The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

To immerse yourself in Chapter Seventy-Seven, "The Spider Tiger," please click here.

"However, everyone... I feel that the current situation doesn't seem... so good?" Just as Ange squatted down to check on the defeated opponent, and Huang Yan was boasting to Fish and the others, Yue Die, still shaken, looked at the surrounding forest and said in a low voice, "The motion sensors on my combat armor show that the nearby enemies seem to be... starting to move again."

"I noticed that a long time ago," Huang Yan said. "Excuse me for being frank, but it's not surprising."

"Well……"

"After all, the child nodes of the 'Tai Sui' tree-like topology model are essentially just ordinary parasites that have been transformed. New ones can be created at any time if needed... According to my estimate, this group of enemies will be completely restored to normal in about three to five minutes."

"Just this much time?" Fish asked.

"Yes. So it's impossible for everyone trapped to leave, but for us, these few minutes are enough to get to the safe zone," Ange smiled slightly, "but please give me twenty more seconds."

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"You'll find out when the time comes, my dear husband," Ange deliberately kept everyone in suspense. After a short while, she withdrew her hand from the little armored warrior who was paralyzed from the beating. "Alright, let's hurry and catch up with Shana now."

"Because you were delayed by 6 minutes and 27 seconds, I have updated the coordinates of the interception point, shifting it 2.35 kilometers to the southwest," Huang Yan added. "But rest assured, this delay and shift will not affect our plan."

"Let's go then!" Fish said. "We absolutely cannot tolerate a beautiful girl being forced to separate from her friends forever!"

Guided by the enhanced power provided by the combat armor, Fish and his group quickly rushed past the "Tai Sui" legion, which was still in an AFK state, running swiftly like a hunting leopard under the guidance of the Phoenix Flame directional marker.

Along the way, they passed through several areas where fierce fighting had taken place. The trees in these areas were either broken by explosions and fires or turned into twisted, charred remains. The ground was riddled with shell craters and littered with damaged firearms, artillery, and even the charred remains of hovercraft and armored vehicles. In stark contrast, apart from a few unfortunate souls burned or blown to pieces, they saw almost no corpses.

"It seems that the 'Tai Sui' here has entered the 'first stage,' which is 'weaponization,' for some time now," Huang Yan commented. "So they can even recycle corpses."

"Huh? You...you mean, like the necromancer in the legends..." Xiaoxing asked fearfully.

"Oh, not really. Skeleton soldiers and ghosts are obviously impossible," Huang Yan explained. "The so-called 'corpse recycling' actually refers to recycling corpses that have only recently died and whose muscle connective tissue and nervous system are still intact."

"Uh... and then?"

"Even after breathing stops, the heart stops beating, and the brain dies, human tissue can still maintain its activity for a considerable period of time. The parasitic tissue of 'Tai Sui' will replace the dead parts—especially the brain—and repair them, making the most of the corpse's potential," Huang Yan replied. "Clearly, this time, 'Tai Sui' has spread quite severely after entering weaponized mode. If we don't find a way to stop it, our troubles will only get worse."

“But we need to find Shana first,” Fish said. “Of course, the sooner the better. After all, no matter how much time passes, I still can’t get used to these two burdens on my chest…”

"You...you...how dare you say that?!" Yue Die roared, "The thing I'm most proud of, you actually called a burden?!!"

"You two, although your relationship is so good that you often quarrel, I still have to interrupt you," said Shuangye, who was running ahead. "A large number of signals have been detected approaching from the ten o'clock direction."

"Human? Or Tai Sui?" Ange asked.

"The sensor can't be confirmed yet, but I can feel it..." Shuangye suddenly stopped, then closed her eyes and began to listen intently. "Just as I thought."

"Well?"

"It's an autonomous weapon, and a Level 3 one at that," Frostleaf said. "It can't fly, but judging from the vibrations coming from the ground, it's extremely agile. I'm afraid it's..."

"Alas!"

Before Shuangye could finish speaking, a semi-transparent thread suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tightly bound one of Yuedie's legs, leaving her no time to react. Then, as the other end of the thread was pulled quickly, Yuedie was dragged up to the top of a large tree with a scream.

"Alright, it's confirmed now," Huang Yan said, "It's the 'Spider Tiger'."

"What the hell is that?!" Moon Butterfly screamed, her head bobbing upside down.

"Oh, nothing much, just an autonomous weapon specially designed for jungle warfare," the ancient tactical AI said leisurely. "They're a bit troublesome, but not insurmountable for you. I'm more interested in why they're here."

"Huh?" Fish asked. "Didn't you say before that these autonomous weapons were meant to take Miss Moon Butterfly back to the underground facility to hibernate..."

"That was indeed my initial assessment, based on the fact that the destroyed autonomous weapon bore the markings from the 'Rotten Chessman's' dormancy plan from back then," Huang Yan replied, completely ignoring Yue Die, who was hanging upside down and struggling like a butterfly caught by a spider. "However, it seems that something is not quite right now."

"Something's not right?" Fish asked.

"Let's deal with these guys first," Huang Yan said. "Although with your current combat strength, it shouldn't be a big problem to take care of them, I'll give you two tips for the sake of convenience: First, pay attention to everything around you; second, let these guys make the first move."

"I understand. So, can we put this annoying thing down now?" Shuangye glanced at Yuedie, who had been pulled nearly thirty meters up to the treetop, and asked casually.

"I think we have enough time," Huang Yan said. "Let's begin."

"clear."

Frostleaf raised a hand, transforming a small portion of her intelligent combat armor into a sharp weapon resembling a short dagger that detached from her body. She then casually tossed it toward the strands binding Moonbeam's ankles. In the next instant, as the strands snapped, Moonbeam fell headfirst to the ground with a scream.

For an ordinary person, falling headfirst from such a height would most likely result in death from a fractured skull or broken cervical spine. However, for a warrior protected by intelligent combat armor, it's nothing serious; at most, they'd be a bit disheveled.

Then, as the treetop shook, Fish felt as if something had jumped off the tree. However, he didn't see anything leave the canopy.

A little while later, Fish noticed regular vibrations coming from the forest floor.

"Are these guys... jumping around?"

"Yes. Among autonomous weapons, the 'Spider-Tiger' has a unique mode of movement. As a biomimetic product of jumping spiders, they can walk and climb flexibly, but they are even better at jumping. This gives them a certain degree of three-dimensional assault capability, even though they cannot fly."

"Don't use those hard-to-understand words!" Fish said. "You know I'm illiterate..."

"Simply put, they can jump over dozens of meters and land on your head," Huang Yan said calmly. "Oh, by the way, one of them is coming for you."

"Holy crap."

Although the motion sensors showed no reaction, Fish felt the ground tremble suddenly in the distance a second later. Then, guided by his intuition, he allowed the ion gun to charge up for a second before firing into what appeared to be empty space.

As the optical projection used for camouflage was destroyed, a bionic machine with a body outline somewhat like a spider, but a body length of over two meters and eight long, powerful legs, suddenly appeared in mid-air and then immediately exploded into pieces.

"Is this what they call a 'spider tiger'?"

"Yes. Two of their main abilities are quite troublesome. One is their dual stealth capabilities against both radar and optics, similar to Xiaoxing's 'Grape' stealth ability. Combined with their extremely strong jumping ability, they can effectively ambush enemies."

"But for a large number of armored warriors, this move is simply a trap—jumping into the air means they can't turn around flexibly, and as long as they can deduce the direction of the attack by sensing the ground vibrations, they are completely sitting ducks for us." After quickly rushing forward and unleashing a sword slash at the head of "Nothingness", Frostleaf sheathed her sword and waved her hand behind her without looking back.

Although her movements seemed casual, Fish noticed that Frostleaf had just thrown two more projectiles made from her own combat armor material, taking down another "Spider Tiger" that was pouncing on Moon Butterfly.

Two bionic machines, resembling giant spiders and capable of making insect-phobic individuals tremble, crashed to the ground and turned into scrap metal.

"Hey! I can handle it myself!" Moon Butterfly shouted, having already transformed her combat armor gauntlets into a small electromagnetic gun and preparing to fire. Although she had fallen into the ambush of the Spider Tiger hiding in the treetops at the beginning, she was still a skilled armored warrior, and she naturally noticed the almost obvious sneak attack.

Unfortunately, Shuangye, who automatically switched to "scheming mode" after meeting her, ruthlessly deprived Yuedie of this opportunity to perform, depriving her of the chance to personally wash away her previous humiliation with the results of her battle.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Shuangye feigned a regretful expression, "There's nothing I can do. You're such a precious young lady, of such noble blood, so incredibly great, born superior to all, that I dare not risk letting these filthy mechanical spiders hurt you... oh no, actually I can't let them hurt Miss Xiaoxing's body, otherwise, who cares whether you live or die?"

"You bastard..." Yue Die's face burned red, her eyes practically spitting fire. Then, she started muttering some incomprehensible words like "nouveau riche," "impure ancestral bloodline," and "lower-class noble," which, at least to Fish, had almost no impact.

"This one's taken care of too." At the same time, Ange and Xiaoxing dealt with the attackers: Ange's "Golden Soup" equipment's plasma shoulder cannon melted the two "Spider Tigers" without any difficulty. As for Xiaoxing's crossbow bolts, they were at a disadvantage against these large, autonomous weapons that were unaffected by poison. Fortunately, due to the increased agility and strength brought by Fish's body, she seized the opportunity and used the momentum of the opponent's fall to send the arm armor, which had transformed into a sharp blade, into the opponent's body.

"Looks like these 'Spider Tigers' are nothing special after all," Fish breathed a sigh of relief. "By the way, Phoenix Flame, what's that other troublesome ability you mentioned earlier?"

"Oh, of course it's an ability they acquired through biomimicry," Huang Yan replied. "Many small spiders have the ability to release a special spider silk, using it as a 'glider' to float with the wind. Don't let the spider tiger's size fool you; its weight is actually quite light relative to its size, so..."

"Above you, Prince Fish!"

This time, it was Frostleaf who saved Fish at the last minute. Although in terms of the power level of the intelligent combat armor alone, she could only be ranked last among everyone present, her years of martial arts training and even actual combat in the forest have given her combat experience that is completely disproportionate to her age, as well as combat intuition that does not rely on the intelligent combat armor.

It was with this keen intuition that she was the first to notice the two thin spider silks with umbrella-like structures at the top, drifting through the clouds in the sky. Even though there was nothing beneath the two spider silks in the optical sensors and individual radar, Frostleaf still conjured two oversized throwing weapons, similar in length to Roman short swords, without hesitation and threw them into the air.

One of the weapons pierced directly through the "Spider-Tiger" suspended beneath the silk threads, destroying its central processing unit. However, before being struck, the other creature deftly discarded the silk threads, attempting to use its momentum to freefall and land on Fish's head. But before it could do so, it was met with a gleaming blade.

"The last one." After executing a near-perfect lunge and draw-and-slash sequence with effortless grace, Frostleaf took a deep breath and sheathed her longsword again—or rather, attempted to do so. But then, she discovered a horrifying truth.

"Waaaaaaahh ...