The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Different? How are they different?" Fish asked, observing the dense, lush greenery outside the elevator doors.

"First of all, the quality of the materials used is different," Huang Yan said. "The underground forest in the 'maze' last time was only a part of the vines and herbs that were real. Most of the trees were models made of concrete and silicone and were decorated using the 'Virtual Paradise' system. But the plants here seem to be real, and there are quite a few rare plants."

Just as Huang Yan was speaking, a brightly colored frog jumped off the pitcher of a large pitcher plant and landed at Alicia's feet. The latter curiously bent down and stretched out a hand... only to be immediately stopped by Huang Yan.

"Stop! Don't touch it!" Huang Yan said. "This is a poison dart frog whose skin secretes toxins! And it's the real thing, not an illusion! If you have any minor cuts or wounds on your hands, it will be dangerous to touch it."

"Whoa!" Hearing Huang Yan's words, Alicia was so frightened that she quickly withdrew her hand. Then, two more small frogs with bright gold and light red spots on their skin hopped past her, making Alicia take a step back in fear.

After the poison dart frogs left, a hairy spider, as big as a fist, crawled over. Its imposing appearance even made Fish's ears and tail hairs stand on end. "Not bad, it seems they actually keep real jungle animals here," Huang Yan added. "These short-lived creatures must have had a hard time being cared for on the spaceship all this time, unlike vegetation which has lower maintenance costs. I guess they were probably in a state of cryogenic hibernation and were only just awakened."

"Uh... but then again, I thought only the 'Guanghan Palace's' defensive mechanisms would be activated after the impact," Fish said.

"Theoretically, that should be the case. However, it seems that someone blindly tried to activate the ship's systems, causing many unnecessary systems to be activated as well," Huang Yan speculated. "This person probably knew how to access the systems, but had no practical experience operating the 'Guanghan Palace' and couldn't distinguish the specific differences between the various systems, so they had to use an exhaustive method to try. As a result, some other subsystems were accidentally activated."

"There's only one guy who would have the means and the motive to do this..." Fish muttered, "Dr. Iskander Lomonosov."

"Yes. This guy is probably directly responsible for the 'Moon Palace' crashing into the planetary fortress," Huang Yan agreed. "By the way, another difference between this place and the 'forest' we encountered in Twilight City is the level of danger. Based on the information I obtained from the guard maid's memories, there are no chimeras commonly found in death gladiatorial combat here, nor are there any death traps or similar methods."

"Great, at least we don't have to worry too much about the others." Fish breathed a sigh of relief—although people like Ange, Xiaoxing, and Shuangye could handle most dangers because of their strong combat abilities, there was also Shana among their companions, whose combat power, while not zero, was essentially negligible. If she encountered danger alone, her situation would be very troublesome.

"Not entirely," Huang Yan said. "Although the guard maid I'm occupying doesn't know much about this kind of knowledge, she at least knows that this mini artificial jungle, covering an area of ​​200,000 square meters, is the central part of the 'Special Games Area.' It's mainly used for 'Beautiful Girl Hunting Operations'... Of course, she doesn't know the specifics."

"A beautiful girl hunting expedition? Hey, does that mean we go hunting together with beautiful girls?" Alicia asked.

"I don't think so," Huang Yan retorted.

"They might also be targeting beautiful girls like you as prey," Fish muttered. "Given the behavior of those scoundrels from the old civilization era, they're capable of doing something like that."

"Possibly, but not necessarily—after all, if it's just 'hunting' aimed at quickly replicating humans, there are already quite a few such activities in the arenas on Earth. By the standards of this place, it seems a bit 'not high-end' enough," Huang Yan muttered to himself, as he had his clone carry the newly captured laser carbine and walk at the front. "I've heard similar rumors before. But unfortunately, because so much time has passed, the relevant memory files can't be retrieved right now..."

"I hope it's not something too terrible," Fish muttered.

"The good news is that there are no signs of battle here, which means that the combat robots from the planetary fortress haven't arrived in this area yet. Theoretically, going directly through this jungle is the shortest route to the cockpit of the 'Moon Palace'." Huang Yan slowly parted the vegetation and came to a relatively open area. In the center of this area, there was a huge tree with a treehouse on its top, the purpose of which was unknown.

"Excellent, thank you to those guards and maids for buying us time," Fish said with a sigh, recalling the numerous traces of gunfire he had seen along the way. Both the guards of the "Moon Palace" and those who had boarded from the "Pharsalus"-class planetary fortress had truly done their best. "Let's search for the others while we head to the cockpit."

"Okay." Alicia had just replied when she suddenly held her breath.

She heard a rustling sound as branches were pushed aside. Clearly, some large animal was approaching.

"What's that? An elephant? A rhinoceros? Meow!" Fish felt uneasy after sensing the tremors coming from the ground. Then, he saw a huge figure suddenly rush out of the jungle not far behind him.

This is a huge animal with grayish-green skin, over six meters long, that walks on two strong legs. Its enormous mouth is filled with sharp, scimitar-like teeth, and a horn about the length of a hand grows from the tip of its nose.

Even more astonishingly, it was equipped with a simple saddle on its back, upon which rode a young girl. This girl was a typical large-bottomed, blonde, busty woman, dressed in an outfit that could barely be considered hunting attire, but also somewhat resembled cowboy clothing… However, aside from the high boots with spurs and the wide-brimmed cowboy hat, the rest of the outfit used at least 70% less fabric than normal. The girl held an old-fashioned hunting air rifle, watching the three with the expression one would use to spot prey.

"What the hell is this?!" Alicia screamed.

"Uh... as far as I know, it seems to be some kind of theropod dinosaur. It seems to be called... Ceratosaurus?" Huang Yan muttered.

"Wasn't that thing extinct?" Fish asked.

"That depends on your definition of 'extinction'," Huang Yan said as the animal roared at the three of them. Thankfully, while the creature's roar was loud, the "clucking—clucking—" sounds weren't frightening enough. "As far as I know, this one shouldn't be extinct yet—ahhh!"

Before Huang Yan could finish speaking, the girl riding on the back of the horned dragon had already raised her hunting air rifle and silently fired a shot at her "clone." Fortunately, due to her timely reaction,

Huang Yan's clone quickly lowered his head, only to have the maid's hairband knocked off by the lead bullet.

The problem was that this limited-powered hunting air rifle was clearly just an appetizer. The real "feast" was the strange, clucking, horn-nosed dragon with dozens of curved teeth and a massive maw. As the behemoth charged, Huang Yan's clone immediately raised its laser carbine and fired over a dozen laser beams at its head.

The results were outstanding.

These laser beams easily burned through the horned head of the ceratops, evaporating everything inside. The only problem is that, while laser carbines have many advantages such as low noise, no need to calculate ballistic wind drift, no recoil, and being environmentally friendly, they have one drawback: they lack stopping power.

Unlike the animals on the African savanna who were stopped immediately by the powerful impact of being hit by heavy elephant guns, this Ceratosaurus, although literally brain-damaged, still retained the ability to continue its "brainless charge" for a distance by relying on inertia.

As a result, even after part of its brain had been destroyed, the Ceratosaurus still charged forward a distance and pierced the chest of Phoenix Flame's "clone" with the horn at the front of its head.

"Damn it! I miscalculated." As its chest was pierced, the horned dragon finally stopped moving. Its several-ton body pressed down on Huang Yan's "clone," rendering her completely immobile. "I... I quite like this body."

"Yes, should we get a better one?" Fish didn't mourn for Huang Yan's "death" for a moment—after all, he had already witnessed several times how Huang Yan's various "clones" were literally dried up, burned, and destroyed, so he had developed a certain "immunity." Moreover, he knew very well that such a loss was nothing to Huang Yan.

"Oh? When did you become so nice to me?" Huang Yan's "clone" spat out a mouthful of blood and muttered.

"Under the current circumstances, your ability to control clones can be considered as adding some combat power to our side. Combat power is always better the more the better." Fish took two steps back, still holding up the monomolecular blade and ion gun in his hand, remaining vigilant—although the horned dragon was already dead, the object he was originally wary of was not that guy.

The busty blonde woman riding on the back of a dinosaur was his real target.

After confirming that her vehicle was no longer moving, the blonde girl raised her air rifle and fired a shot at Fish's face—of course, the bullet's low initial velocity posed no threat to Fish. He simply raised his hand and used his arm armor to deflect the insignificant attack.

However, taking advantage of the moment Fish was forced to defend himself, the busty blonde woman leaped down, a short sword identical to Fish's suddenly appearing in her hand. In the next instant, Fish, purely on reflex, raised the short sword and parried the opponent's seemingly inevitable attack.

"As expected..." Fish muttered after both of them stepped back at the same time.

"You noticed it from the start? Not bad, you've improved." After the clone breathed its last, Huang Yan used the "main body's" amplification device to talk to Fish again.

"Is that difficult?" Fish countered. "We encountered the exact same situation in Oasis Harbor last time. With that experience, I could tell at a glance that this lady's attire was actually not revealing at all."

"That's true. I must say, your learning ability isn't bad," Huang Yan said. Just as Fish said, although this blonde, busty woman's clothing initially appeared to cover less than 30% of her body, in reality, she revealed almost nothing—most of her "exposed" skin was merely optical camouflage on the surface of her tight-fitting armor. "My conclusion is the same; she's wearing the same disposable intelligent combat armor as those fast-cloning armored warriors we encountered last time. Only, it's more powerful."

How tall is it?

"Reaching the so-called 'lapis lazuli' level of this era—which is the fourth level of armored warriors, only slightly lower than Ange's 'golden soup'."

"Holy crap—are they even tougher than those guys from the 'Short Skirt Pirates' last time?" Fish couldn't hold back any longer.

"Isn't this normal?" Huang Yan retorted directly. "After all, it's the difference between high-end and regular products. It's only slightly better than one level, so the improvement isn't that significant. By the way, these 'high-end' products are also more durable, so they can withstand multiple uses and longer periods of use when using the same inexpensive version of the smart combat armor."

"I think that's obvious enough!" Fish executed over twenty thrusts, dodges, and blocks in just a few seconds, his speed so fast that an ordinary person could barely see a blur—but even though he was giving it his all, his opponent could keep up with his movements and even trade blows. Unlike ordinary humans or low-level armored warriors, who were easily defeated in a few moves, Fish was much stronger. "Why are there such powerful guys in the 'Special Games Zone'? I thought there would only be some... embarrassing stuff here..."

"Well, because some rich people have very peculiar tastes," Huang Yan explained. "I just remembered... because they've been in a superior position for so long, these guys—regardless of gender—seem to want to try being the 'subordinate' in some way. Being hunted by a beautiful girl riding a dinosaur in the forest, and then being captured and forced to do certain... very special things, is something that excites them very easily."

"Uh, but I think the chances of being hunted by such fierce beauties are pretty high... Hmm, maybe they don't care?" After suddenly remembering that the old civilization had such a bug-level convenient technology as consciousness transfer and implantation, Fish immediately realized how ridiculous his concerns were—perhaps the bodies used by the "players" back then as "prey" here were also the same kind of beauties as these dinosaur riders.

After several more rounds of fighting, the battle finally ended in Fish's victory: of course, this was not entirely due to his combat experience and the advantages brought by the performance of Phoenix Flame itself, but also because he had helpers on his side.

While most people would hesitate to act for fear of accidentally injuring themselves when faced with two figures locked in close combat, their forms intertwined, Alicia, who was anything but "ordinary" from the moment of her birth, seized the opportunity. She picked up the air rifle that fired large-caliber lead bullets, discarded by the opponent who had just struck Fish, and fired a shot at her. The blonde, busty woman's cheap-version smart combat armor, while preventing the bullet from penetrating directly, couldn't stop the impact.

"Phew, is that all...?" After sending her opponent flying several meters away, flailing her arms and legs, before crashing headfirst into a clump of bushes, leaving only her bare thighs exposed, Alicia let out a long breath.

"I'm afraid... not yet." Fish said in a low voice as the ground shook again.