The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Ah, that's—"

When Fish saw the blonde, fox-eared girl crouching under a pile of boxes, he instinctively wanted to run over, but changed his mind in the blink of an eye: after experiencing many dangers, Fish was now able to instinctively "smell" danger and be on high alert.

This time, however, he noticed the signs in time.

Admittedly, the fox-eared girl in front looks almost exactly like Xiaoxing. However, she is not wearing Xiaoxing's intelligent combat armor "Grape," but a tactical camouflage shirt with light green and brown spots. Although it doesn't seem like a problem at first glance, the light pink base of the shirt makes it very conspicuous, offering almost no concealment.

Furthermore, the girl's knee-high socks and miniskirt also featured an unconventional light pink camouflage pattern, and her shoes were not military boots for training, but rather a pair of pink high heels that were clearly unsuitable for combat. She wore a pink beret with a very conspicuous gold heart-shaped badge in the center, which shimmered with a golden reflection in the dim light streaming in from the factory's skylight.

In Fish's view, the outfit, especially the gold heart-shaped hat badge, was utterly ridiculous, like telling a potential enemy, "Come on, blow my head off!" It certainly shouldn't be worn in any situation involving violence.

In the hands of a girl who looked remarkably like Xiaoxing, lay a strange object that resembled a long, rectangular box. Fish had never seen anything like it before today. He could only vaguely discern from the trigger located on its underside and the barrel protruding from the other end of the "box" that it was some kind of firearm.

"Not bad, your response just now deserves at least 80 points." Seeing that Fish didn't rush over, Huang Yan said approvingly in his mind, "According to my estimate, the probability that the other party is Xiao Xing is less than 10%."

"Then who exactly is she...?" Fish wondered to himself.

"It's very likely the 'skin' used by viewers in the past... Ah, of course, the official name should be AVATAR, 'avatar' immersive interactive terminal."

"That is..."

"From a biological point of view, they are still living people," Huang Yan explained. "These are a new type of human individual that has been specially bred. They have specially developed information interfaces installed in their brains, which allow viewers who want to participate in the battle to temporarily transmit their consciousness directly into the interface via a wireless network, becoming their 'avatars', and then using these customized bodies to participate in the 'hunt'."

"Is that so?!"

"Yes. Incidentally, the genetic template of the 'avatars' is almost identical to that of ordinary new humans. Therefore, many new humans are generally related to these 'avatars' in terms of bloodline. It is not surprising that they occasionally have highly similar appearances."

Fish shuddered. "If that's the case, does that mean I could also...?"

"Don't worry, these kinds of interfaces either need to be cultivated during embryonic development or rely on surgical implantation. In short, you definitely don't have one," Huang Yan replied. "Different viewers can selectively customize the appearance of their favorite 'avatar,' which is called 'skin'... Later on, 'skin' became a general term."

"The aesthetic sense of people in the past was terrible..." Fish glanced again at the girl dressed in a mismatched pink camouflage outfit, knee-high socks, and high heels. "At least I can't accept this type..."

"There's nothing we can do. After all, this is just a 'game,' and entertainment is the most important thing," Huang Yan said unhappily. "As for practical attributes? They're not important to those guys, just like the ancient Romans didn't care whether the fishing nets used by gladiators in the arena could be used in real wars."

"But if these 'avatars,' or rather 'skins,' require someone to manipulate them to move, then..."

"There aren't many 'avatars' that are personally controlled by the audience members who are preparing to enter the arena. In the past, an audience member would often have a small team of 3 to 4 people to protect and coordinate with them. These 'avatars' are controlled by specialized tactical artificial intelligence," Huang Yan said. "Even if the audience member is no longer there, once a challenger is detected entering the 'killing factory,' the 'avatars' will still be activated and begin to fight. The sniping just now was probably done by one of them."

"Then now..." Fish activated the ion gun built into the Phoenix Flame arm armor, feeling the sensation of aiming with this weapon, and then placed the crosshairs of the helmet scope on the back of the head of the girl who looked just like Xiaoxing.

"No," Huang Yan said immediately. "I only said that it's very likely not Xiao Xing. I didn't say it was definitely not her."

"That's true..." Fish quickly lowered the gun again—although he couldn't imagine that Xiaoxing, who was usually shy, withdrawn, and wished she were invisible, would dress like this, but nothing was absolute. If the other person really was Xiaoxing, he would regret it for the rest of his life if he fired. "Then what should we do?"

"Let's subdue her without causing her any harm first." Huang Yan thought for a moment and then came to a conclusion, "Whether it's Xiao Xing or not, I have a way to handle it."

"Understood." Fish nodded, then, like a cat approaching a bird on a balcony, he silently crept up to the girl in pink camouflage, close to a row of huge shipping containers.

Thanks to his feline genes and his inherent caution, Fish is quite adept at moving without making a sound. Phoenix Flame also cleverly replaced the soles of his feet with sound-absorbing pads to further reduce the noise of Fish's footsteps.

That's why the girl was completely unprepared for Fish's approach, simply holding up the strange gun to warn her. During the approach, Huang Yan even managed to identify the model of the odd gun.

"P-90 submachine gun (copycat), a popular personal defense weapon in the old civilization era, firing small 5.7x28mm submachine gun rounds. Threat level: Medium. Accessories: Laser sight."

"Oh, I see... I've never heard of that." After reading the text, Fish immediately shook his head—his aesthetic sense was different from that of people in the old civilization, so he couldn't understand why people in the past would like this kind of gun with a relatively limited range of practical use.

However, he was certain that the other party's weaponry was nothing to him: in addition to the P-90 submachine gun, the girl in pink camouflage was also carrying a 9mm pistol (identified as a "Glock civilian pistol replica"), a small fragmentation grenade, a smoke grenade, and a multi-purpose tactical knife.

However, for Fish, who is empowered by "Phoenix Flame", the combined threat level of these weapons is not high.

Therefore, he only needs to be cautious and wait until he gets close...

Just as Fish was thinking this, his ankle suddenly touched a thin, almost invisible transparent plastic wire connecting two rows of metal shipping containers. Immediately afterward, an object cleverly concealed in a dark corner, wrapped in dark canvas, exploded violently!

"Wow, meow!"

At the moment of the explosion, Fish didn't have time to react at all—but fortunately, Phoenix Flame, who had already released all self-imposed restrictions, reacted for him.

After Phoenix Flame temporarily took over his body through the neural connection, Fish's arms protected his head and chest in a fraction of a second (of course, the excessively fast movement also caused his muscle tissue to ache terribly), and transformed and expanded his arm armor into a pair of small "shields" to block more than a dozen steel balls flying towards his vital parts.

However, quite a few steel balls still hit other parts of the armor at several times the speed of sound. Although Phoenix Flame, as a top-tier intelligent combat armor, absorbed the impact of these balls extremely effectively, the remaining force was still quite strong, making Fish feel as if he was about to vomit his internal organs.

"Oh, sorry, it was just a small mistake on my part." As Fish was blown away, Huang Yan magnanimously admitted her mistake—a truly rare occurrence for her. "I actually forgot that placing a 'Face to the Enemy' spell at your six o'clock position to prevent being ambushed from behind is a common practice for many people, hehehe..."

"Damn it, what are you 'hehehe'ing about...?" Although Fish's personality was as soft and mild as his ancestors, who were designed as "intimate partners," and he wasn't easily angered by his own people, Huang Yan's words still made him quite annoyed. "And what, what does 'facing the enemy from this side' mean?"

"It's the 'Claymore' anti-personnel directional mine," Huang Yan said. "Oh, by the way, whether it's the P-90 submachine gun, the Glock civilian pistol, or these directional mines, they were all obsolete relics by the end of the old civilization era. So my protective capabilities can still withstand it. If it were a regular military weapon from that era, it would be hard to say."

"Antiques? But why would people back then use antiques...?"

"Hmm, how should I put it? This is probably thanks to the influence of a cultural product called 'first-person shooter games,' right?" Huang Yan continued leisurely as he injected Fish with painkillers and stimulants through a micro-injection needle. "This cultural product was born in the early 1990s with the completion of the Third Industrial Revolution, which is also the Information Revolution, and it has greatly influenced the way humans entertain themselves..."

"Who cares about that, meow meow meow—"

Just as Fish stopped rolling, he was not surprised to see that the girl who looked just like Xiaoxing, wearing a pink camouflage uniform and a miniskirt, had heard the explosion of the directional mine and turned around.

Then, a dense barrage of 5.7mm bullets rained down on Fish.

"Damn it! Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch—" Having just taken a heavy blast head-on and unable to get up for a while, Fish immediately made the right decision: to use his shield-like arm armor to protect his vital parts and continue to take the beating with his head covered.

After all, compared to the steel balls that spewed out like a fountain from the directional mine, the destructive power of these small-caliber bullets is much more limited. Even at a distance of tens of meters, as long as they don't hit key parts such as the eyepiece or the helmet joint, they are not enough to cause Fish a fatal injury.

Even so, the kinetic energy of the bullet that wasn't fully absorbed, and the resulting pain and bruising, would still be enough to give him a hard time.

"...According to my stored cultural research materials, the influence of 'first-person shooter games' is considered to be very extensive in the last hundred years of the old civilization era: infantry and SWAT tactics at the end of the 20th century, as well as the corresponding military and police weapon images, were widely disseminated because of the games, and eventually became a cultural imprint."

As Fish, like a hapless stray cat on "Cat TV," was being beaten and meowing pitifully, Huang Yan leisurely continued to give him a history lesson. "So, even nearly two centuries after the earliest 'first-person shooter games' appeared, those perverted, bloodthirsty viewers are still playing the role of the late 20th century in their new era of gladiator games."

"So, soldiers in the 20th century dressed like this?" Despite his disheveled appearance, Fish asked out of curiosity.

"I'm sorry, no," Huang Yan replied. "Past scholars believed that this type of design was probably a subtle change resulting from the influence of a culture known as 'anime/manga'."

After Fish forced himself to take a full fifty rounds, the enemy's firing finally ceased as the magazine was emptied. Then, the girl in pink camouflage frowned. Instead of reloading the P-90, she drew a similarly cute pink pistol from her holster and resumed firing.

Compared to the powerful submachine gun from before, this semi-automatic pistol was naturally far less powerful. Therefore, with the painkillers and stimulants provided by Phoenix Flame temporarily suppressing the pain and fatigue, Fish used his shield-like arm armor to block in front of him, advancing step by step like a policeman carrying a riot shield in an ancient shooting game, enduring the 9mm pistol bullets, and finally unleashing a heavy swing.

The girl in the pink camouflage uniform groaned, spat out a mouthful of blood, and was then sent flying backward by the blow.

"Meow? Oh no!" Although he had won the battle, Fish was anything but happy! After all, his original goal was to subdue the girl who looked just like Sachi, without hurting her as much as possible.

But the current situation is far from what I expected...

"25 points!" Huang Yan said discontentedly. "What did you do?"

"Well... since you were offline before, and the power enhancement system couldn't be used, I'm used to fighting without relying on you, so I haven't been able to adjust to it yet..."

"Stop with the useless excuses!" Huang Yan delivered a mild electric shock to Fish's groin. Although not very strong, it almost made Fish roll his eyes. "Hurry up!"

"Uh... what's fast? Meow!"

"Go check on her injuries right now!" Enraged, Huang Yan doubled the intensity of the electric shock he was delivering to Fish. "Are you really just going to watch her die?"

"Ah, okay, okay!" Fish hurriedly covered his groin, which was numb from the electric shock, and rushed to the side of the unconscious girl lying on the side.

But then, something unexpected happened.