The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

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"No way? That doesn't sound like something you'd say!"

As he said this, Fish turned around again, using the short sword formed from his arm armor to deflect two fierce thrusts from the girl in the bodysuit. But just as he switched from defense to offense and thrust at her face, the cunning opponent disappeared once more in a flash of white light.

Although Fish initially tried to predict the opponent's location, he quickly realized that while this thing's intelligence was nowhere near that of Phoenix Flame, it was definitely not some NPC that could only act according to fixed patterns.

After the initial two attacks, "Cain" no longer appeared directly behind Fish, but instead randomly teleported herself to any location within two meters of Ange and Fish—except directly in front of them. Sometimes she appeared to their side or behind, sometimes to their left or right. On one occasion, she even teleported directly above Fish's head, attempting to use gravity to pierce him from above.

Of course, with his quick reflexes and keen awareness, Fish skillfully dodged each of his opponent's seemingly inevitable attacks, almost like acrobatic feats. And with the added power and speed of the Phoenix Flame, along with his own accumulated combat experience, he was often able to quickly switch from defense to offense.

The problem is that whenever Fish regains the upper hand, he will very cunningly use short-range space jumps to disappear in the flash, making it impossible for Fish to take him down with a single combo.

"Strictly speaking, all the 'countermeasures' I can offer against products of the old civilization era have been derived after being demonstrated and verified in actual combat—or at least through simulated exercises. However, the 'Cain' series, due to its extremely high cost and limited application scenarios, has never been put into large-scale practical use and remains in the prototype stage. Therefore, no one has seriously discussed the possibility of fighting against it, let alone the corresponding tactical design," Huang Yan explained after Fish's several attacks missed.

"So, you can't offer me any ready-made countermeasures?"

"That's right. Of course, thanks to your battle with it just now, I've gathered a lot of data. Therefore, I'm currently trying to deduce the best battle plan based on the existing information," Huang Yan said. "Please be patient."

"Go ahead and say that to her!" Fish shouted as the girl in the bodysuit appeared again—this time right in front of Fish, but in a crouching position to avoid Fish's field of vision—and attacked with her sword once more. Fish hastily retreated, barely managing to save his manhood.

"Can't you use the superhuman control ability you devoured?" Ange suggested from the side.

"Uh, it's a good idea, but it's really impossible to do," Huang Yan replied apologetically. "Technically speaking, 'Cain's' role is rather... um... vague. The control abilities I've gained can control low-level autonomous weapons, home smart devices, or low-level automated municipal engineering equipment from the past. But 'Cain' doesn't fall into any of those categories."

"How could this be? Isn't this a robot?" Ange quickly blocked the sword as the girl in the bodysuit suddenly attacked from the side. "I thought..."

"Cain is only partially machine-based, with the rest being biological. The 'Murderer' type of bio-assassin, which serves as its prototype, is a product of genetically modified humans enhanced with mechanical prosthetics. Cain is further equipped with a powerful energy circulation system and an extremely expensive short-distance space jump device, but ultimately it is still human."

"Really? But I think this guy is even less human than you."

“That’s right. During the cultivation process, most of Cain’s frontal lobe was removed, and a large number of enhanced control systems were implanted in his cerebral cortex. In some aspects—for example, in terms of human emotional thinking that assassins don’t need—this guy’s level is no stronger than a soldier ant,” Huang Yan’s tone was full of disgust. “This is completely different from me, who perfectly imitated the way real humans think.”

"Uh, so..." To prevent "Cain" from teleporting away quickly, Ange deliberately took a few steps back, pretending to be in a defensive position where she could only parry, and tried to buy Fish time to come and provide support. Unfortunately, after noticing Fish approaching out of the corner of her eye, the cunning bio-assassin immediately deduced the other party's plan and disappeared in a flash.

"So, this guy's definition doesn't fit within the scope of my 'Overdrive Control' permissions, and therefore I can't operate it remotely," Huang Yan explained. "I'm sorry, but that's the rule. Besides, although this guy has no emotions, his tactical logic is extremely strong. At least, ordinary tricks won't easily take him down."

"We've learned that lesson the hard way." After the bio-assassin was teleported away once again, Ange said somewhat discouragedly, "So, you're completely helpless against it now?"

“Yes, at least in a non-contact state, it’s absolutely impossible to achieve overdrive control,” Huang Yan said. “And that thing knows that too—it’s probably been listening to our conversation the whole time.”

"Huh?!"

"That's not surprising. High-level assassins like this naturally need the ability to conduct information reconnaissance and eavesdropping. The communication channels we use probably can't be kept secret from 'Cain'," Huang Yan said. "Therefore, even if I do know how to do it, I can't tell you... at most I can only tell you what I can't do."

"I understand." Fish took a deep breath, stood still, then raised the sword formed from his gauntlets to his eyes, squinted, and began to wait quietly. A moment later, with a flash of spatial teleportation, "Cain" appeared to his right.

"Take this!"

Fish immediately thrust out his sword, but it was too late. In the instant their figures crossed, the bio-assassin's blade struck his...right arm for the first time. Against a blade with a hardness exceeding that of a diamond, the strength of armor was meaningless. In the blink of an eye, the blade sliced ​​through Phoenix Flame's armor layer as easily as cutting through butter, piercing Fish's flesh and creating a penetrating wound.

"My lord!" Startled, Ange was about to rush to Fish's aid when another flash of teleportation suddenly appeared behind her—there was a second "Cain" in this passage.

These two identical bio-assassins, looking and dressed exactly alike, carefully controlled their appearance frequency from the beginning. Utilizing the time delay created by short-distance spatial jumps, they constantly "flashed" to disguise themselves as being alone. Now, with one having successfully completed their mission, the other no longer needed to remain hidden and directly attacked Ange…

However, the bio-assassin quickly realized his mistake.

In the next instant, "Cain," who was lunging at Ange, was surprised to find that his "sister," who had successfully stabbed Fish, was raising her other hand towards him! And the energy weapon buried in that arm was glowing! Before it could figure out what was going on, a laser beam burned through its eye socket, turning its brain, which had been mostly replaced with an artificial electronic brain, into ashes.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!" After "Cain," who attacked Ange, was knocked down, the bio-assassin who had stabbed Fish earlier also pulled out the blade that was stuck in his arm. Although the sword did not have any barbs or similar structures, Fish was still in a lot of pain—until Huang Yan injected him with a strong painkiller.

"Not bad, you guessed my intentions so accurately."

"Hey... I'm not stupid. Since you specifically emphasized 'what you can't do,' then naturally it's about 'what you can do.'" Although the painkiller had taken effect, Fish's face still wore the same pain mask as before, undoubtedly, he had taken quite a beating just now. "Since you said that you can't establish supersonic control without contact, then in other words, you can try it with contact."

“That’s right. As long as a physical connection can be established, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to hack into the system of such a creature,” Huang Yan said. “To be honest, they don’t really have any anti-hacking measures after their systems are physically invaded—because the purpose of these bio-assassins is to ‘avoid being caught’ in their design.”

"Yeah, establishing a physical connection is quite troublesome... and also rather dangerous." Fish glanced at his shoulder and saw that Huang Yan was stopping the bleeding from his wound while repairing the hole that had been poked in him—just now, he had deliberately let the other party stab his body to ensure that Huang Yan had a chance to establish a connection.

After all, like intelligent combat armor, the variable sharp weapons on these bio-assassins are also integral parts of themselves. For Huang Yan, even just touching the blade, he has a way to forcibly access the opponent's system.

"Anyway, at least we won the gamble," Huang Yan said. At the same time, "Cain," controlled by the hacking program, staggered to the entrance of the communications center, unlocked the door with its built-in access privileges, and then raised its sword, piercing its own solar system—since the hacking program could only temporarily control a portion of its systems, Huang Yan had simply added a "suicide" command to the end of the program, just in case anything went wrong. "Detection complete. No enemies or traps inside the communications center. You can enter safely."

"That's great." Anjie breathed a sigh of relief and walked in, sitting down in front of rows of instruments, screens, and control panels. "How do I operate this?"

"That's great." Anjie breathed a sigh of relief and walked in, sitting down in front of rows of instruments, screens, and control panels. "How do I operate this?"

"It's simple, just follow my instructions," Huang Yan replied casually. "Anyway, these kinds of devices aren't complicated to operate; you basically just need to press the buttons in sequence."

Just as Huang Yan had said, a series of triangular cursors soon appeared on their helmet displays. Each cursor corresponded to a different button and was thoughtfully labeled with a number, indicating the order in which they should be pressed. The few places requiring input were also marked with corresponding text. Finally, after the two found two keys in a nearby cabinet and inserted them into two keyholes nearly ten meters apart, Huang Yan's "navigation service" came to an end.

"Now, please turn the key forcefully, clockwise on the left and counterclockwise on the right. Make sure the interval between turns is no more than one second," Huang Yan said. "Remember, you must try to turn both keys at the same time."

"Interesting," Ange said. "It seems the equipment here is quite important."

"Why?" Fish asked.

"Because this design is obviously intended to ensure that two people need to activate it together to turn on the switch," Ange explained. "This is mainly to prevent anyone from acting on their own... But, this doesn't quite make sense..."

"What's wrong?"

"Lord Huang Yan, you just said this is just a communications center, right?" An Jie asked. "But why would a communications center have such complex security measures? Not only are there two such powerful bio-assassins lying in ambush at the entrance, but there are even measures designed to prevent staff from unlocking the system without authorization? Usually, only storage facilities for extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction would be so heavily guarded..."

"Hmm... I'm not entirely sure about that either." Huang Yan hesitated. "To be honest, my tactical logic analysis program also considers this level of preventative measures to be 'excessive,' a complete waste for an ordinary communications center. But the problem is, the information I obtained about this facility after updating the 'Akasha Encyclopedia' clearly shows that it's designed this way—at least, it has to be operated this way to achieve your expected goals."

"I understand." Fish bit his lip. When he entered the "funnel," he had already formulated his next action plan: if he could not directly enter the sealed area and destroy the "Prime Minister" sealed within, just like he destroyed the "Central Brain" last time, in order to completely eliminate the danger, then he would have to announce its existence to everyone in the "Secret Realm," making them realize how dangerous their actions were, thereby completely stopping Iskander Lomonosov's excavation plan.

To ensure this, Fish specifically requested that the image of the "Grave Steward" in his sealed state be shown to everyone, so that Iskandar Lomonosov would not be able to deny his existence. But he did not expect that this seemingly simple task would encounter so many difficulties.

"Although it's inappropriate to say this, Mr. Fish, Princess Ange, I have a bad feeling," Huang Yan said. "Despite the lack of credible evidence, I still request that you reconsider your current plan..."

"This..." Ange hesitated. However, at that moment, a series of red dots suddenly lit up on a screen located at the edge of the control console—a large group of people was approaching the communications center.

“We don’t have much time left,” Fish said. “Those guys already know we’re here…and there aren’t two ridiculously strong assassins outside to hold them off for us right now.”

"In that case, my lord, what do you intend to do?"

"Well... based on my past experience, sometimes, 'something feels off' is just us scaring ourselves," Fish clenched his hands tightly, then slowly loosened his fingers. "Let's give it a try."