The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

Cola Novels readers voted "The Last Odyssey: The Fantastic Adventures of a Cat Boy" as the best science fiction novel, ranking among the top!

"Less than we expected?" Shuangye frowned after hearing Huangyan's answer. "What do you mean?"

"This is my conclusion after I successively seized several 'clones'—that is, the cybernetically modified rapid clones produced on this ship for entertainment, security, and other purposes—and made a comprehensive judgment based on the information I read," Huang Yan replied. "Initially, I judged that the collision between the 'Guanghan Palace' and the 'Pharsalus'-class planetary fortress was not a coincidence, but rather the work of Iskandar Lomonosov. To this day, I still maintain the correctness of this judgment."

"Indeed... but why does he have to do this? Couldn't he just take over the planetary fortress himself?" Moon Butterfly asked.

"Obviously, that won't work—perhaps the difficulty of hacking into that military ship's systems far exceeds that of any civilian vessel, which is why even Iskander Lomonosov couldn't do anything about it. Or perhaps it's because when it was abandoned, its internal automatic defense systems were set to a read-only state of 'fire at whoever enters first,' and couldn't be overridden by remote commands," Huang Yan said. "In any case, it was precisely because he couldn't capture the planetary fortress that Dr. Iskander Lomonosov chose to settle for second best. He captured the 'Guanghan Palace,' whose defenses were far weaker than those of the warship, and used it to ram the planetary fortress."

"so……"

"Initially, I only estimated the time it might take for the two spacecraft to hit the moon based on their kinetic energy after the collision: when I finished the transfer, they were traveling at about 1.5 kilometers per second, and it would take more than 26 hours to hit the lunar surface. If we take into account the inescapable zone caused by the moon's gravity, we still have about a day."

"Only one day? That's already very bad," Ange said, frowning.

"However, while seizing several 'clones,' I also used their privileges to briefly access the navigation status data. The result was that the two ships were actually accelerating after the collision!"

"What's going on?!" Ange's expression turned even more grim.

"Because someone is still manipulating the 'Guanghan Palace' spacecraft, making it continue to accelerate in order to crash into the lunar surface as soon as possible," Huang Yan said, "therefore, we probably only have four to six hours left."

"But you said before that the Planetary Fortress's automated defense robots are trying to seize the 'Moon Palace.' Perhaps they will..."

"I'm sorry, but it's too late." Huang Yan's "clone" shook his head. "Although their numbers and combat strength have a significant advantage over the guards of the 'Guanghan Palace,' this cannot be translated into victory in a short time. After all, based on basic military common sense, defense is always a more advantageous way of fighting. And the guards of the 'Guanghan Palace,' relying on their terrain advantage, can completely rely on their home-field advantage to delay for a long time."

"It will take at least longer than it would take us to crash into the moon, right?" Shana asked.

"Oh, of course."

"Could we... arrange some kind of negotiation?" Xiaoxing said in a low voice. "After all, if this continues, the 'Guanghan Palace' itself will not escape disaster."

"I'm afraid the only people we can negotiate with on this ship right now are that cow lady who's determined to kill us, and Dr. Iskander Lomonosov—if he's really here and not somewhere else," Huang Yan said. "The other 'crew members' are either mindless meat toys or cyborgs who can only mechanically follow orders; negotiating with them is pointless."

"Tsk...can't we choose another route to the driver's cab?" Fish asked.

"No, I can guarantee that," Shana said. "Right after I was teleported into this ship, I managed to access the ship's computer system and check the situation of each part. I found that two of the three paths to the bridge were blocked by obstacles and could not be cleared without heavy engineering machinery."

"And the last way... is the way through the 'jungle'," Fish muttered.

"Yes, but that stubborn, unyielding cow is guarding there, and she also controls a large group of guards and their dinosaur mounts." Although her usual words and actions were very much in line with the etiquette of imperial nobles, even Ange subconsciously used the word "cow" when referring to Katarina, clearly quite displeased with her. "When we were first teleported onto this ship, half of us landed directly in that 'jungle' and almost lost our lives."

"Yes," Frostleaf added, "Based on my observation, the enemy has more than forty people, and an equal number of dinosaurs. All the dinosaur riders can at least temporarily exert combat power equivalent to mid-to-high-level armored warriors of the 'Agate' to 'Lapis Lazuli' grade—which means that our current combined strength is insufficient to break through. As a last resort, we had no choice but to retreat to the lower decks where the dinosaurs couldn't get in."

"The explosion before that..."

"We got our hands on some explosives and wanted to try blowing a hole in the upper deck to bypass the usual entrances—after all, all the entrances connecting the two decks are guarded by the enemy," Moon Butterfly said, spreading her hands. "In the end, although we took down two opponents, our plan was ruined... and we only had enough explosives for that one attempt, so we can't do anything like that again. What a waste."

"Wasteful? In terms of the outcome, we saved His Highness," Ange corrected. "Just considering that, it was more than worthwhile."

"But if you can't get into the cockpit and take control of the 'Moon Palace,' it's all for nothing," Moon Butterfly muttered. "Unless you have another idea."

After Yue Die uttered those words, everyone present turned their attention to the white-haired loli "avatar" that Huang Yan had recently acquired. After all, under the current circumstances, only this "crystallization of military science from the old civilization era" might be able to offer any constructive suggestions.

"Well... to be honest, not at the moment."

Contrary to the high expectations that she would come up with some brilliant plan to solve the current predicament, Huang Yan's first words stunned everyone. However, she simply shrugged at this reaction: "I'm sorry, but under the current conditions, I really can't think of any action with a high probability of success—of course, if all else fails, I can devise a plan to forcefully break through the enemy's blockade. But even in the best-case scenario, the success rate of this plan would not exceed 22%, and it would inevitably result in heavy casualties. After all, the enemy's defensive position is very advantageous, and they currently hold the upper hand."

"Even you..."

"However, my judgment is based on the 'conditions we currently have'," Huang Yan added as Fish showed a frustrated expression, "but I highly doubt whether you have a full grasp of the current situation."

"I've connected to the ship's security system and checked all the areas around here." Shana walked to a terminal, turned it on, and pulled up a digital map, along with a list of corresponding surveillance video feeds and audio data. "These techniques were taught to me by my parents. I can guarantee the quality of this data—"

"Oh, your parents are outstanding scientists, the elite of society, and also rare people with normal morals in the late Old Civilization Era," Huang Yan said. "However, they are obviously too upright, so they certainly didn't teach you any interesting little facts."

"ha?"

"For example, what do you think these black areas are for?" Huang Yan pointed to the large black areas on the digital map.

"That...maybe it's storage space for fuel and other supplies on the ship, or a structure used to reinforce the hull?" Shana was stunned. Before this, her focus had been entirely on the marked compartments, and she hadn't paid any attention to these black areas.

"Oh, perhaps some of the black areas are for this purpose. But for a ship, so many unmarked areas are unusual," Phoenix Flame's clone patted Fish on the shoulder. "Everyone, please follow me. I'm afraid the clue we're looking for to break this deadlock lies within these areas."

"Ah, okay." At Huang Yan's signal, Fish quickly led the group to one of the dark areas. Here, he saw a door covered in gilded reliefs. Hundreds of intertwined human figures were carved on it, clearly indicating that...

"My lord? Why is your face red?" Anjie stared at the door but did not react.

"I know, it's the effect of the 'Virtual Paradise' system," Fish clapped his hands and muttered to himself—judging from the reactions of the others, it was probably just an ordinary wall in their eyes. "Come with me."

Then Fish opened the door covered in reliefs. Just as he expected, the black area behind it was actually a room that wasn't marked on the electronic map.

However, there was nothing in the room that interested him. Instead, there was a huge X-shaped bondage frame, a large bed covered with white sheets, a rocking horse, metal shackles, a toilet, shelves full of whips and low-temperature candles, and even leather bondage suits and blindfolds. Clearly, this was…

"Meow meow meow meow meow!" Ten seconds after opening the door, Fish, his face flushed and heart pounding, quickly pushed all the girls out of the room and closed the door—although, given the ship's overall design, such a room was perfectly reasonable. But at this moment, especially in front of so many women, its presence was extremely inappropriate. "Uh, this...this doesn't seem to be the place we're looking for!"

"Agreed," Huang Yan said. "We...we'll continue investigating other areas."

In the second suspicious black area, Fish again saw a door that was disguised as an ordinary wall by the "Virtual Paradise" system—a very "artistic" door. This time, Fish learned from his previous mistake and didn't even try to open the door; he simply chose to make a quick getaway.

Fortunately, the situation in the third black area was somewhat different—compared to the previous two areas, although it was also disguised as an ordinary wall by the "Virtual Paradise" system, the door blocking the entrance didn't look "artistic" at all; instead, it was a rather plain and unadorned ordinary blast door. On the door, one could also see a huge black and yellow exclamation mark warning sign, as well as the words "Unauthorized personnel are not allowed to enter."

"Can it be opened?" Fish asked Phoenix Flame.

"No problem at all," Huang Yan replied. Then, her "clone" quickly stepped forward, manually entered a password on a hidden control panel, and opened the heavy door.

This time, what appeared inside the door was no longer the "entertainment equipment" of before—but rather a large number of cylindrical containers with a thin layer of white frost on the inside, along with a whole host of life support and monitoring equipment. Thanks to his experience from repeatedly entering various facilities from the old civilization era, Fish immediately recognized what these things were.

"Cultivation chamber?"

"Correct," Huang Yan said. "And it's high-end stuff. It's not the cheap, semi-cyborg, fast-cloning kind of equipment used to produce high-end 'souvenirs' for customers."

"A 'souvenir'? What's that?"

"In short, a 'pet' that can be taken home... In the old civilization era, this was the original definition of what is now called 'new humans'," Huang Yan said. "It's quite normal for tourists who have had a good time on the 'Guanghan Palace' to take a 'pet' home to raise."

"Yeah, that's normal..." Fish muttered. Although these absurd facts of the old civilization were quite infuriating to him as a new human, after gaining sufficient understanding of that era, especially after meeting Shana, a genuine person from the old civilization, he could now, to some extent, "understand" the thoughts and ideas of the people back then.

"Hmm, quite a few of these 'pets' are actually male?" Shana, following behind Fish, frowned as she read through the labels on the incubation pods. "Don't tell me female tourists come to this kind of indecent place..."

“Miss Shana, I have no doubt that you would never come to a place like this,” Huang Yan replied. “However, quite a few women have indeed come to the ‘Moon Palace’ in the past—and quite a few male tourists have ‘that’ need as well. This is an old tradition that has lasted for thousands of years in human history, and strictly speaking, it does not belong to the so-called ‘moral depravity’.”

"However," Fish shook his head after walking past dozens of incubation chambers, "it seems there are only these incubation chambers here, and we don't find what we're looking for."

"Not at all." Huang Yan's "clone" sneered. "In fact, we've probably come to the right place. Look at this."

"Hmm... there's nothing here." Fish shook his head after glancing in the direction the white-haired loli's little hand was pointing. The place she was pointing to was an empty slot in a row of incubation chambers. There might have been an incubation chamber there before, but now, for some reason, it was completely empty.

"So, do you want to guess why there's nothing here?" Huang Yan continued to ask.