The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Swallowed? Swallowed by what?"

Although Fish had seen all sorts of monsters in the past that put humans on their menus—most of which were giant synthetic beasts created by those bastards at the end of the old civilization era—it was still too horrifying to imagine a living person being "devoured" in front of others in the blink of an eye.

Moreover, if these people were "devoured," then what exactly devoured them? Why can't they see anything on their sensors?

"This is a special evolutionary product that 'Tai Sui' created at the end of the Shura Star war, specifically targeting human armies. You can think of it as a kind of stealthy, ambush-specific biological weapon," Huang Yan said urgently. "In short, just burn it."

"Understood." Fish nodded. He knew very well that when Huang Yan seriously offered specific tactical suggestions, all he had to do was follow them. "Luca! Have your men set fire in the direction where someone is missing! Assault Team Two, fire support group, switch to incendiary grenades and fire in the same direction."

"No problem," Luca, encased in heavy armor, said in a muffled voice over the comms. Then, the Red Cat members began firing their heavy flamethrowers at their surroundings, unleashing blazing, destructive flames.

Meanwhile, the fire support group that Fish had specifically requested also began to move out—this group was part of a commando team composed of the fast clone girl he had rescued from the End of the North a few months earlier, equipped with up to ten 45mm semi-automatic grenade launchers and four 60mm light mortars, and carrying a variety of ammunition.

As Luca and her "Red Cat" crew burned what appeared to be nothingness, they loaded their weapons with white phosphorus and thermite incendiary warheads and then fired wildly behind the burning area.

As the flames rose, something in the jungle revealed itself: these enormous gelatinous substances looked just like slimes from a fantasy story.

However, before being surrounded by flames, they were completely transparent, and even the armored warriors' multi-functional sensors could not scan them. Only then did they gradually turn into a color like coffee jelly.

"What the hell is this?!" The moment Fish saw these things, the fur on his ears and tail stood up—after all, they had almost perfectly stimulated a vulnerable part of his mind.

"On Shura Star, military advisors call it the 'Invisible Hand'," Huang Yan said. "In essence, this thing is actually a relative of our intelligent combat armor."

"Huh?!"

"In short, like us, it is also an aggregate of a large number of specialized cells. However, the things that 'Tai Sui' creates are much simpler in function than intelligent combat armor. Their main task is to attack, capture, and devour targets with pseudopodia, just like amoebas. Their advantage lies mainly in their camouflage capabilities."

"In other words, the reason we couldn't see it just now was because..."

"These devices can not only change their geometric shape with extreme flexibility to hide or lurk in all kinds of areas—cave, canopy, soil, and even underwater, but their surface cells are also highly specialized, allowing them to cope with all kinds of detection almost perfectly: they can absorb or release heat energy according to the surrounding environment, form optical camouflage, and even absorb radar waves. Therefore, ordinary man-portable detectors are basically meaningless against them."

"Uh... how did the people in the past deal with it..." Fish had only uttered half a sentence when a somewhat blurry scene suddenly "flashed back" into his memory.

It was once again the distant, misty, pale purple planet of Shura, and once again, it was Singleton, the android strategist. This time, the android strategist was in a makeshift command post atop a mountain, speaking with several technical experts.

"...Sir Singleton, as per your request, we have investigated the newly emerged enemy specialized ambush attackers with mimicry, optical stealth, and radar stealth capabilities—the so-called 'Invisible Hand.' The Fleet Research Department has formulated emergency countermeasures. Currently, the following are the possible approaches," one of the experts stated. "First, after confirming the enemy's location, we can use specially made ammunition to scatter swarms of nanobots equipped with signal transmission systems. Upon landing on the target surface, they can report their location in real time and assist us in locating the target."

"That sounds pretty good," Singleton said.

"However, the problem is that the production capacity of these special dispensers is insufficient—as the scale of the battle with the enemy continues to expand, the fleet's production capacity is currently at full capacity. Although the logistics department has built a number of temporary production facilities on-site, the increase in production capacity is still insufficient to support the losses."

"This is really troublesome... If only we could 'grow' or 'feed' our weapons and ammunition directly, just like the enemy does."

"Reverse engineering of enemy bioweapons is also ongoing... but it's unlikely to be able to be scaled up and immediately applied on the battlefield in the short term," another technical expert said in a low voice, spreading his hands. "However, although the first countermeasure against enemy ambushers has encountered a production bottleneck, we have alternatives."

"Oh?"

"According to experiments, as long as the approximate location of the enemy can be determined, releasing a large amount of heat energy there can force the target to reveal itself," the technical expert explained. "Studies on previously captured specialized ambush attackers have shown that their optical camouflage structure becomes ineffective at high temperatures due to the denaturation of protein molecules on the cell surface. In short, burning them will solve the problem. Microwave directed energy weapons, incendiary bombs, and flamethrowers are the more recommended methods."

"Now that we can hit them with these weapons, it doesn't matter whether we reveal them or not, right?" Singleton said.

"That's not the case, Your Excellency Singleton. Experiments have also shown that these slime-like creatures can withstand high temperatures. While high temperatures may prevent them from remaining invisible, they cannot be killed or permanently damaged in the short term," the technical expert said, shaking his head.

"Then what should we do?"

"Well, while these organisms look like a polymer of a series of syncytia with different functions, some of these syncytia—you can think of them as large cells with multiple different nuclei—perform a nervous system similar to that of complex multicellular organisms. In addition, they also have brain-like neural centers to perform complex tactical tasks, and their nervous systems become visible to the naked eye after optical cloaking is disabled."

"Damn, I get it..." The next sentence didn't come from Singleton, but from Fish after seeing this sudden memory: "Everyone, pay attention to the light-colored structures that appear inside the enemies after they've revealed themselves! That's their nervous system. If you can destroy it, you can paralyze them! However, bullets have relatively limited damage to them. It's best to use the armored warrior's monomolecular blade to cut them directly!"

"Is that so? That's not difficult." Ange nodded, and a sharp blade quickly formed on "Golden Soup's" wrist. In an instant, she had already moved forward, taking advantage of the moment when the "Red Cat" bandit members paused their flame-breathing, and thrust the blade at the nearest slime-like monster.

The monomolecular blade easily sliced ​​through the surface of this thing, which was tougher than the rubber tires of an industrial vehicle, and cut through the light-colored neural structure inside. Then, the large mass of "invisible hand" stopped moving and turned into a pile of ordinary gel that looked like dirty jelly.

Taking advantage of the opponent's opening, Ange quickly approached the creature's spherical core... but was tripped by one of its pseudo-legs hidden under the ashes on the ground.

"Ahhh—"

In the instant she lost her balance, Ange discovered that the thing in front of her, like an amoeba that devours bacteria, suddenly opened a concave "mouth" on its surface, directly enveloping her and her armor inside!

Of course, since "Golden Soup" possesses top-tier protective capabilities among all intelligent combat armors, simply being swallowed by it didn't cause Ange any direct harm. "Hurry and help her!" Seeing this, Huang Yan quickly reminded Fei Shi, "What are you standing there for?"

"Okay, okay..."

Normally, Fish, with his wealth of combat experience, would have already used the speed boost provided by Phoenix Flame to charge forward and swiftly finish off his opponent. However, at this moment, he stood there in a state of panic, looking like a helpless novice. Only after Phoenix Flame reminded him did he reluctantly rush forward.

Worse still, compared to usual, Fish's concentration seemed very low during the battle. As he approached the target, the "invisible hand" extended three pseudo-legs, lashing out at Fish like whips, but he only managed to sever two of them. The third slipped through his defenses and struck him heavily in the abdomen. Had it not been for the protection provided by the Phoenix Flame, this blow would likely have shattered his internal organs.

"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?!"

Having lost the initiative, Fish failed to eliminate the target's central nervous system immediately. Then, two other "invisible hands" arrived, braving the flames that kept spraying onto them, and launched an attack on Fish, putting him in a difficult situation... until two flashes of cold light appeared, Fish finally managed to escape.

"I took one down first!" Frostleaf said proudly, holding up the beam saber "Moon Shadow" that Ange had given her.

"Nonsense! I was the one who went first!" Her old rival, Moon Butterfly, raised her slime-covered monomolecular blade with some displeasure, glancing at the pile of translucent, cut-open creature's remains at her feet. "Your damn sword-drawing technique has such a long wind-up! It's nothing like mine—hey, hey, hey, how could you sneak off?!"

Just as the daughter of a marquis from the Ten Victories Kingdom was still speaking eloquently, Frostleaf had already unleashed her prized skill for the second time. Her already highly refined swordsmanship, combined with the beam saber—a technological product from the late era of the old civilization—made the "invisible hand" that Fish had just struggled to deal with completely disappear from the stage of history within two seconds.

When Ange stood up from a sticky, semi-liquid mass, the surrounding air was filled with a stench like burnt jellyfish skin—the result of the beam saber's surface, covered in a layer of scorching plasma, coming into contact with the biological tissue of the "invisible hand."

"Huff...huff...damn, that was really tough," Fish said, panting heavily. "Thanks, both of you."

"It was nothing," Frostleaf said. "But, Your Highness Fish, your behavior just now seemed... a little off. Were you injured? Or were you feeling unwell?"

"No...nothing like that. If I had to say...it's not my body that's uncomfortable," Fish let out a long sigh. "I...I...I just...um...I just really can't stand sticky, deformable things."

"Why?" Shuangye asked curiously.

"Because... uh..." Fish wanted to explain, but he swallowed the words halfway through his sentence.

"Is it because you fought these kinds of monsters before and failed?"

"Th-th-this...it should be...right?" Fish's face turned completely red. Fortunately, Phoenix Flame's closed helmet completely hid his expression behind the mask, preventing Frostleaf from seeing it.

After all, it was absolutely impossible for him to tell the truth—what if Frostleaf and the others knew that his dislike of sticky things was actually related to that time he fawned over female customers in the Oasis Harbor bar abroad? More importantly, Luca, who was closely involved in this, was there, and back then, she was one of the regulars who loved playing strange games with Fish using all sorts of sticky and slippery things.

Rather, a large part of his current psychological aversion to sticky things comes from Luca.

"In that case, Your Highness, please continue to fight these guys with me," Shuangye said. "My family has a motto: the best way to overcome fear is to completely defeat it through material means."

"You're right." Although Fish's hands began to tremble, he nodded calmly in order to maintain the Grand Duke's dignity.

"In that case, I'll take charge of this task." Upon seeing this, Moon Butterfly immediately slipped between Frostleaf and Fish—although among all the participants, she was probably one of the more reluctant ones. However, when it came to a conflict with her nemesis, Frostleaf, she would never back down.

"Let me down." Frostleaf glared fiercely at Moonbeam, who glared back fiercely. Fish, caught between the two, silently sweated.

"Looks like you're in a bit of trouble," Huang Yan said.

"I'm afraid that's the case..." Fish swallowed.