178 Return to Zhongyang

Since we were pretty much trapped down in this underground dwelling for the past few days we never got a chance to see the spiral stairwell since our first trip down, but now that that Demigod, or rather, Serabane, has opened the door and left we can finally take it easy and leave. That's what I thought at least until we saw the state of the stairwell.

"The meteors, right?" Lia asks.

"I can't think of any other explanation," I say.

"I'm glad I just stayed in the room when that happened," Yue says.

"Yes, it was a good choice to go and hide underneath a table," Lia says.

"Please forget about that..."

"Oh yeah, that did happen didn't it."

"Damn it, Lia! Now Cordelia remembers! It's only a matter of time now until the other two find out."

"Putting that aside for the moment, how are we supposed to leave? There's too much rubble in the way," Lia says.

Without much thinking, both Yue and I reply, "just force our way through."

"I should have known better to expect anything else from you two. But in this case, it probably isn't a problem."

Lia chose to leave the problem to us, but her lack of involvement didn't affect much as Yue and I cleared most of the debris within a matter of minutes. The stairwell was almost entirely destroyed, leaving it unusable, but this didn't matter since both Yue and Lia can fly, so I just hitched a ride with them until we arrived at the surface.

It didn't take very long since the mountain was pretty much destroyed in the onslaught of meteors. Not too far away there are a couple of guards from Zhongyang coming our way.

"You three, where did you come from, this area is off-limits," one of the guards says.

"We were in Her room when this was all happening, so we were stuck underground for a while," Yue says.

Giving us a look of pity and understanding, the guard asks, "And where did the She go? She caused some damage to the city and needs to pay for it. It would also be good is she paid her other debts as well."

"How should I say this... She completed her apotheosis and were not sure where She went," Yue explains.

Listening to her explanation, the guard's face begins to show some wrinkles as he rubs his forehead before asking, "just so we know, what is the relation the three of you have with Her?"

Ahh, I know what this is. This is the find the closest relation and push the debt onto them. Lia is obviously very familiar with this tactic and even I went off enforcing this tactic when I was helping around at Mount Dragspear. Of course, neither Lia nor I will admit to being Serabane's assistant or student even if it was more or less forced upon us, so we just wait for Yue to bullshit her way through.

"We don't have any close relationship with Her. Much like you, we came to see Her for the purpose of collecting a debt. It's just our timing was, very unfortunate to say the least."

I give Yue a thumbs-up behind my back for a silent good job.

"Ahh, I understand, I completely understand. A long time ago I was sent to try and collect a debt from Her, only to get caught up in an explosion," the guard says as he crosses his arms and nods.

"Yeah, if you don't mind, we'd like to return to the city now. I'm sure you know, but were a little exhausted after dealing with..." Yue says, turning her head back, "well, that."

"Of course, feel free to leave. Unfortunately, I can't guide you to the city, but I'm sure you know your way."

Leaving the guards behind, we make our way back to the city and before long we finally arrive back at the Blue Sky Pavilion. As we return to our room with Yue in tow, we find Aurelia and Wanjing just lazing around.

Upon seeing us, the first thing they ask isn't how we're doing or if we learned anything, rather, Aurelia asks, "so you guys have anything to do with the meteors that fell a few days ago?"

None of us says anything as we turn our heads away from Aurelia, but our silence and actions are all she needed to see in combination with her superior peeping abilities to know the truth.

"They were involved, I won the bet, now hand over the money, Wanjing."

"Fine," Wanjing says handing her a bag of coins.

Part of me can't believe they were betting on whether or not the meteors was because of us.

"So I can see that your passively absorbing Divine Energy the same way you do for the other elements. From the looks of it, you got quite the nice power boost," Aurelia says.

"Yeah, I guess I'm technically a Demigod now, so what have you two been up to lately."

"Nothing much, just raiding a few prisons to help Wanjing... wait! You're a Demigod now... fuck, you're a Demigod now!"

"Yeah, but that's not important, why does my student suddenly have cat ears and a cat's tail? And it looks like her eyes have changed too, and she has a sharp horn on her head too, what's with that? And what's this I hear about prison raiding?" I ask.

"What do you mean it's not important!? This is huge! Forget about what happened to Wanjing!"

"Hey! Remind me, who has been paying for your food these past few days. Not to mention you've practically been torturing me these past few days. I've missed you, Teacher, your lessons are so much better than hers," Wanjing says as she jumps at me and suddenly transforms into a small... cat?

Holding her in my arms, she just rubs the side of her head against my stomach, while receiving a death glare from Lia.

Petting the small cat form of Wanjing, I say, "alright, I want an explanation for this, I'll tell you what you want to know afterwards, so start explaining."