rounds, greeting competitors from every other city with warmth to spare, shaking hands with anyone who got close enough. The picture of diplomacy.

Then Steven caught it. Right after another handshake ended.

The person whose hand he’d just shaken now carried that same green power crawling up their Divine Sigil.

No flash. No sound. Nothing at all to give it away.

If Steven didn’t have his Eye of Insight, he’d never have caught where that power had even come from.

It was bleeding straight out of the man’s own body, passing through his palm and into the other person’s, then climbing up to nest inside their Divine Sigil.

Something cold slammed into Steven’s chest.

This piece of work is a walking contamination source.

Pieces started clicking together in Steven’s mind.

Elliot must have shaken this same man’s hand at some point.

And it was obvious most of these people had no idea they’d just been infected during something as simple as a handshake.

A thought clawed its way up in Steven’s mind, and it turned his blood cold.

“Steven! Are you even listening to me?”

“Not now. We’ll talk about your thing later. I’m busy.”

1/3

Steven turned to Frank. “Who are those people in the white hoodies?”

FELOSET

Frank was quick to explain. “That’s the Oakridge crew. The one you’re staring at, the friendly one shaking everyone’s hand, that’s one of the two I warned you about.

“His name’s Griffin Cloud. The stern looking girl standing to his right is Fellaria Westfield. The two of them are Oakridge’s top prospects for this tournament.”

Steven stared at Griffin Cloud, weight settling heavy in his chest. Both of them are marked.

“Did you two actually talk to him a couple days back?”

Frank nodded. “We did. Extremely kind, very polite. No arrogance in him at all. Treats everyone the same, no matter who they are.

“He even sat down with Elliot and the others to talk technique, offered pointers on his own.

“Talent and character both, no complaints there.

“Look at him. Even with the tournament right around the corner, he’s still treating every competitor with respect, still making friends. A young man like that is bound for something great.”

Steven had nothing to say to that.

This guy? A good person?

He’s a walking plague.

That warm, harmless act, the handshakes, the friendly small talk, it was all just cover for spreading that corruption to as many people as possible.

Steven asked another question. “Did Elliot shake his hand that day?”

Frank answered, “Plenty of people did. He doesn’t look down on anyone.”

Steven kept tracking Griffin’s movements. He really was shaking hands left and right. But the ones who ended up marked…

They all seemed to be the top prospects from every academy present. The very best of the best.

Well, isn’t that clever. What a performance.

This man was a wolf wearing the softest, gentlest sheepskin Steven had ever seen.

A chill crept down his spine.

He thought he finally understood what was happening here.

A lot of these marked people probably weren’t God Eaters themselves. They’d just been infected, seeded with that power without knowing it.

2/3

14:58 Wed, Aug 5 MOJ.

Chapter 544 The Carner

The actual number of true God Eaters embedded in the crowd was probably much smaller.

But this man, without question, was one of them.

So that is the purpose behind all this?

Planting an unknown power inside someone else’s body wasn’t something you did without a reason.

And the reason wasn’t hard to guess.

That power clearly wasn’t built for surveillance.

Which left one clear possibility.

The God Eaters had always been small in number.

So maybe that power was meant to slowly corrode its hosts over time, turning them into God Eaters themselves.

It was a method of control, planted and left to grow.

Or maybe it worked differently. Maybe it was a timer, something that would strike these people down without warning, whenever the moment came.

It’d be like poison sitting dormant in the blood.

Then, without warning, something sparked in Steven’s mind. A jolt of electricity.

It was like waking from a dream.

He remembered strange things happening in his last life. Things that never made sense.

Not just one. Many.

It was in his last life, more than a decade down the road.

Most of the people his age had already risen to positions of power across the major factions.

And during that stretch of time, things happened that nobody could ever fully explain.

Secrets leaked during critical missions and major events, consequences catastrophic, the Awakened suffering heavy losses they never recovered from.

And members of the most powerful noble houses, one after another, defected without warning.

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14:59 Wed, Aug 5 MOJ.

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