The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

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A week later, at midnight, at the naval port outside Cangtao City.

According to Mint, the chief lady-in-waiting in charge of etiquette, in the past, when the Grand Duke of Fayun went to war, hundreds or even thousands of nobles in plain white robes would cheer and raise their swords at him from the port. When the Grand Duke boarded the warship, a seventy-two-gun salute would be fired, and maids in white dresses would shower him with flowers.

Of course, these rituals have now disappeared—firstly, in the dead of night with almost no moonlight, even if they were done, few people would be able to see them; secondly, according to Fish's own orders, this operation had to be kept simple and secret.

Therefore, apart from a small group of noble representatives who came to see them off, the only other people in the port at this moment were the assault troops preparing to board the ship.

Although Fish initially planned to take only his companions with him, given that the mountainous region of the former Bougainville Island, now known as the "Drifting Continent," had been occupied by the "Tai Sui," a sizable combat force was necessary to hold the ruins with the space teleportation equipment long enough for Fish and his crew to be safely transported to their destination at a Lagrange point on the far side of the moon.

However, everyone knows that mobilizing a large army to forcibly enter the territory of "Tai Sui" is tantamount to suicide. Therefore, the assault team currently assembled here is a small but reliable force that Fish specifically chose.

Aside from Fish and Ange, who were reliable companions, the commando team consisted of only five hundred people, including one hundred children from the Northland, led by Alicia, who was of similar origin. They were originally created by the old civilization as disposable combat cannon fodder for death games, but were found by Fish by accident and brought to the Kingdom of Penglai.

As products specifically designed for combat, these seemingly cute and harmless beauties actually possess superior physical qualities and combat abilities compared to the Imperial Guard soldiers. Furthermore, the hundred people who have come here are the cream of the crop after receiving extensive combat training in the Penglai Kingdom.

The remaining group included Luca's forty subordinates—twenty of whom were mercenaries poached by the Sherlin Group from various explorer warbands at high prices, all of whom were highly experienced armored warriors. Their original mission was to protect the company's technological archaeology team in excavating valuable relics in the ruins of the old civilization era, but they had now become the "spearhead" of the assault team.

As for the other twenty people, they were veteran members of the "Red Cat" gang. Although they had not received formal military training, they had extensive experience in street fighting, and many of them were also very skilled at finding paths and clearing obstacles in narrow and complex enclosed spaces. Therefore, Luca brought them here as "special talents".

In addition, the assault team included a company of Imperial Guards sent by Anthemius III, and a company of the Grand Ducal Guards of Fayun selected by Ange. These men were among the most skilled and reliable combatants available, and included a large number of high-ranking armored warriors—including Fish and his companions, more than one-fifth of the five hundred men could wield intelligent combat armor. In the past, these men alone would have been enough to wipe out an entire army.

But now, everyone knows that their journey is destined to be fraught with peril. Yet, no one complains… after all, if they don't go, the fate of all living beings on Earth will likely be sealed.

When there is no way to escape, it is not very difficult to make people brave.

Of course, their vehicles were not warships, but large rigid airships used by the Imperial Army for long-range reconnaissance and search missions. These enormous, cigar-shaped aircraft, each 200 meters long, could reach a cruising speed of 80 knots and arrive near their destination within a day. Each one could carry half a company of assault troops, and two of them were even equipped with six small carrier-based aircraft each, which could be deployed in the combat airspace to provide some air cover.

Although these airships were clearly much more vulnerable than heavily armored battleships and protected cruisers, Fish chose them after careful consideration.

His choice was primarily based on the fact that, perhaps due to the lack of aerial threats on Earth at this time, numerous frontline observation reports indicated that "Tai Sui" did not seem to have many air defense measures. In other words, the chances of success were much greater if he stealthily infiltrated from the air than if he risked a breakthrough over the sea.

Although everything was kept simple, according to tradition, the first to board these airships was still Grand Duke Fish himself, followed by Ange. The third person was currently nominally the first among the concubines... Xiaoxing. In the previous "game," this girl, who had a faint presence but always seemed to have good luck, once again became the final winner by a twist of fate: due to Luca and Melu's elimination, and Moon Butterfly being held back by Frostleaf, she sneaked up behind Fish unnoticed.

Although Huang Yan gave Fish a final reminder, it didn't prevent Xiao Xing from succeeding: at close range, she fired the last three bullets from the miniature silenced pistol at Fish, scoring 480 points in one go—plus the 320 points she got from the two previous hits, giving her a decisive 800 points and securing first place.

As for second place, it naturally went to Frostleaf: since there's no concept of "fatigue" in the virtual space, she controlled the pace and stalled for time, putting Moonbeam in a situation where she couldn't win or lose—of course, Moonbeam herself realized that Frostleaf was "playing" with her, but her personality made it impossible for her to admit it, so she could only "cooperate" with Frostleaf, fighting until time ran out and Fish wouldn't be punished with electric shocks, before being elegantly defeated in one move. Frostleaf then naturally took the remaining 188 points.

Compared to the two who almost got all the points, the remaining three did not do so well: Luca got third place with 10 points at the beginning, Yuedie only got fourth place with 2 points, and Melu, who almost got a chance to take first place with her accurate sniping, could only get 0 points and be in last place because she was ambushed by Xiaoxing... Fortunately, the reason why she wanted to get the position of the Grand Duke's concubine was only to give her friend Shana a place to live in this era, so the ranking was not important to her.

After the Grand Duke's five concubine candidates boarded the airship, the ladies-in-waiting, led by Mint, followed—of course, they had all changed into combat attire. Then, fully armed soldiers also ascended the gangway.

Under the faint light of the crescent moon, these enormous aircraft one after another left the airship landing pad of the naval port and rose into the misty sky, embarking on what would likely be the last combat voyage of their careers. (Click to read Sokhov's masterpiece, *The Last Odyssey: The Fantastic Adventures of a Cat Boy*!)

"The weather isn't great today..." Fish felt a violent swaying as the airship "Wrath of Justice" ascended to an altitude of two thousand meters. According to real-time data downloaded by Phoenix Flame from an old weather satellite left behind by the ancient civilization, a not-too-strong storm would linger in the area between Luzon and New Guinea for the next forty-eight hours.

"That's good," Huang Yan replied. "We were counting on this storm to cover for us."

“That’s right,” Ange said. Although these military airships had separate VIP lounges for high-ranking passengers, according to the tradition of the principality, she and Fish stayed in the forward cockpit of the airship during the flight, personally watching the progress of these behemoths through the observation window. “At least, the current weather conditions are favorable to us.”

"If nothing unexpected happens, we will land on the edge of the northernmost large island of the Drifting Continent—well, this is it." Fish looked at a rather rough map hanging on the wall of the cockpit.

Because this fragmented archipelago lacked economic and military value, the Principality of Irian, which held sovereignty over the former Bougainville region, not only had few residents and troops stationed there, but had also long neglected surveying and geological work. Therefore, after searching through the archives, they only found a 1:500,000 scale map, which essentially only contained the outlines and contour lines of the islands.

Of course, Huang Yan's database does contain maps from the old civilization era, but in the modern world, where everything has changed drastically, they are severely outdated. In addition, by utilizing imagery data from surviving weather satellites in orbit, she also made corrections to the map, such as regarding vegetation coverage, and marked the locations of ruins found using the "Akasha Atlas" on the map. Even so, this map is still far from adequate as a military map.

However, this is already the highest quality map they have available. Under the current circumstances, they have no choice but to make do with it, whether they like it or not.

"According to the old data left by the Joint Operations Headquarters, there are mountain plains suitable for a landing site in that area—of course, they are currently covered by forests. But our airships carry fuel-air explosives, which can destroy a forest in one go, opening up a landing site while also crushing any enemy resistance we might encounter at first," Huang Yan said. "If you can return alive, I think it's necessary to give a proper reward to the military engineers of the Duchy of Fayun. It's quite unexpected that they were able to build that thing in such a short time based solely on the plan I provided."

"What is it?" Huang Yan asked.

"Now that things have come to this, you should be able to tell me what exactly this 'Unified Operations Headquarters' that issued you the orders is, right?" Fish said. "And what is your true purpose in assisting us? When we first met, you said I didn't have enough authority to know these secrets. But now..."

"Now, considering the series of tasks you've completed and the information you've already accessed in previous operations, the overall assessment is that your information access permission has increased from level 2 to level 8, exceeding the minimum access requirement of level 7. Incidentally, Princess Ange's access is also level 7," Huang Yan's tone suddenly returned to its emotionless, monotonous state, like a read-only program. "Therefore, I can answer this question now."

"Oh?" Fish, who had expected the other party to possibly refuse, felt a small surge of surprise. "Then..."

"Initially, the Joint Operations Headquarters was a military organization composed of natural beings established in 2388 during the late Old Civilization Era. Its responsibility was to formulate and execute military plans to protect Earth and all humanity residing on it. Later, the organization's functions expanded to the entire solar system," Huang Yan said calmly. "Therefore, its full name is actually the 'Solar System Defense Joint Operations Headquarters.' Of course, it is sometimes also called the 'Joint Operations Command,' or simply the 'Command.'"

"In other words, this was originally an organization from an old civilization era," Ange said from the side. "However, since you say it was like this 'initially,' can we assume that it was no longer composed of natural persons later on?"

"You're right," Huang Yan replied. "After the end of the old civilization era, there was no longer any confirmed activity of the old humans on Earth, or even in the entire solar system. Although my memories are incomplete, so I can't confirm where they went, I'm certain that after that, the Joint Operations Headquarters was switched to artificial intelligence control. The servers of these artificial intelligences are located in an unmanned space station in high Earth orbit."

"And then it just let us new humans take over the Earth? Doesn't that conflict with its 'protection of all humanity'?"

"I'm not entirely sure about that, but based on my guess, the humans of the old civilization era probably never considered that the new humans would raise the banner of rebellion against them from the very beginning. Therefore, they did not deliberately distinguish between the new humans and the old humans when formulating the rule of 'protecting all of humanity'," Huang Yan explained. "In short, after the end of the old civilization era, the functions of the Joint War Headquarters were also greatly reduced, but it still has two main tasks."

"Two?" Ange asked.

"Yes, the primary concern is preventing astronomical catastrophes. To date, the small body watch-and-defense network consisting of hundreds of deep-space outposts located between the asteroid belt and Mars' orbit is still operational. In the past thousand years, there have been five recorded interceptions of small outer solar system objects with diameters exceeding 100 meters that posed a significant threat to Earth."

After hearing the numbers Huang Yan reported, Ange shrugged: "Oh, then it seems we have to thank this Joint Operations Headquarters. The other mission is... to prevent the old humans from causing any major trouble on Earth?"

"Yes. Due to the misuse of technology by humanity at the end of the old civilization era, a large number of extremely dangerous 'legacy' items were left on Earth. Therefore, the Joint Operations Headquarters pays attention to the condition of these 'legacy' items. If there is a risk of misuse, we will try to recruit 'special agents' on Earth to deal with them... for example, you."