The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Hey, hey! Trash lizard, I'm here!"

When a gigantic, pseudo-Gorgon woman stared at her with its sharp eyes, Alicia showed no fear whatsoever; instead, she smiled and waved at it. To the behemoth, this was clearly a provocation, so it lowered its massive head, specially designed for hunting large prey, and charged at the tiny challenger.

"Well, I think we should call it 'Trash Bald Chicken' instead, right?" Although the giant dinosaur had already charged forward, the people around Alicia didn't seem to care. They even joked with her in a relaxed tone, "After all, from a strict biological classification point of view, this guy is most likely just a chicken whose genes have been drastically modified."

"Who knows? Maybe it's a turkey or an emu," Alicia shrugged. "But either way, they're not bad."

"Gurgle gurgle gurgle gurgle—"

After letting out a cry that was hardly terrifying, the giant beast covered in brownish-brown, bumpy scales lunged at its target. However, Alicia and her companion, the newly acquired "clone" of Phoenix Flame, easily dodged the attack. Although the two seemed to be having a pleasant conversation, they had actually been carefully watching each other's movements and silently calculating when to evade.

And they did succeed.

Although a modern replica of a top predator, the pseudo-Gorgon's full-speed sprint far exceeds the running speed of an average human. However, this behemoth naturally has weaknesses, namely a limited turning radius and a lack of agility.

In the distant Cretaceous period, this wasn't a problem. But in an era without hadrosaurs or sauropods to hunt, this creature, and the other large ones in this "hunting ground," faced a real headache when confronted with opponents of smaller size.

After all, throughout the Mesozoic Era, the synapsids, relegated to the margins and bottom of the food chain, survived thanks to their excellent escape techniques.

Worse still, before this, thanks to their sense of smell, the dinosaurs, including this pseudo-Gorgon, could relatively effectively locate intruders through the green canopy of the jungle. But now, they couldn't do that anymore: the strong scent of incense rendered their enormous nostrils and well-developed olfactory bulbs completely useless. Although their riders quickly noticed this and began shooting out every candle they encountered with pistols and large shotguns, it was already too late.

Having lost their sense of smell as a means of locating predators, the massive dinosaurs were completely at a disadvantage in this game of hide-and-seek—of course, due to their numerical superiority, they could not be easily defeated by their opponents. The casualties caused by sporadic ambushes did not change this balance, but they also could not ignore those elusive creatures.

After all, even if these dinosaurs themselves couldn't understand the importance of the mission, their riders were quite clear—Katarina, who currently held command through the "Guanghan Palace" system, had issued a strict order that no intruders could be tolerated entering the control room connected to this cabin.

They will spare no effort to ensure the elimination of any potential threat.

So these behemoths could only continue circling around their prey, making futile attempts to attack time and time again... and each time ending in failure.

After all, when this "hunting ground" was designed, to cater to the client's stereotypes, the designers primarily prepared apex predators that hunted giant prey. Even slightly smaller creatures like the pseudoceratops and pseudocarnivorous dinosaur were deliberately made a size larger than their Mesozoic counterparts and given longer, sharper horns. As for dromaeosaurids, which actually threatened the safety of mammals, not a single one was prepared. It was precisely this "misconfiguration" that significantly increased the space for the four people who infiltrated the area.

"Hey, look at this! Come on!" After a few successful initial attempts, Alicia, now bolder, even began to actively approach these clumsy dinosaurs, pulling out a red tablecloth she had previously smuggled from another cabin. She waved it at several pseudo-Tyrannosaurus Rex like a matador waving a red cloth. Then… the female rider on the back of one of the pseudo-Tyrannosaurus Rex impatiently fired a shot at her, creating a large hole in the red cloth.

"That's going too far!" Faced with this "unsportsmanlike" behavior, Alicia had no choice but to abandon her plan to cosplay the bullfighting event and turn to run away. However, her opponent clearly had no intention of giving up, and immediately spurred his huge mount to charge towards the jungle where she had disappeared... However, it only took a few steps before suddenly losing its balance and plunging headfirst into the grass at its feet.

Thanks to the cheap-quality smart combat armor she was wearing, the pseudo-Tyrannosaurus Rider, though thrown more than ten meters by inertia and crashing into a large tree, managed to stand up unsteadily, seemingly unharmed. Unfortunately, her good fortune ended there: before she could even regain her footing, a crossbow bolt carrying neurotoxin was silently fired from her side and rear, striking her in the neck.

"Another one taken care of," Xiaoxing whispered, hidden under the optical camouflage. "Everyone, let's go."

Due to the extreme imbalance in absolute combat power between the two sides, this game of hide-and-seek involved very little direct confrontation from the very beginning—however, this did not mean that Alicia and her group could only passively run and hide. Relying on optical camouflage and their previously honed assassination skills, Xiaoxing constantly seized opportunities to counterattack by cooperating with the others during the game of hide-and-seek.

Since her main weapon, the mini crossbow used for assassination, was not very effective against the dinosaurs, Xiaoxing turned her attention to their riders. Without these riders, although the dinosaurs were still searching for them aggressively, their efficiency was significantly reduced.

"Time's almost up." After confirming that their target had fallen, Xiaoxing glanced at the mission timer in the corner of her helmet display—twenty-four minutes had passed since they began their operation. This was essentially the time Fish had asked them to gain. "Is Mr. Fish not ready yet?"

"Trust him, everything is proceeding according to plan," said Huang Yan's "clone." "We just need to... um—"

Before she could finish saying "as long as," a large, charred hole had already appeared in the chest of Huang Yan's white-haired loli "clone"—Xiao Xing was already quite familiar with this kind of attack effect. Most mid-to-high-level armored warriors' intelligent combat armor is equipped with energy weapons, such as semi-automatic ion guns, and when hit by them, the deceased are often left with this kind of open wound with charred edges and no bleeding.

"Ugh..." Huang Yan's "clone" moved her lips, as if she wanted to say something. Unfortunately, with most of her lungs burned away, she could no longer speak. Just as this "clone" collapsed helplessly, a figure with enormous breasts appeared on the branch of a tree not far away.

"Everyone, are you having fun playing cat and mouse?" Katarina looked down at the crowd and smiled.

"Tsk, it's that damn dairy cow!" Alicia muttered. "No time to waste with her, we'd better hurry... uh?"

With a tremor in the ground, more than a dozen pseudo-Carnotaurus, pseudo-Giganotosaurus, and even pseudo-Tyrannosaurus emerged from the surrounding forest and surrounded the group from different directions.

Seeing this, Katarina's smile widened even more: "Oh dear, everyone has come from afar. If I, as the host, can't even provide the most basic hospitality, then that would be too... inappropriate, wouldn't it?"

"Forgive my bluntness, but the legally registered owner of this wrecked ship turned to ashes probably a thousand years ago," Frostleaf, the most composed of the remaining three, replied. "In other words, Miss Cow, isn't it a bit inappropriate for you to say that?"

"Not at all, I think that's quite appropriate," Katarina smiled. "To be honest, the owner of this ship is actually still alive."

"Are you kidding me—"

"My master, Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov, is currently the owner of this ship—to be precise, at the end of the old civilization era, due to a series of complex factors, he held 2.75% of the shares in the operating company of the 'Moon Palace,' namely the 'Marvel Cruises' Entertainment and Yacht Group. Although the percentage is not large, since the other shareholders are currently in a state of... incapacity, and the company's manager, the yacht fleet supervisor, and the captain of the 'Moon Palace' are also unable to perform their duties, he is currently the temporary owner here."

"Tch, is that so...?" Alicia muttered, "We actually got on that madman's pirate ship."

"Oh no, Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov is definitely not a madman," the cow lady on the back of the fake Tyrannosaurus Rex raised a finger and gently waved it. "His wisdom and selflessness are beyond your imagination—of course, he also kindly stated that as long as you are willing to surrender immediately, your lives will be guaranteed."

"And then sit idly by and watch 'Tai Sui' destroy the civilization of the new humans? I'm sorry, but I cannot accept such a thing," Shuangye said in an uncompromising tone.

"Well then, perhaps I can only try to get you to accept it." Katarina spread her hands. "According to my calculations, it's not difficult—especially after you and your friends have walked right into our ambush in your self-righteous cat-and-mouse game. Our chances of winning are about one hundred percent."

"Yes, it's a pity you forgot to calculate the variables," Shuangye sneered.

"Variables? What variables?"

"Of course, it's the one on top of your head."

Just as Shuangye was speaking, a large hole was suddenly blasted open at the edge of the ceiling of the artificial jungle with a muffled thud. Then, more explosions rang out in succession like a series of firecrackers. In less than ten seconds, more than twenty large holes, each over a meter in diameter, appeared in different parts of the cabin, and huge amounts of air began to pour out.

"Warning! Warning! Sudden decompression detected! Situation assessment: Extremely dangerous. Emergency lockdown initiated!"

Amidst the deep, automated voice of the security system, all the entrances connecting this "hunting ground" to the surrounding area were suddenly blocked by airtight doors—meaning that those remaining inside would be unable to escape through these passages. Simultaneously, the vacuum created by the air gushing from multiple breaches sucked out everything unsecured within the "hunting ground." This included plants, trees, all sorts of creatures large and small… and of course, the dinosaurs.

The only ones unaffected were a small number of armored warriors: whether it was Xiaoxing, Shuangye, or Katarina, their intelligent combat armor could transform into completely sealed temporary spacesuits if necessary. Alicia, who was not an armored warrior, had already changed into a set of "protective skin" that she had found below.

This thin-film protective suit is an emergency life-saving device on board. It can be worn under an outer garment to temporarily isolate the wearer from vacuum and radiation. In the event of an accident, simply putting on a helmet and breathing mask allows the user to survive temporarily in a vacuum.

Unfortunately, the dinosaur riders weren't so lucky: their cheap smart combat armor, while providing similar strength and defense capabilities to the genuine product for a short time, lacked the life support system and enhanced sensors of a true smart combat armor, consisting only of simple gas masks.

This level of protection is barely useful when faced with suffocating toxic gases that require inhalation to be effective, but the problem is that at this moment, they are facing a deadly decompression.

The chaos lasted for more than ten minutes before the air pressure inside and outside the cabin was equalized. During this time, Xiaoxing, Shuangye, and Alicia could only retreat to a corner, securing themselves to the most firmly rooted tree with emergency rescue ropes, and then watch everything that happened around them.

Smaller creatures, including birds, poison dart frogs, insects, and small fish in ponds, were all swept out of the capsule by the storm as the gas escaped. Their fate was to orbit the moon with the water and gas, eventually freezing together and being captured by the moon's gravity, becoming a "hail" that fell on the surface of this lifeless satellite. The larger animals remained, but they too faced depressurization and suffocation.

For the first few minutes, the three could hear horrific screams: most of them came from the artificial dinosaurs, and some from their unfortunate riders. But soon after, all the screams began to fade and eventually fell completely silent.

That's right, in a vacuum, no one can hear your screams.