The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Hey? Prince Fish, please don't disturb me! Can't you see I'm dealing with a threat?" Just as Phoenix Flame shouted at her, Mint had just aimed at something with a tubular weapon mounted on the left arm of her smart combat armor—although in Fish's eyes, there was nothing in the direction she was aiming at except for a few clumps of ferns, Xiaoxing and Ange looked nervous.

"Miss Mint, there's nothing in front of you!" Fish quickly said.

"My lord, please don't joke around." Ange shook her head in confusion. "There... there's clearly a Blazing Rhinoceros over there! That's a B+ level synthetic beast, very dangerous! How can you say there's nothing there?"

"This..." Fish paused, taken aback. Having briefly perused a compendium of synthetic beasts and autonomous weapons in Moore's collection aboard the "Wave," he knew what the Scorching Rhinoceros was: this creature resembled the black rhinoceros, which had gone extinct at the end of the old civilization era, but was much larger, standing 3.5 meters tall at the shoulder and weighing over five tons. Most importantly, its body was covered with numerous ugly nodules filled with hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. When an opponent approached, these substances would mix together, spraying out a high-temperature, corrosive venom that burned its target.

In short, although it is not particularly aggressive, the Blazing Rhino is still a very dangerous chimera due to its terrifying destructive power and deserves high vigilance...

...But the problem is, there was nothing there at all where Mint was aiming!

"Wait, I see!" After a brief moment of confusion, Fish finally realized why Mint was doing this. "Be careful, that's an illusion created by the 'Virtual Paradise' system! Miss Mint, don't fire yet!"

"Huh? An illusion?!"

Upon hearing Fish's words, Mint paused briefly—of course she knew of the "Virtual Paradise" system. However, Fish's words alone weren't enough to completely convince her. After all, Mint had never encountered anyone who could walk through ruins unaffected by such a system, nor had she ever heard of anyone possessing such an ability.

Therefore, she naturally could not imagine that someone could see through the illusion created by "Virtual Paradise" without any testing.

"I'm serious! Don't make any rash moves, or else—"

Unfortunately, before Fish could finish speaking, the blazing rhinoceros image simulated by "Virtual Paradise" launched a fierce charge towards Mint. Unable to determine its authenticity in time, Mint opted for the safest possible countermeasure.

She fired at the image using the weapons built into her combat armor gauntlets.

Mint's combat armor "Jade" comes with a laser pistol as its main weapon. Although its incredible energy consumption results in a very short continuous firing time, its instantaneous power is enough to burn through most unprotected targets in just a few hundred microseconds of irradiation.

However, since the chimera charging at her didn't exist at all, the beam of light, after passing through the air, first ignited a clump of ferns, and then hit something hidden behind those ferns.

Then, as a blinding light suddenly enveloped everyone, Fish's consciousness temporarily vanished in a dizzying spin. In his last instant, he tried to grab Ange and Xiaoxing's hands, but he only grasped thin air...

The world began to fall.

"Meow... Am I... Am I still alive?"

After a period of hazy, dizzy sleep, Fish regained consciousness on something cold and soft. For a moment, he thought he was still sleeping in the dormitory on the Wave, but his memories quickly returned.

"Oh right, the 'Wave' has been sunk to the bottom of the sea by me now," Fish thought, rubbing his eyes. Of all my companions who slept in the communal room with me, hoping to achieve great things on the adventure, only Xiao Xing survived.

So...right, where's Xiaoxing?

The thought of his teammates' safety instantly roused Fish. He quickly sat up from the cold, soft lump and began to look around... Then, in his extreme surprise, the fur on his ears and tail stood on end.

"Don't be afraid, Mr. Fish," with a flapping sound of wings, Phoenix Flame's fairy-type remote terminal landed on Fish, who was in a state of panic. This reassured Fish a little. "Stay calm, you're safe for now."

"Where...where am I?" Fish tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down, but he wasn't very successful.

He remembered that before he was enveloped in the dazzling light and lost consciousness, he was clearly near the lush mangrove forest on the edge of the island. Now, he found himself in a closed room without doors or windows, with the walls, ceiling, and floor covered with the soft cushioning typical of the residences of mental patients.

For a fleeting moment, Fish even began to wonder if everything he had experienced in Twilight City was merely a figment of his imagination. Was he actually mentally unstable, and thus had been confined to a mental hospital in Oasis City?

However, he quickly dismissed the idea—even setting aside the Phoenix Flame he was still wearing, the mental hospital in Oasis City wouldn't have such good conditions. Due to years of lack of expansion, it was always overcrowded. Rooms this "spacious" typically housed more than a dozen people.

"Hmm, according to my information, it seems your friend just triggered a teleportation trap, which ended up sending us here," Huang Yan said in a casual tone.

"A teleportation trap? Isn't that something you only see in labyrinths in third-rate fantasy novels?"

"Hmm, so third-rate fantasy novels of this era are still using clichéd plots from the old civilization era?" Huang Yan's remote terminal showed a slightly surprised expression. "However, in a sense, the story does come from reality."

"You mean what you just said was true?"

"That's right. That thing was actually a byproduct of human research into faster-than-light travel in the early 22nd century," Huang Yan said. "In short, it was a rather unsuccessful high-dimensional space teleportation technology. Although it achieved some of its original design goals, being able to teleport objects to a specific location instantly, it had two major flaws: the accuracy would drop drastically as the teleportation distance increased, and the energy consumption would increase exponentially with the mass of the teleported object. This made it impossible for the technology to be put into practical use in the aerospace field."

"How amazing..."

"So, like many other technologies, it was used for entertainment by some bored bastards at the end of the old civilization era," Huang Yan continued. "After all, this technology is quite accurate and efficient when transporting objects with a mass equivalent to that of an ordinary human being, in units of tens or hundreds of meters. Therefore, they created these teleportation traps, imitating the content of toilet paper novels from back then."

"But we were just outside that arena..."

"To be precise, the entire island—or rather, the entire mountain—was part of the arena, or what you call the 'maze.' Back then, people really enjoyed watching unprepared 'contestants' being suddenly teleported deep into the 'maze,' taking pleasure in their panic."

"This...this is such a perverse sense of humor..." Fish suddenly felt an urge to scratch the wall hard with his little paws.

"That's right, the biggest use of these transfer traps is to break up the team, thereby creating difficulties and chaos. However, I don't recommend that you breathe on them or get all puffed up, as this will not help improve our current situation at all," Phoenix Flame's remote terminal casually sat down on Fish's head. "Moreover, after reviewing the stored data, I have two pieces of good news to tell you."

"Good news? What is it?"

"First, the transfer trap will not harm anyone, and those transferred will all be located inside the arena," Huang Yan explained. "Second, as I just said, you are currently very safe. Because where you are is the 'safe house' on this floor."

"And what's that?"

"In short, these are places within the arena where you won't be attacked—however, these locations lack any food, water, or usable supplies, so you can't stay there for long."

Just as Huang Yan said this, a projection suddenly appeared on the wall of the room. A woman with a curvaceous figure and a body so voluptuous that the fabric she wore was barely enough to make a washcloth appeared in front of Fish, holding a microphone.

"Meow!" Fish instinctively raised the ion gun integrated into his arm armor, only to realize that it was just a projection.

"Welcome! Brave—or rather, reckless—adventures! I am Lulumon, your referee and guide in this perilous adventure! In the journey ahead, you will have only one choice: kill or be killed, destroy or be destroyed! I hope you are all mentally prepared!"

"Looks like you're right," Fish said, even though the other party was just an image left over from a thousand years ago. After taking a look at Lulu's pink afro, the dense abstract tattoos, and the various metal rings and chains that looked like torture instruments all over her body, Fish twitched her ears in disgust and tucked her tail between her legs. "Those guys from the old civilization era really had a twisted sense of humor."

"Please don't misunderstand, these kinds of guys were only a minority at the end of the old civilization era, and they're not the same as my creator," Huang Yan quickly explained. "Uh... at least their numbers didn't exceed half."

"The fact that you've ended up here means you carelessly triggered the trap, which is truly unfortunate—I hope you learn from this experience and are more careful next time before firing recklessly!" the image continued in a provocative tone. "Of course, I believe you're all very curious now about where you are—no problem, the answer will be revealed soon."

"Welcome to the third level of the 'Sixfold Hell' arena, the 'Forest of Illusions'!"

"'Sixfold Hell'... What a terrible name..." Fish couldn't help but complain.

"In a sense, your carelessness in activating the transfer traps wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It meant you no longer needed to progress from the first level of the arena. However, the bad news is that the arena's difficulty increases with each level. Facing the third level right off the bat—how long can you possibly survive? I'm extremely curious!"

"Stop talking nonsense, what do I want? Where are my companions?!" Fish directly questioned the image. Although he didn't expect to get any valuable information, the other party actually answered him.

"Your companions are all in the arena, just like you. However, they're all deeper inside, and on different floors," Lulu's image struck a provocative pose. "But while the safe house is as safe as it sounds, hiding in there all the time won't get you through!"

"Well……"

"Of course, it's not impossible for a kitten like you, unsuitable for combat, to cower in here and wait for your teammates to take care of things," Lulu Meng added. Clearly, she wasn't just recording; she was a still-functioning program with a degree of intelligence. "However, if you plan to leave here, you'll never be able to return to the safe house."

Just as Lulu was speaking, a small door, about the height of a person, silently appeared on the wall not far away. Outside the door, an unpleasant, damp, warm breeze, mixed with the smell of mud and decaying plants, rushed into the safe house.

"Each level of the arena, except for the safe houses, is fraught with various threats, but also scattered with abundant supplies, including food, weapons, water, and medicine. Within each level of the maze, there is one official passage to the next level, as well as some hidden, unofficial passages. You will need to find them yourselves. The team that successfully reaches the sixth level and defeats all enemies will be the victor, eligible for the final reward. It's that simple! Good luck, young warriors!"

"Okay, I can confirm that the content of those trashy toilet paper novels hasn't changed much in a thousand years," Fish's lips twitched. "It's exactly the same formula as in novels."

"Yes. But the only difference is that reality isn't fiction. If you don't pay close attention, you really will die! Oh—hehehehehehehehehehe—" The image of the alluring and seductive woman let out an extremely unpleasant laugh, then wiggled her hips and "walked" into the wall, disappearing just like that.

"What should we do?" Fish glanced in the direction Lulu had disappeared, then at the door through which humid, hot air kept pouring in. "Are we really going to play this stupid game?"

"I'm afraid we have no other choice," Huang Yan said, sounding somewhat helpless. "Because according to my location just now, the 'Akasha Encyclopedia' is actually stored on the seventh underground level of this arena."

"Seven floors? But didn't that woman say there were only six floors?"

"Idiot!" Phoenix Flame's remote control reached out a little hand and tugged Fish's ear. "In those toilet paper stories, what do adventurers challenge dungeons for? Of course, it's to get treasures! So it's normal for a dungeon with a seventh floor below the sixth floor to store loot! Although under normal circumstances, the things stored there shouldn't be important items like the 'Akasha's Compendium,' I can understand the thought process of whoever put it there."

"Oh?"

"After all, the 'Sixfold Hell' is one of the most difficult arenas to conquer in the past. The numerous traps and other dangers inside are enough to deter ordinary people and make them the best 'security guards'," Huang Yan said. "Moreover, the arena itself is designed with a strong self-maintenance function. Hiding things inside can greatly reduce the probability of them being picked up by someone else."

"I see." Fish nodded and walked towards the door.

"In addition, the 'Sixfold Hell' has another characteristic that makes it very difficult to conquer in this era—wait, don't rush out!" Just as Fish was about to walk out the door, Huang Yan suddenly shouted.

However, she was already a step too slow.

"Contestant detected entering the arena area. Initiating assessment of their overall combat capabilities," the alluring woman's voice rang out again as Fish stepped outside. "Assessment complete. Congratulations, the difficulty of the mission you are about to face is..."