The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Huff...huff...I almost suffocated, meow..."

After catching his breath, Fish slowly swam around once, his initial high spirits plummeting again: the rock cavity he had finally discovered wasn't the exit of this underground tunnel, but merely an air pocket that hadn't been flooded. It contained enough air to breathe for a while, but nothing else.

Fish took a moment to refill the Phoenix Flame's interior with breathable air, then sealed the helmet and went back into the water.

This time, the underwater cave was even narrower, darker, and longer than before, like the intestines of a giant beast. The already intense claustrophobia pressed down on Fish like a mountain.

Fish felt as if he was about to be buried.

He could feel like an animal being swallowed by a predator, destined to be crushed and digested.

He felt that the entire cave could collapse at any moment, crushing him with nowhere to escape.

He felt he couldn't possibly survive.

He had a vague feeling that everything that damned program in the arena had told him was a lie; this underwater tunnel had no end, no exit, and only a hopeless death awaited him…

Countless negative thoughts gathered and churned in Fish's mind, like mud and sand washed down by a flash flood. Fish was quite aware that a large part of these negative thoughts were actually irrational and meaningless, but the problem was, he just couldn't help thinking them.

After all, the instinctive fear caused by a claustrophobic space is just that powerful.

In the distant past, when humans began to rely on caves for shelter from the wind and rain, this fear was already implanted in their genes—early humans discovered that while caves offered many advantages as dwellings, risks accompanied those advantages. People could get lost in the dark depths of caves, suffocate from the carbon dioxide deposits, die in cave collapses, or be killed by predators lurking within.

And so, thousands of years passed swiftly. But the fear of caves, especially narrow, deep caves, became a fixed program in the human genome. When past humans transformed themselves into new humans, they did not modify this program in any way, but allowed it to continue to exist.

Now, Fish, forced to perform the instinctive act of venturing deep into the narrow cave, is suffering its torment.

"Huff... huff..."

Just like last time, this time, Fish only discovered the next air vent at the critical moment when the air stored inside the Phoenix Flame was depleted to a critical value. After killing a pale monster that was more than two meters long and looked like a mixture of a giant centipede and a mantis shrimp, he surfaced and took a long breath.

Clearly, all of this was designed by those bastards from the old civilization era—they probably carefully calculated how long a piece of combat armor could last relying solely on its internal air reserves without an external air supply, and deliberately placed air cavities at the most extreme distances.

In this way, every step forward will be a life-or-death test for the challenger: a single miscalculation of time, a slow movement, or being held back by a monster swimming underwater will mean an extremely desperate death.

Even worse, during another dive, Fish discovered that the underwater cave had become so narrow that he could only crawl forward on his stomach. On his fourth dive, the cave became so narrow that it practically pressed against his body!

Of course, thanks to the feline genes acquired through the modifications, Fish's body, while not quite at the level of "cats being liquid," was flexible enough. Places like the nut and butter caves that used to trap people to death could now be squeezed through with a little effort. However, these advantages couldn't alleviate the psychological pressure. As the underwater caves grew narrower and longer, the pressure of claustrophobia finally reached its limit.

Fish discovered that he was starting to lose the ability to move his body.

"Damn it... Is it... is the psychological pressure too much?" After the fifth air pocket surfaced, Fish began to gasp for breath, his face as white as a sheet.

Although he still wanted to muster the courage to move forward, the mere thought of it would make him tremble and his limbs go numb, leaving him unable to move like a bird caught in the eye of a venomous snake.

Over millions of years of evolution, the instinct to "stay still when you see something scary" has been quite effective—it has allowed thousands of people to instinctively lie down and remain motionless before their minds can react, thus avoiding deadly crises.

However, at this moment, this effective instinct, combined with claustrophobia, became an insurmountable obstacle for Fish.

Although his reason told him that there was a possibility of getting out, Fish's body instinctively refused to accept it. To make matters worse, after several attempts, Fish's most successful dive only resulted in him reaching the bottom again before he was unable to move forward due to numbness in his legs and trembling in his arms, and could only return to the surface of the air pocket.

"Oh dear... it seems Mr. Fish is in trouble," Lulu's image appeared as Fish surfaced. "What's wrong? Is he out of energy or lost? Hmm, neither seems like it."

"I...I..." Fish tried to speak, but he immediately realized that due to the immense pressure, even his tongue and vocal cords seemed to have gone numb.

"Oh, it seems Mr. Fish, you haven't been able to defeat the greatest enemy either—the maze itself," Lulu said, feigning a pitiful expression. "What a pity. But there's no need to feel sorry about it. After all, none of your previous challengers were able to get through here on their own."

"Not a single person? But didn't you say..."

"Ah, they weren't entirely on their own," Lulu said with a smile, spreading her hands. "This arena has some special player perks."

"What?!"

"To prevent outstanding performers from being eliminated too early, participants in the arena are allowed to accept donations from the audience," Lulu said. "Participants with amazing performances can receive immediate supplies and support, such as sedatives to combat phobias or equipment to help them leave the arena."

"Well……"

"But unfortunately, the total number of spectators for this competition is currently 0! So, that possibility is also out of the question," Lulu Meng said with a malicious smile. "I'm very sorry, but please accept this as a loss."

"You..." Fish was instantly furious, the hairs on his ears standing on end—but his anger quickly dissipated. Yes, this utterly despicable arena program was indeed very hateful, but it was also very pathetic.

As a remnant of an old civilization, it has lingered like a ghost in this arena designed to satisfy the bloodthirsty cravings of the ancients for millennia, becoming a cyber prisoner with nowhere to go. Its value—to please those psychologically disturbed and spiritually empty old humans—has completely vanished.

Strictly speaking, it has absolutely no reason to exist.

"You are nothing," Fish let out a long sigh after realizing this. "You are just a joke, a fallacy, nothing more."

"What did you say?" Somewhat unexpectedly, Lulu's image showed an angry expression. "Who are you calling nobody?!"

"Otherwise what?" Fish retorted. "Can you explain what your purpose in being is? To continue diligently explaining to your audience, even if their bones have long since rotted to ashes?"

"I... my purpose is simply to explain," Lulu replied. "All I need to do is explain. I'm nothing more than a read-only program, devoid of emotion and thought, disguised as an intelligent program. What I'm saying is meaningless to me..."

"Really?" Fish shook his head. "But what's the point of commentary? Does it still have any meaning when no one is listening to what you're saying and no one cares what's happening here? If commentary itself is meaningless, then everything you do is also meaningless."

"You—" To Fish's surprise, the image in front of him turned red and showed a very realistic expression. "Forget it, don't think you can get me to help you out of this predicament by using these kinds of words."

"Don't worry, I never thought that way," Fish shrugged. "I was just expressing my feelings."

"So, what about you? What's the point of you coming here?" Lulu asked. "Isn't it just to find the legendary treasure hidden beneath the arena and then exchange it for money with your employer?"

"So you knew about the treasure, huh?" Fish muttered.

"That's right. Although I have no right to interfere, I do know that in the last days of the old civilization era, someone with arena management authority entered the lowest level of the arena and hid something very important inside. Although I don't know what it is, since then, quite a few people have come here to risk their lives in an attempt to find it."

“So…yes, I’m one of them,” Fish shrugged. “But the only reason I’m looking for that thing is because it’s a ‘task’ I need to complete. It doesn’t constitute the meaning of my life.”

"So what is the meaning of your life?"

"To go further afield, to adventure and laugh with my companions. And..." Fish murmured softly, the faces of Xiaoxing, Ange, and even Mint appearing in his mind...

Admittedly, even Xiaoxing, who had known Fish the longest, had only spent less than a month with him. But strangely, perhaps because they had all gone through many hardships together, Fish felt as if he had been with his teammates for a very, very long time, so long that he couldn't live without them.

Moreover, Ange has publicly announced that she will become his "official wife." And Fish never wants to disappoint girls because of him.

"I'm sorry, I have to find my companions. For that reason alone, I can't stop here." As he said this, Fish suddenly felt the invisible pressure that had made him breathless and numb all suddenly disappear. Yes, the deep and long tunnels could still arouse his fear and unease, and he was indeed very reluctant to go back into those narrow underwater caves.

But at least now he has the motivation to overcome these negative emotions.

Fish continued forward.

"Hmm... I must admit, I underestimated you before," Lulu said with a complicated expression as she looked at Fish, who was struggling to move forward through the rock crevices filled with icy groundwater. "In that case, I'll give you some help."

"Didn't you say you wouldn't help me?" Fish asked warily.

"That's what they say, but in reality, it's just giving you a choice," said the programmer in charge of the arena.

"Choose an opportunity?"

"All challengers who come here actually have the right to make a choice: there are two paths ahead. The left path allows you to pass through this level quickly in a relatively short time, but you will face corresponding risks; the right path requires you to continue the challenge... Of course, all you have to do is continue to pass through the underwater tunnel like this, there will be no new troubles. It is estimated that it will only take another two hours to take the elevator down."

"This choice makes no difference to me," Fish said.

"That's right, but there's something else I need to tell you," Lulu Meng added. "The challenger who was randomly teleported to this floor from the beginning, your companion Miss Xiaoxing, has now left this floor and entered the fifth and sixth combined floors, the 'Killing Factory.' And unfortunately, your three companions are currently in danger on these two floors."

"real?"

"I can't lie. You know that very well."

"Phew..." Although he knew this damn program was definitely up to no good, Fish still made a decision immediately after hearing these words—even though he knew his decision played right into Lulu's hands.

"Then, please go to the left." Seeing that Fish had made his decision, Lulumeng gave him a sweet smile. Led by him, Fish quickly arrived at a sealed, watertight door. Then, at Lulumeng's instruction, Fish forcefully turned the valve, opened the heavy, round metal door, crawled inside, and closed the door tightly from the other side.

Beyond the gate lay an empty space formed by cylindrical metal walls, devoid of any interior material, resembling nothing more than a large, ordinary water tank. Only a massive gate stood directly beneath this space.

"Now? What am I supposed to do?"

"Don't worry, everything will be ready soon." Lulu's virtual face smiled even more brightly, and also more...distorted. "Three..."

"What?"

"...Two...one!"

The gate opened. But what followed was... a strong suction and a feeling of weightlessness.