The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Phew... Is this really the end?"

As the "air pressure" reading on the environmental sensor on the helmet display finally turned a red "0", Xiaoxing let out a long breath inside the smart combat armor—of course, due to the relatively enclosed space, there was still some residual gas in this artificial jungle. However, for the sensors, this was meaningless. Any air pressure level that was completely unsustainable would simply be considered "0".

"I think that's true." Frostleaf shrugged, gazing at the now deathly silent jungle around him. Just now, many small plants had been swept away by the air currents. However, most of the larger plants, especially the trees with their extensive buttress root systems, remained in place.

Unlike animals, these plants do not possess complex and fragile internal organ structures, and even under the current circumstances, they are not yet dead. But eventually, they will become specimens covered in frost in a cold space.

Of course, the dinosaurs and their riders who had been guarding this place, ordered to stop any intruders, were all dead. After glancing at them a few times, even Frostleaf, who had witnessed countless carnages, quickly looked away, not wanting to see the remains writhing and convulsing in the pain of suffocation and decompression. "Alright, now we'd better hurry—"

"Hey, have you guys forgotten about me?" An annoyed voice came through the public communication channel after a high-energy ion beam grazed Frostleaf's helmet.

"Oh, no," Frostleaf reactivated her beam saber "Moon Shadow" after narrowly avoiding the sneak attack. "However, I judge that you alone are no longer a threat."

"Really? Then give it a try!" Katarina, who had survived thanks to her intelligent combat armor, screamed as she charged forward, her longsword becoming a blur of afterimages with its incredibly high swing rate. Although theoretically her swordsmanship was actually quite mediocre, at least for that instant, Katarina completely masked her weaknesses with her sudden burst of astonishing speed.

If it were any other inexperienced armored warrior, even Fish, who had only recently acquired the Phoenix Flame, they would likely have been overwhelmed by such a high-speed attack and defeated. However, Frostleaf merely sneered behind her helmet. Then, as the longsword and beam saber clashed repeatedly in the near-vacuum environment, large amounts of unstable plasma scattered down, looking like small fireworks released during a festival.

"Not bad, did you take a burst-enhancing agent left over from the old civilization era?" While countering each move, Shuangye even had time to mock her opponent, "I've heard of such a thing, it can significantly slow down the perceived time within a few minutes... but unfortunately, it's useless against me."

"How...how is this possible?"

"Because I know perfectly well what each of your moves 'will' be like, even if you speed up, it won't pose a threat to me," Shuangye replied. "Haven't you noticed? If I wanted to, I could completely induce your moves and choose the attack path for you... That's the difference in swordsmanship level itself."

"Damn it... I absolutely won't—" Katarina hadn't finished speaking when she suddenly collapsed to the ground, motionless. Behind her, Fish casually clapped his hands.

"Uh... Your Highness Fish, that battle just now was a duel between me and this guy, you..."

"Sorry, under normal circumstances, I would let you finish slowly." Fish, who had just stunned Katarina from behind, shrugged. "But the situation is urgent now, and we must cherish every minute."

"This... I understand." After taking a deep breath, Frostleaf had to force herself to suppress her competitive spirit, and also extinguish the blazing energy blade surrounding her beam saber. "It's safe here now, Your Highness."

"Of course." Fish shrugged. Just now, while Frostleaf, Sachi, and Alicia used the traditional skills of their Mesozoic mammal ancestors to distract their opponents by running back and forth in the jungle, Fish and the others sat in the incubation pod equipped with an escape ejection device and were ejected one by one to the outside of the "Guanghan Palace" under Shana's control.

Of course, since they weren't actual spaceships, these incubation pods were only temporarily fitted with a heat shield and equipped with several vector thrusters powered by compressed inert gas when ejected. However, for Fish and his team, that was enough. Shortly after being ejected from the hull, they followed the instructions displayed on the incubation pod's interface, controlling them to fly back to the vicinity of the "Moon Palace," then used the weaponry on their smart combat armor to cut open the hatches and land back on the spaceship's outer shell.

Next, Fish, Ange, Yuedie, and Bohe split up and, following the instructions provided by Huangyan, used a monomolecular blade to cut out ring-shaped indentations on the hull. They then filled these rings with strips of high-energy plastic explosives they carried with them, and attached detonators and blasting pins.

Because the "Moon Palace" had a rather sturdy hull, this operation took them a considerable amount of time and created quite noticeable vibrations. Under normal circumstances, such noise would almost certainly arouse the suspicion and alertness of the enemies inside the ship, giving them an opportunity to take countermeasures in advance. However, because Xiaoxing and the others' distraction operation was quite successful, Katarina, who was busy playing "hide-and-seek" with them, was completely unaware of the approaching danger.

When Fish activated all the detonators, blasting up to twenty large holes in the hull at once, it was too late for her to do anything.

"Phew... That bastard really screwed us over at Oasis Harbor last time." Although he didn't intend to kill Katarina, Fish was still furious when he thought about the previous Oasis Harbor incident, and kicked her in anger.

"It's alright, at least we won this time, Your Highness," Ange said, "and we suffered no losses."

"On the condition that you don't include my favorite 'clone' that I finally managed to get in the loss calculation," Huang Yan muttered somewhat dejectedly. "Now that all the others have been lost, it will be difficult for me to find a new clone for the time being."

"But you won't need it for now, will you?" Fish strode through the jungle, which was slowly dying in the cold vacuum, and arrived at the other end of this "hunting ground." Here, a double airtight door with an airlock was hidden behind a large tree by the illusion created by the "Virtual Paradise" system. However, for Fish, such disguise was meaningless.

"Hmm...not bad, the airlock is a lifesaver in times like this. (Latest update: The Final Odyssey, the Cat Boy's Fantastic Journey)" After using the Phoenix Flame Intrusion System to gain control of the door connecting to the near-vacuum "Hunting Ground" area, Fish carefully manipulated the system, first purging the gas from the airlock before opening the door. Then, after everyone entered the airlock, he refilled it with air before opening the other door connecting to the control room.

In the past, this control room, which served as the control center of the "Guanghan Palace," was spacious enough to accommodate up to eighteen crew members. Of course, normally only two or three people were needed to maintain the ship's daily operations with the assistance of automated systems. Only in the event of an accident or other emergency would a large number of personnel come here to carry out manual operations.

At this moment, apart from two semi-cyborg guards wearing semi-transparent long dresses with blank and wooden expressions, there was only one other person in the control room... to be precise, a man who looked very much like a white-haired little girl.

"Hi, Lord Iskandar," Fish said with a smile after their first meeting, "It's good to see you again since the 'Secret Realm' incident."

Unfortunately, Fish's enthusiastic greeting was not met with the welcome he deserved: the two guards raised their submachine guns almost simultaneously, and two well-hidden mini laser gun turrets quietly emerged from the corner of the control room ceiling, aiming at the intruders.

If it were anyone else, they might easily be caught off guard and caught off guard by this combo. However, for Fish and his group, who had already explored many ancient ruins and undergone extensive targeted training under Huang Yan's guidance, this little "surprise" was entirely expected.

Just three seconds later, both the semi-cyborg guards with the appearance of beautiful girls and the laser gun turrets hidden in the ceiling had been accurately hit by Fish's firepower and could no longer pose a threat. Their skillful coordination meant that they had chosen different targets without even communicating with each other, thus avoiding wasting firepower.

"I surrender."

Upon seeing this, Iskandar Lomonosov almost reflexively raised his hands and shouted, "Please don't hurt me! I just—"

"You almost destroyed the last hope of humanity on Earth, didn't you?" Fish said, walking over to his control panel. "Unfortunately, your 'grand plan' will probably have to be canceled."

"Not so," Iskandar Lomonosov, who was being held captive by others, gave a meaningful smile. "With all due respect, my plan cannot be considered a failure so far."

"Really? Let's give it a try... Huh?" After pressing several buttons on the control panel in front of him, Fish was stunned: although the control panel looked fine and undamaged, no matter what he tried to type, there was no response.

Others who tried on other consoles also got the exact same result.

"What...what's going on?!"

"I can roughly guess what that guy did," Huang Yan said. "Top-tier space cruise ships like the 'Moon Palace' have very comprehensive measures in place to prevent sabotage of critical facilities. This, of course, includes the possibility of deliberate sabotage by crew members. Therefore, it's difficult to directly damage the control console by physical means, but..."

"But what?"

"I think Dr. Iskandar Lomonosov probably exploited a loophole," Huang Yan explained. "After all, one of the anti-vandalism measures is to lock the automatic alarm system in case of misoperation."

"What is that?" Fish asked.

"It's a special system that automatically detects obvious erroneous operations and prevents them from causing irreversible consequences," Huang Yan replied. "If non-compliant operations occur frequently, it will automatically lock the system, just in case. Moreover, once locked, it can only be unlocked with authorization from a 'higher level'."

"Higher levels?"

"Taking the 'Guanghan Palace' as an example, if the captain's operating system is locked, the 'higher level' that can unlock it would probably be the management of the 'Wanbao Giant Ship' company," Huang Yan said. "However, even if any of those people didn't die a thousand years ago, they wouldn't be able to unlock it for us now."

"Oh, actually, you all don't need to worry so much. Even if you do nothing, the lockout will automatically lift after forty-eight hours," said Iskander Lomonosov, who was standing to the side with his hands raised and guns pointed at him by Xiaoxing and Ange. "So, how about we sit down here, have a cup of hot tea, and wait patiently?"

"..." Fish bit his lip and said nothing—considering the speed of the Farsalus-class space fortress that was hit by the "Guanghan Palace", even if they could regain control of the ship after 48 hours, they would not have time to escape the moon's gravity, let alone escape the fate of crashing.

"It's alright, we're not without options," Huang Yan said. "The control panel being locked doesn't mean it's completely unusable."

"real?!"

"Have you forgotten that I am, after all, a great achievement of past military technology? The security system of a civilian ship—even a high-level one like this—is not enough to completely stump me," Huang Yan said with a hint of pride. "At worst, we can just become the 'high-level executives' ourselves. It's just a matter of using some technical means."

"Then I, as a shareholder, cannot support it," Iskandar Lomonosov said.

"Shut up, you guy who only owns a fraction of the shares," Huang Yan said. "Mr. Fish, please sit in the first seat on the right and open the protective cover on the lower right. I will directly simulate the signal channel to make it think that a senior executive of 'Marble Cruises' is remotely operating this ship through a brain-computer interface device."

"Understood." Fish nodded and immediately did as instructed. Soon, after Huang Yan transformed a part of himself into an amoeba-like pseudopod and inserted it into the interfaces, a slight, electric-like stinging sensation pierced his spine.

Then, Fish felt a slight downward sensation, like being in a rapidly descending elevator. Strangely, however, he didn't see any ship control interface. Instead, a mirage-like scene appeared around him.

"Sir Singleton, are you alright?" As the previously blurry mirage gradually became clearer, he heard a somewhat hoarse male voice ask him. "The emergency meeting has already begun."

"Yes, I'll be online now," Fish "reply." However, he knew very well that it wasn't him speaking, nor was it something that was actually happening; it was a memory.

It was an extremely clear and real memory belonging to the man named Singleton.