The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

One hundred and ten days after the "Secret Realm" incident, in Cangtao City, the capital of the Fayun Kingdom, at the White Lotus Palace.

Upon opening his eyes, the first thing Fish saw was Mint's face with its professional smile. This chief lady serving the Lyndon Hilde-Fayon family seemed to have a knack for accurately predicting when Fish would wake up and offering him a smile precisely at the exact moment he awoke.

In the old civilization, countless otaku would gladly pay the highest price they could afford for the service of such a maid. However, for Fish, Mint's meticulous service made him feel more... awkward.

After all, he had only been crowned, officially becoming the Grand Duke of the Duchy of Fayun, and being served as his master by Bohe for forty days—although theoretically, he should have also completed his wedding with Ange at the same time. However, this ceremony traditionally requires a lot of preparation and is very time-consuming. Therefore, they had to postpone it for the time being, and the two of them are currently living separately in different halls according to custom.

...Of course, Fish really couldn't be sure if he would live long enough to officially marry Ange.

"Miss Mint, where's the briefing I requested?" Fish asked after taking the towel handed to him and wiping his face.

"Please go and wash up first, Your Highness. We can discuss official business after breakfast," Mint said in an unyielding tone. "This is Her Highness Ange's order, and it is also a family precept that all the Grand Dukes have been required to abide by."

"Hmm, as a Grand Duke, may I make a slight modification?"

"Of course not—especially since you are the head of the family who married into the family, and you have an even greater obligation to show your acceptance of the Lindenhild-Fayun Grand Duke family. And I am responsible for supervising you to abide by the family precepts." After saying this, Mint gave her two subordinates a look, and Xiao Luo and Peanut immediately stepped forward and forcibly dragged Fish to the luxurious bathroom in the White Lotus Palace.

Thus, Fish, who was very uneasy about the current situation, had to spend more than half an hour washing up and grooming his hair, having the ladies-in-waiting apply fragrant oil to the fur on his ears and tail, and eating a "simple breakfast" that would have been a proper meal in the past, before finally following Mint to the meeting room in the side hall. At this moment, many people, including Ange, were already waiting there.

In addition, a special "guest" also attended the meeting.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, my loyal vassal." As a holographic projection device manufactured in an old civilization was activated, the aged face of Anthemius III appeared before everyone. In this period, the emperor of the Pan-Pacific Empire had aged considerably compared to the past. At this moment, his eyes were sunken, his gaze was unfocused, and his mood was low; he was barely maintaining the bare minimum of noble dignity by sheer willpower.

Of course, Fish could fully understand Antemius III's current mood—after all, if he were sitting on that throne, after hearing about what Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov had done and the terrible fate that befell the First Imperial Guard, it would be entirely possible for him to fall into a state of despair.

Moreover, just as Huang Yan predicted earlier, the situation has been deteriorating rapidly at a visible pace recently.

After being released from the underground facilities of the "Secret Realm" and beginning to spread, the "Tai Sui" group, under the control and command of the "Tomb Slayer," rose rapidly with unprecedented momentum. Although the desolate Black Glass Wasteland of the "Secret Realm" briefly slowed their initial expansion, with the "initial capital" of nearly two thousand Imperial Guard soldiers, the "Tai Sui" still managed to create an astonishing mixed army in a short period of time through snowballing tactics.

Faced with the overwhelming offensive, Fish's forces could only utilize their limited resources to conduct small-scale delaying operations, providing the island's inhabitants with an opportunity to evacuate. They fought for eight days before finally leaving Timor by boat, managing to evacuate over 26,000 islanders. However, even by the most conservative estimates, more than 10,000 civilians fell into enemy hands because they couldn't reach the port in time. Fortunately, none of them were members of Marie's Satter clan, as the townspeople were among the first to safely evacuate.

This at least means that the supply of high-end wigs, which are most favored by the nobles of the Duchy of Fayun, will not be completely cut off in the future.

Although the refugees had taken almost all the larger and still intact boats than bamboo rafts and canoes before leaving the island, and had thoroughly blown up the damaged ones, unfortunately, this did not have much of a delaying effect. Just one week after the last boat had left, a reconnaissance plane piloted by Lieutenant Kokoro, one of Fish's air force subordinates, discovered that a large group of unusual "boats" were growing on the coast.

That's right, it's "growth." These ships are all living organisms transformed from plants and animals infected by the "Tai Sui" through extensive twisting and deformation. According to Kokoro's report, the largest of these living ships is over 250 meters long and has an estimated displacement of at least 150,000 tons!

This is not a ship that people of this era could build.

Of course, upon receiving the intelligence, Fish and his group did not take immediate action—not because they didn't want to, but because they were too busy. While evacuating Timor Island, Fish and Ange had already contacted the Principality of Penglai and the Marquisate of Shisheng, so that these two allies would announce the events that had occurred on Timor Island to the world.

The public disclosure of the whole affair, and the subsequent attacks by the "Tai Sui" fleet, quickly triggered a chain reaction: the Fayun Regency Council, headed by Admiral Rissimer, which had usurped Fayun's power and had been assisting Dr. Iskander Lomonosov in his archaeological activities, almost immediately became public enemies and pariahs.

Subsequently, in order to distance themselves as much as possible from this massive scandal, the royal family swiftly issued an edict recognizing Ange's claim to the Duchy of Fayun and endorsing its legitimacy. This fundamentally undermined the resistance of the various factions that had previously been loyal to the Regency Council.

However, even with extremely weak resistance, it still took more than a month and a half for the vassal states, mainly the Duchy of Penglai and the Marquisate of Shisheng, to gather their fleets and escort Fish and Ange into Cangtao City. By the time the chaos within Fayun had completely subsided, General Rissmer and several other officers had been arrested and brought to justice, and Grand Duke Susan, who had been unwittingly installed by the Regency Council, had unwittingly abdicated, it was already two months after the "Prime Minister" had been released.

During this period, the military forces of the Principality of Fayun were mostly in disarray and incapacitated, failing to contain the spread of "Tai Sui" in the first instance. Neighboring Principality of Irian, New Vila Port, and other states like Oasis Port, while organizing interventions, lacked sufficient military strength. Their fleets could only barely clear out a small number of "Tai Sui's" vanguard and infiltration forces, and evacuate some residents from islands along the "Tai Sui's" expansion route, having virtually no impact on the overall situation.

Even so, the small-scale battles with the "Tai Sui" expansion vanguard still resulted in the loss of nearly a third of these nation-states' fleets. The withdrawn fleets reported that the enemy's biological warships were far more powerful than they had imagined.

Seventy-two days after the "Secret Realm" incident, "Tai Sui" occupied the entire Sulawesi region and launched a major invasion of Kalimantan.

By the seventy-eighth day, the scale of the organisms swept up by the "Tai Sui" swarm had reached more than ten thousand times its initial size. Some even reported seeing human ships sunk in previous battles covered and modified by these bizarre organisms, then put back into the fight.

On the eighty-first day, Kalimantan had lost half of its territory, and a few "Tai Sui" monsters, transformed from infected whales, had even swum to the vicinity of Oasis Harbor—only to be immediately killed by the coastal defense batteries. However, the only impact of this small "victory" was that it caused panic in Oasis Harbor and several surrounding island nations, with tens of thousands of people beginning to flee these areas, even affecting the operation of the Schelling Group's factories, which had been ordered to switch to military production.

On the 90th day, a portion of the "Tai Sui" forces invaded New Guinea and swept through Tidecaller Castle, the legal capital of the Principality of Irian. Fortunately, the main territory of this principality was located on the Australian continent, and even the Grand Duke's court and government were there, so the losses in this wave were not significant, but the humiliation was still extremely strong.

On the ninety-eighth day, with the complete occupation of Kalimantan and the fall of settlements in Java, the Principality of Fayun finally dispatched its reorganized fleet. With the assistance of the Imperial Navy sent by the Emperor himself, the fleet reached a size of one hundred warships and auxiliary vessels, including six first-class battleships of 15,000 tons, six second-class battleships of 11,000 tons, twenty-eight cruisers of various classes, two seaplane carriers, and many converted gunboats and patrol vessels.

Their mission is to stop the "Tai Sui" from advancing further into the core territory of the Principality of Fayun—Luzon and the Indochina Peninsula.

And today...

"My loyal vassal," after a moment's hesitation, the image of Anthemius III sighed—undoubtedly, what he was about to say was something he was unwilling to admit—"I received reports before dawn. Regarding the biological fleet we sent to confront 'Tai Sui' and stop its continued expansion, they…"

"What's wrong?" Although Fish had already guessed the fleet's ultimate fate based on the deductions made by Phoenix Flame, he still asked.

"They have met... a glorious end." The Emperor thought for several seconds before finally using this phrase. "All the battleships, twenty-two cruisers, and one seaplane carrier have been sunk. Casualties and missing persons... exceed 21,000. Only fewer than thirty small and medium-sized ships managed to break away and are currently retreating towards Cangtao City."

"Is...that so?" Even though he was mentally prepared, Fish was still stunned for a moment—the sinking of so many ships and the loss of so many people was an unprecedented and enormous failure in the history of the New Humans. At least in his memory, there had never been such a terrible precedent.

"A noble soul transcends the body; an early death is the reward for devout faith," Anthemius III murmured. This prayer originated from the great uprising of the new humans a thousand years ago, when the "heroes" used it to bid farewell to their fallen comrades: "It is the way it is, and we can only accept it."

"What about the enemy's losses?" Ange, who was attending the meeting, asked.

"Very limited. Your warning was correct," the Emperor said. "The Imperial Naval General Staff has conducted a preliminary analysis of the reports from the officers and men of the surviving ships. According to their preliminary analysis submitted overnight... the enemy forces encountered by our fleet may have hundreds of ships equivalent to our battleships, or even larger. The largest biological warship is over four hundred meters long, with an estimated displacement of... over one million tons."

"This is unbelievable. What about the firepower of these ships?" Luca asked. Although normally, commoners like her, without titles, wouldn't even have the right to speak directly with the emperor, no one cared about such things now.

"The enemy doesn't seem to possess the beyond-visual-range attack capabilities of the old civilizations. Although there are some flying creatures that appear to be mutated from giant seabirds and capable of self-destruction, they are at least within the range that our ships' air defenses can handle."

"Well, after all, the flight principle of living things is different from that of airplanes, and their carrying capacity is relatively much worse," Luca muttered.

"Yes. The problem is that there are huge live mines everywhere underwater—Captain Usagi, the captain of the cruiser 'Inaba,' who is currently serving as the interim commander of the remaining fleet, claims that those things are like the product of a particularly large mutated jellyfish."

"That's not surprising..."

"In addition, there were infected sperm whales—their brain oil bodies were replaced by some kind of powerful explosive, turning them into a group of giant living torpedoes. Our battleship 'Triumph's 'Suke', cruiser 'Awaji', 'Nuri-2', and 'Nuri-3' were all sunk by these explosive whales."

"My goodness..." someone in the audience shrieked rudely. Of course, Anthemius III simply shrugged, completely ignoring this disrespectful behavior in front of the monarch.

"...Our warships lacked the means to strike such underwater targets. However, the officers and men of the remaining ships bravely advanced to within 10 nautical miles and began shelling the enemy ship and launching torpedoes. However, the enemy ship appeared to be equipped with some kind of heavy bio-energy weapon, which could severely damage our capital ships with a single blow. The report indicated that the seaplane carrier 'Azure' was hit by only one blow before exploding and sinking. Only one person survived."

Antemius's speech was completely undisturbed. Everyone listened quietly to the end of the Empire's largest fleet: even heavy torpedoes or massive 350mm cannons were merely a tickle to those terrifying biological warships.

The entire battle fleet fought to the very end, paying the price of total annihilation, but only managed to destroy five or six smaller "Tai Sui" warships.

This loss amounted to only two percent of the massive invading fleet.

"...In short, that is all we know." After recounting what had happened, the Emperor of the Pan-Pacific Empire said, "My loyal vassals and nobles, what are your thoughts and suggestions on this?"