The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

Urgent! Major plot twist! Watch now!

"My lord!"

"Grand Duke?!"

"What the heck—meow!"

Although it had been over a year since he partnered with Huang Yan and embarked on a world-wide adventure of monster hunting and treasure hunting, Fish thought he should be able to handle all sorts of "surprises" with ease. But this time, he still almost couldn't escape a disaster: the barrel of the gun that fired the high-energy ion beam at him was less than five meters away from the door, almost point-blank range, and the ion beam reached him in a hundredth of a second.

Fortunately, Huang Yan once again temporarily took control of the intelligent combat armor in an emergency, causing Fish to bend backward like the protagonists in "The Matrix," barely managing to let the attack graz his nose. The ion beam, which missed its target, flew a short distance further, grazing the unfortunate Moon Butterfly's tail and igniting its fur, before finally crashing into the wall, leaving a black burn mark the size of a washbasin and a "firework" of light.

"Waaaaaaahh ...

Unfortunately, Moon Butterfly, slightly hit, scurried around like a frightened cat, clutching her smoking tail and flapping it in circles. However, the others paid her no attention—their focus was now entirely on Fish and the guy who had fired at him.

It was a cold, emotionless automated defense device exuding an unpleasant aura. A colossal "bacteriophage." In the center of its "head," the ion gun—no, its caliber was more worthy of being called a "miniature ion cannon"—that had just fired at maximum power, was still emitting an unsettling red glow, and it was clearly preparing to fire a second time.

Of course, Fish's companions wouldn't give it a chance. A second later, Frostleaf had already leaped to its side with its innate amazing jumping ability and sliced ​​it in two with its beam saber "Moonshadow".

"My lord, are you alright?"

"N-Nothing's wrong... Yeah, right, meow." Fish tried to stand up, but found that his lower back hurt as if he had just done several hours of strenuous exercise—no wonder, Phoenix Flame's emergency avoidance operations have always been so simple and brutal, to some extent, they're basically folding people like paper. It's quite fortunate that Fish's spine didn't break after being hit so roughly.

"The situation just now was unavoidable." Although Fish didn't complain directly, Huang Yan knew exactly what he was thinking. "Please lie down where you are. I will administer treatment and pain relief medication to you. Be careful not to interfere with the battle."

"fighting?!"

Upon hearing Huang Yan's words, Fei Shi noticed that there were still several active automated defense robots on the third floor. Most of them were the "bacteriophage" type robots that could adapt to various terrains in narrow spaces and were adept at climbing up and down. Each one was enough to pose a great danger to ordinary intruders, and even ordinary armored warriors would find it quite troublesome to encounter so many of them.

However, Ange and her group were neither ordinary intruders nor ordinary armored warriors. Therefore, the current situation was naturally different: after confirming that Fish was not seriously injured, Ange and her group allocated targets through the armored warriors' communication channel in less than two seconds and began to attack separately.

Ten seconds—that's the time it took for everyone to finish off their opponents using different methods. For Ange, it was dodging the opponent's electromagnetic gun fire and then delivering a precise shot with the plasma shoulder cannon; for Xiaoxing, it was quietly circling to the opponent's side and then aiming at the key weapon system for a silent execution; for Bohe, it was a precise shot in a "pistol duel" style before the opponent could fire. As for Shuangye and Yuedie, they both chose to rush in for close combat without prior agreement.

Of course, in the end, Frostleaf defeated its opponent by 330 milliseconds, beating Moon Butterfly to the punch.

"Damn it, you jumped the gun!" Moon Butterfly yelled after losing yet another match to her arch-rival. "No sportsmanship! Trying to cheat! Come on—"

"We're fighting a war, what's with all this talk of martial ethics?" Frostleaf said, casually swinging her beam saber behind her. Then, in the air behind her, a centipede-like machine suddenly materialized after being decapitated, before crashing to the floor—before this, it had cunningly disguised itself as a pipeline, waiting for an opportunity to ambush. Unexpectedly, its first fate was its own demise.

"Two to one," Shuangye said coldly.

"I... um... uh..." Moon Butterfly anxiously activated all the sensors on her intelligent combat armor, searching for any possible enemies, hoping to eliminate one to even the score. Unfortunately, the automated defense equipment in this area had already been completely wiped out by them, making it highly unlikely that they would find another easy target.

"That makes it safe down here too." After deactivating her invisibility and reappearing, Xiaoxing kicked the "bacteriophage" she had just dealt with. "But, something still feels a little strange..."

"That's right." With Ange's help, Fish, who had been injected with treatment drugs and painkillers by Huang Yan, finally sat up and began to examine his body. "Why did the automatic defense equipment on the second floor fall down, but the one on this floor is still there? This doesn't make sense."

"Maybe those guys who came down earlier couldn't withstand these automated defense systems and were all taken out?" Moon Butterfly asked.

"That's impossible. There are absolutely no corpses or bloodstains on this level. Unless it's a heavy energy weapon used for anti-vehicle operations, there's no way to completely vaporize a person like that," Ange retorted. "Of course, there's also no indication that a heavy energy weapon was ever fired down here."

"Besides, someone like the legendary Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov probably wouldn't die so easily, would he?" Shana added, following behind. Due to the dangers of the underground facility, Fish and the others had adopted a strategy of having the armored warriors lead the way, with the others without intelligent combat armor following behind. Therefore, Shana, Melu, Alicia, Luca, and Ange's two non-armored female attendants, Xiao Luo and Peanut, were all placed at the rear, only entering the facility after confirming it was safe below.

"That guy..." Fish shook his head—to this day, he still couldn't understand why Iskandar Lomonosov would unleash such a catastrophe upon this land. As for his identity, ideologies, and so on, Fish knew absolutely nothing. But his intuition told him that this man wasn't a madman, nor was he mentally deranged, nor was he one of those narrow-minded, vengeful individuals; his seemingly insane behavior had a purpose.

The only question is, what exactly is the purpose?

"Good news, Your Highness." After conducting a separate inspection with her two subordinates, Mint strode to Fish and Ange, bowed, and said, "We have found the spatial teleportation equipment you are looking for. Preliminary inspection shows that its power supply is normal, it is operational, and it has not been damaged."

"That's great..." Ange and Fish both breathed a sigh of relief—at least, the thing they were most worried about but hadn't said aloud after discovering that someone had entered here before them didn't seem to have happened: if Iskandar Lomonosov had destroyed the space teleportation equipment here in advance, with their current technology, even with the assistance of Phoenix Flame and "Akasha's Compendium," the chance of repairing it would have been extremely slim.

"By the way, those automated defense systems that are still operational seem to have been temporarily disabled due to the effects of an electromagnetic pulse weapon. The fact that the intruders didn't destroy them after they were disabled suggests that they may have deliberately left them as a 'surprise' for anyone who later finds this place," Mint added.

"Is that so? That's quite a 'surprise' indeed." After hearing this, Fish recalled the close call just now and couldn't help but feel a little scared.

"But if it wasn't to cause trouble, what was that guy's purpose in risking infiltrating here?" Xiaoxing asked.

"Well... let me think... could you check the device usage records?" Luca asked Mint.

"Of course." Mint winked at her two subordinates, who immediately sprang into action. After a while, they returned to Mint's side and whispered a few words of report.

"This teleportation device was indeed used," Mint said immediately, "twenty-four days ago."

"Hmm, the destination is..."

"Around the Lagrange point on the far side of the moon."

"As expected... it seems Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov came here to go to the far side of the moon," Ange nodded. "That's interesting. Does he also intend to seize control of the 'Pharsalus'-class planetary fortress?"

"At least I can't think of any other possibility, Your Highness." Mint bowed again. "That's very likely the case."

"No, I don't think so," Luca suddenly said.

"Why?" Fish asked.

"It's quite simple. If our current data is correct, while the 'Pharsalus'-class planetary fortresses aren't comparable to true spaceships, they aren't stationary space stations either. More accurately, these planetary fortresses are similar to floating turrets with autonomous navigation capabilities," Luca said.

"Yes, but it's definitely much better than that thing." Ange nodded—in the fleets of the Duchy of Fayun and some other vassal states under the empire, there exist so-called "floating gun emplacements" or "mosquito gun ships." Some also call them "coastal defense heavy gun ships" or "shallow-water defense ships."

These ships were typically light vessels with a displacement of several hundred to one or two thousand tons, carrying one or two heavy guns with a caliber of two to three hundred millimeters. They were capable of slow movement and were used to defend key locations. However, due to the lack of unified fire control and difficulties in coordinating firing, these ships were usually regarded as an auxiliary means and could not be used as main combat vessels. And now, these are the most numerous ships in the remaining fleet of the Empire.

These ships were typically light vessels with a displacement of several hundred to one or two thousand tons, carrying one or two heavy guns with a caliber of two to three hundred millimeters. They were capable of slow movement and were used to defend key locations. However, due to the lack of unified fire control and difficulties in coordinating firing, these ships were usually regarded as an auxiliary means and could not be used as main combat vessels. And now, these are the most numerous ships in the remaining fleet of the Empire.

"In other words, if your old friend has already taken over an entire planetary fortress, he's probably already heading towards Earth in one of these things," Luca continued, explaining his speculation. "While it won't be very fast—that's by space travel standards. Traveling four or five hundred thousand kilometers in twenty days shouldn't be difficult for it, right?"

"That's right," Huang Yan said. "When humanity first explored the moon in the old civilization era, spaceships were much faster than this. The top speed of the 'Pharsalus' class is one-five-hundredth of the speed of light, which means it would take about ten minutes to cover the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Even at economical speeds, it would only take three or four hours."

"But it hasn't appeared yet, which means two possibilities," Luca held up two fingers. "First, their operation to seize the 'Pharsalus'-class planetary fortress failed, or the planetary fortress cannot be activated; second, the other side has other plans, but their goal is definitely not to seize the planetary fortress and then blast us all into elementary particles."

Fish and Ange exchanged a few glances, and finally shook their heads together—there were simply too many mysteries surrounding Iskander Lomonosov, so it was obviously too difficult to guess what had happened under the current circumstances.

"Alright, since the equipment is usable, let's get me in," Huang Yan suggested after a moment of silence. "Whatever Iskandar Lomonosov did, since the equipment seems to be working, we'd better hurry up and continue the operation as planned. I'll recalibrate the coordinates and check the system for any traps left behind."

"Alright," Fish said. At this point, no matter how strange the situation, they had no choice but to act as pawns, desperately pushing forward, just as Huang Yan had said before. "Everyone, we have one last chance. The place we're going to may involve unimaginable risks, so I can't guarantee what will happen. If anyone wants to back out, then—Meow!"

This time, before Fish could finish speaking, he was suddenly slapped across the face. After the little stars flying around in front of him disappeared, he realized that the person who hit him was none other than Xiao Xing, who was usually quiet and rarely expressed her emotions and opinions!

"Your Excellency, what are you doing—" Because this happened so suddenly, even Ange, who was used to seeing all sorts of things, was dumbfounded. "Uh... um... may I ask you why you did this?"

"Because Fish...he asked that question!" Xiaoxing bared her sharp canines in anger, her small cheeks turning bright red. She began firing off a barrage of questions, "At a time like this, you still want to ask if anyone wants to quit?! Do you...do you really think any of us would want to abandon others at a time like this?! Don't you still trust us?!"