The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Wait, didn't you just say this thing is all show and no substance, no threat at all?" After hearing Huang Yan mention "big trouble," Fish was completely confused. "What exactly does 'big trouble' mean?"

"Well, this can be divided into two parts," Huang Yan said. "I think you'll be able to witness the first part soon."

"Eeeeeee!" Just as Huang Yan spoke, Xiao Xing, who was lying next to Fish, suddenly let out a small scream—unlike Fish, who was completely unaffected by the "Virtual Paradise" system, Xiao Xing hadn't seen what was happening in front of her. In her eyes, it wasn't until just now that a strong gust of wind suddenly blew away the fog that shrouded everything, allowing the WLK-570 "Colossus" walking mech to appear in her field of vision.

Even though she had just heard Huang Yan's explanation, the sudden visual shock still gave her quite a fright... Of course, this was exactly the result that those who wrote the control program for this arena had hoped to achieve.

The sudden dissipation of the fake "fog" created by the "Virtual Paradise" system clearly affected the girls who had escaped the administration building. After being able to see their surroundings clearly, they stopped their blind escape and quickly began to seek cover in the surrounding buildings.

Depending on the weapons they carried, these girls formed different groups. Each group included machine gunners, anti-materiel sniper riflemen, and rocket launchers. In a very short time, they dispersed to various corners of the factory and began to intercept the "Colossus." Their proficiency was enough to impress even the most well-trained elite troops.

"As expected, these 'avatars' are controlled by the tactical AI configured in the arena," Huang Yan commented. "These guys are indeed quite skilled in combat. After all, most of the time, they have to clean up the messes made by real players who frequently make stupid moves."

After the girls' fire teams took their positions, the first to "perform" was the general-purpose machine gun, unleashing a barrage of armor-piercing rounds. Anti-materiel rifles and rockets with armor-piercing rounds joined the fray. Bullets powerful enough to tear armored humans to shreds struck the "Colossus's" armor repeatedly, but were deflected weakly. The anti-armor rockets fared slightly better… but only superficially.

After the smoke and fireballs from the rocket explosions dissipated, Fish noticed that their attack had only caused some minor dents and scorch marks on the massive machine.

In comparison, the Colossus's counterattack was far more terrifying.

To be fair, while their attire was less than flattering, the fighting girls chose excellent sniping positions, making superb use of the terrain and cover. Unfortunately, against the brute force of the "Colossus," all of this was of little use.

After being attacked in the first wave, the Colossus raised the heavy shield mounted on its right arm and forced its way into a building housing a fire support team. Then, with a mere flick of its fist, the reinforced concrete building, twice its height, crumbled in the blink of an eye, like a sandcastle built on a beach.

The fighting girl group hiding inside remained completely silent after the dust settled.

"Damn... what kind of destructive power is this..." Although the one being attacked and buried alive was a theoretical enemy, Fish still couldn't help but shudder after seeing this scene.

"That's right, by the standards of past military equipment, this thing is indeed 'good-looking but useless.' But in this arena with its limited space, against opponents with only light weapons, its destructive power is still terrifying," Huang Yan said. "This is the first part of the 'trouble' I was referring to."

"Wait. This... isn't right." Unlike Fish, who was dumbfounded, Xiaoxing suddenly shook her head.

"What's wrong?"

"The situation... shouldn't be this one-sided." Xiaoxing said in a low voice after the "colossus" stretched out its long, thin arms, pulled up a condenser tower, and used it to smash the top of another workshop where a fire team was stationed.

"Huh?" Fish still didn't quite understand.

"Because of our family business, we've dismantled and recycled a lot of similar old civilization-era machinery, including equipment similar to this 'colossus'," Xiaoxing said softly after recovering from her initial shock. "The materials they used were harder and more resilient than what we can produce in our time, that's true, but they weren't indestructible either."

"real?"

"Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to disassemble and recycle their parts," Xiaoxing said. "In this era, the machining and parts manufacturing industry largely relies on recycling products from the old civilization era. If my uncle hadn't taken over the family factory, I was originally destined to become the family heir, so I received relevant education."

"So..."

"If I'm not mistaken, although this 'Colossus' is very powerful, it shouldn't be so invulnerable: due to its extremely tall and slender shape, its surface area is proportionally large to its volume, making it difficult to provide adequate protection for all areas even with the lightest armor materials."

"But it should still be stronger than modern armor," Fish said. "After all, it's a product of an old civilization."

"That's right. But in any case, given the Colossus's defensive capabilities, even anti-armor weapons produced in the old civilization era shouldn't have been completely ineffective," Xiaoxing said. "At least, the most vulnerable parts, like the sensors, should have suffered some damage. And, given the Colossus's power in its normal state, it shouldn't have been able to destroy such a large building so easily."

"Your guess was spot on, a perfect score!" Huang Yan said. "This is the 'big trouble' I was talking about earlier."

"Well?"

"Take a closer look—see what happened to that 'Colossus' when it was hit."

"This..." Fish and Xiaoxing held their breath, simultaneously adjusting the magnification of their combat armor's optical sensors to the maximum, and began to observe carefully—indeed, although at first glance, the ammunition hitting the "Colossus" seemed to have been deflected, this was not the case. Tiny golden and ice-blue lights flashed continuously at the points of impact, and the same signs appeared in the instant before the anti-armor rockets exploded.

"The electromagnetic shield generator is a product of the late Old Civilization era. Its working principle is to instantly generate a strong magnetic field at a specific location after detecting incoming physical projectiles or particle beams to deflect the attacking projectiles or detonate them prematurely," Huang Yan said. "This thing is quite good, however, there is a problem when using devices like the 'Colossus'."

"What's the problem?"

"Well, seeing is believing," Huang Yan sneered. "Gentlemen, please switch your observation mode to 'Power Source Detection' and take a good look."

"Okay, okay." Fish and Xiaoxing did as instructed. Soon, the world in their eyes changed again: the surrounding objects became dotted outlines like architectural blueprints, and various spheres of light shimmered within these outlines—electric motors, internal combustion engines, and reactors that powered all sorts of equipment.

Inside the "Colossus" that was wreaking havoc, an incredibly bright sphere of light flickered and trembled erratically, much like a star about to enter its supernova explosion phase.

"Well, although I can't quite tell, but..." Fish nervously swallowed.

"...However, this situation looks pretty bad," Xiaoxing added.

“That’s right, that’s the problem,” Huang Yan said. “Under normal circumstances, electromagnetic shield generators are usually used in large devices—such as spaceships and space stations—to protect against impacts from space debris and small meteorites due to their excessively high energy consumption. While the ‘Colossus’ is also a large machine, it is ‘not that big’.”

"And then?" Fish watched as the tall, thin mechanical giant took several more anti-armor rockets before leveling all its opponents atop a building with a single blow. Several girls in pink camouflage were smashed to pieces. Whether by coincidence or not, as the battle continued, the "colossus" was steadily approaching their current location.

"And then... in theory, it doesn't really matter," Huang Yan sneered again. "The electromagnetic shield generator will directly draw energy from the 'Colossus' reactor. According to my calculations, after a few starts, to prevent the reactor from overheating due to huge energy consumption, the 'Colossus' automatic fault protection device will automatically lock the electromagnetic shield generator."

"Oh, so there's no problem..." Fish was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but Huang Yan continued talking.

"That's right, 'theoretically' it should be fine." Huang Yan emphasized "theoretically," "However, the current situation is clearly not like that: for some reason, the automatic safety device for that 'Colossus' has not been activated at all."

"Huh? So that means..."

"Its reactor is forced to power the electromagnetic shield generator at levels far exceeding its rated power limit—and the denser the enemy fire, the greater the energy consumption. To make matters worse, the 'Colossus' itself is also powering its propulsion system at levels far exceeding safety limits, which is why it can demolish buildings so cleanly and efficiently. This would be impossible under normal circumstances."

As another string of 7.62mm machine gun rounds with armor-piercing bullets and 14.5mm anti-material rifle armor-piercing rounds were deflected and bounced away with a "clanging" sound, Huang Yan explained.

"Damn! This sounds really bad." Fish gasped. "If this continues..."

"Because it cannot be shut down properly via the fault-tolerant automatic safety system, the Colossus's reactor and engines will soon collapse completely due to overheating."

"and then?"

"The expected upper limit of the energy released by the explosion is roughly equivalent to a small tactical nuclear weapon..." Huang Yan paused for a second, probably doing calculations and verifications, "Hmm... according to the calculations, it's at most the equivalent of 250 tons of TNT, right?"

"How long is 'soon'?"

"Given the current intensity of the fighting, it will most likely last no more than ten minutes."

"Mr. Fish, let's run!" Xiaoxing reached out and tugged at Fish's arm. "Let's get to a safe place while we still have time."

"Agreed," Huang Yan said. "Based on our estimates, as long as we retreat to a distance of 300 to 400 meters from that 'colossus' and find suitable cover—such as a basement—we should be able to effectively prevent it..."

"Is this really okay?" Before Huang Yan could finish speaking, an image of a woman with a seductive and alluring figure, wearing an ultra-thin bodysuit that perfectly outlined every detail of her body, appeared in front of them.

"Lulu is cute?!"

"What are you doing here? Electronic waste?" Huang Yan clearly had a very low opinion of the program acting as the arena's host. "Can't you see we're discussing serious matters?"

"Who are you calling electronic waste?! You data ghost parasitizing a pile of genetically modified amoebas!" Perhaps because of their similar nature, Lulu Meng was also full of hostility towards Huang Yan.

"Whatever kind of garbage this pile of useless data is trying to dump, I suggest you ignore it for now," Huang Yan said. "Trust me. This thing is designed to be hostile to everyone who challenges the arena. Although it is forbidden to lie directly, every truth it provides inevitably hides dangerous traps and poisoned bait."

"Ha! You're saying I'm malicious?! Sorry, 'analyzing accurate information' is just part of the challenge in the arena!" Lulu, known as "useless data," exclaimed. "In fact, the fact that I can only provide accurate information already greatly reduces the difficulty. It's clearly a gesture of goodwill! It's a gesture of goodwill, okay?!"

"Gentlemen, there's no time to lose. We don't have time to waste arguing with this piece of junk that deserves to be deleted by antivirus software," Huang Yan warned. "The selective information it provides will only mislead people. We absolutely cannot believe a single byte it says now! Not even the punctuation!"

"Oh? Is that so? Then the information I'm about to provide will also be misleading?" Lulu said. "Never mind. Even so, I still have to say it: the other two companions you've been looking for—Miss Ange and Miss Mint—are right there now."

"What?! Where?!" Fish and Xiaoxing asked in unison.

"Of course, it's in the control room of that 'Colossus'." Lulu's image made a gesture of covering her mouth as if she couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, right, that pile of real electronic waste over there, please don't doubt it. You and I both know that I absolutely cannot lie."

"Uh..." Huang Yan was speechless for a moment.

"That's right, I can now assure you all without a doubt that if you do nothing, Miss Ange and Miss Mint will be reduced to ashes along with that 'Colossus' in less than ten minutes. How about that? Aren't you surprised? Aren't you taken aback?!"