The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

Find resonance with classic quotes from "The Last Odyssey: The Cat Boy's Fantastic Journey".

"Huh? Why don't we need to worry?" After hearing Huang Yan's words, Fish was a little confused.

"Use your brain more, kid. Even if you're using someone else's brain right now, at least don't treat that thing as a mere decoration," Huang Yan said mercilessly. "Outside, the 'central brains' that control those hosts are fighting against us, but the situation here is different."

"How is it different? I think the fighting here is even more intense than the battlefield on Hill 503." As the bus drove past a flower bed with a mermaid statue, Fish noticed the eerie red color on the statue and glanced at it casually... before immediately looking away.

After all, even for someone as "worldly" as him, seeing a girl wearing only underwear being pierced through the mouth and between the legs by an iron rod removed from a railing was still too stimulating.

"That's right, but for viewers and players from the old civilization era, this scene is clearly imitating the most extreme zombie movies, like *The Walking Dead* or *Resident Evil*. It's just that the zombie virus character has been replaced with 'Tai Sui'," Huang Yan said. "So..."

"So what?" Fish was still confused—after all, he had never seen those B-movies from the old civilization era.

"Therefore, these 'Tai Sui' hosts must be brainless—the instructions issued by the 'central brain' within the facility will be selectively blocked. At least in this area, it can only issue the simplest 'attack' and 'kill' instructions," Huang Yan replied. "Because in the past cultural tradition, 'zombies' should be devoid of intelligence."

"The tastes of the old civilization are really strange," Fish thought. After knocking over a girl dressed as a nurse, he looked around for a while before finally finding the button to turn on the windshield wipers and scraping off the large amount of blood stuck to the broken windshield. "It's amazing that anyone would like things so utterly mindless. By the way, where are we going now?"

"If I'm not mistaken, the condition for passing this scene should be 'final survival'," Huang Yan thought for a moment and then explained, "However, 'final survival' doesn't just mean finding a corner to hide in and patiently waiting for everyone else to die to win—that would be too boring. Therefore, there is usually an 'emergency exit'."

"Emergency exit? What's that?"

"The location where you can leave the scene. Generally, the conditions for completing the game are 'survival' plus 'reaching the destination.' Of course, to increase the challenge, even for non-NPC 'players'—like you—the location of the destination won't be directly revealed. However, there are usually relatively easy-to-find hints..."

"A hint... uh..." Fish glanced at a cartoon-style campus map pasted on the inside of the bus, which used chibi-style characters to mark the locations of different club activities. Then, he suddenly realized something, "Kendo Club!"

"Huh? You mean our club?" Alicia asked.

"Yes, let's go to the kendo club's activity area, that's the safest place!" Fish immediately started turning the steering wheel sharply.

Of course, Alicia, who was completely indecisive in the emergency, didn't ask why. She simply hummed in response and refocused her attention on full alertness. Huang Yan, on the other hand, asked curiously, "How did you confirm that the 'emergency exit' was in the kendo club?"

"It's simple," Fish replied in a low voice as he followed the route on the map. "First of all, the first person I met after arriving in this 'scene' was Alicia. She was also the one who gave me the initial hint, 'Fifteen minutes later.' So, perhaps her mention of 'joining the kendo club' was also a hint—after all, usually no one would ask a stranger to join their club as soon as they meet them, right?"

"That's right. But you also got a hint from the archery club... although that person died almost immediately."

"Well, it's actually quite simple," Fish glanced at the map again. "From the map, the archery club is in the gymnasium south of the teaching building, close to the school's central playground and square, but far from the school's edge. The kendo club, on the other hand, is separated from the teaching building area by an outdoor swimming pool. The old gymnasium where it is located is on the northernmost edge of the school."

"so……"

"Since it's an emergency exit from the 'scene,' it's most likely located at the edge of the 'scene'—at least for those designers, that's the simplest and clearest approach," Fish said, knocking away another "Tai Sui" host with a cleaver stuck in his forehead but still able to walk with difficulty. "Although we can't be 100% sure, it's at least worth a try."

"That's right, but I need to point out something," Huang Yan said, "it seems this car can't be driven directly to the old stadium."

"Hmm..." Fish bit his lip—indeed, although many elements on the cartoon map were not drawn accurately, it was certain that there was no road leading directly from the campus to the old gymnasium that allowed vehicles to pass through. There was only a suspension bridge for pedestrians, spanning over the outdoor swimming pool.

Although there was a road on the map that led from outside the school to the old gymnasium, Fish knew very well that there was no "outside the school" in this "scene." The scenery outside the school walls looked very realistic, but it was just a false background created by the "Virtual Paradise" system—in Moon Butterfly's body, Fish could not be completely immune to the influence of "Virtual Paradise."

Of course, even Fish, who had never seen a high school from the old civilization era, knew that such a complex and inconvenient design would not appear in a real school. It was most likely an unreasonable part deliberately added to this "scene" to increase the difficulty. However, at this point, complaining about the unreasonableness was pointless.

"In fact, the deliberate design of this unreasonable suspension bridge is a way of telling us to go to the other side of the outdoor pool to see what's going on." After driving to the location that was separated from the pool by only a green belt a few meters wide, Fish stopped the bus and began to observe the situation.

"It seems we might not be able to get there easily." After the school bus came to a stop, Alicia looked into the distance through the blood-stained window and frowned.

“Exactly.” Fish nodded: At first glance, there were dozens of girls in one-piece swimsuits playing in the outdoor swimming pool—but upon closer inspection, it was not difficult to see that most of them had undergone significant physical mutations, and many of them even had bloodstains on their newly grown claws and fangs. The rest of them had not mutated... but had become broken corpses floating on the water.

Clearly, this place has just been ravaged by "Tai Sui" (a mythical creature), and it obviously doesn't welcome visitors.

"Alright, what do you plan to do now?" Huang Yan asked. "This car definitely can't cross the suspension bridge, and according to my calculations, the water depth in the outdoor swimming pool is just enough to submerge its engine and shut it off."

"So, you mean...?"

"The only way to get across is by that suspension bridge. But frankly, anyone who isn't an idiot can see that there's bound to be some 'thrills and excitement' waiting for us on that bridge."

"Excitement is fine, but as for thrills and dangers, I'm not interested." Fish shrugged. At the same time, some of the swimsuit girls in the pool who were parasitized by "Tai Sui" had noticed the approaching yellow bus and turned their attention to it.

"Um...excuse my bluntness, but judging from this situation, it's probably not long before it's discovered that we haven't been parasitized," Alicia whispered, noticing the hostility in the other person's eyes.

"Of course... hold on tight!" After saying this, Fish slammed the accelerator to the floor and jerked the steering wheel. The bus engine let out a low, guttural roar like a trapped beast, and then charged headlong toward the outdoor swimming pool. As the bushes in the green belt were swept away, the behemoth crashed into the water, creating a huge splash.

As a seemingly weak but actually remarkably incompressible substance, the impact of water flow is often underestimated—but those who have experienced it firsthand know how terrifying a real torrent, not the slow-flowing water meant for show, can be. The sudden influx of the bus almost instantly occupied dozens of cubic meters of space, expelling the water, which immediately created a tremendous shockwave that swept away all the "Tai Sui" hosts wearing school swimsuits in a flash.

Of course, just seconds later, the water in the swimming pool seeped into the bus's engine hood, rendering it powerless. The yellow school bus was now stuck in the middle of the swimming pool, looking like a small, isolated island.

"Get on the roof, come with me!" Fish shouted to Alicia, who was clinging tightly to the seat.

"Ah, okay, okay!" Upon hearing this, Alicia quickly joined Fish in opening the ventilation window on the roof and climbing up using the seat backs. The bus was about half the length of a forty-meter-wide swimming pool. After entering the water, it continued forward a short distance due to inertia. Therefore, its front was only five or six meters away from the other side of the pool, and the roof was nearly two meters higher than the pool's edge.

"Uh... that should be enough, jump over!"

After giving this instruction, Fish quickly walked to the back of the car, preparing to take a running start and jump, but just as he was about to exert force, he suddenly lost his balance—a hand grabbed his ankle from the side!

"Wow!"

The one who grabbed Fish's ankle was a "Tai Sui" host who had just been knocked down by the torrent. Although Fish's move of driving the bus directly into the outdoor swimming pool was indeed unexpected, these guys' physical abilities and reaction speed were also far beyond those of ordinary humans. Shortly after being knocked down, these guys regained their balance and quickly swam to the bus's vicinity with a pinniped-like swimming style!

"Damn it, get off me!" Fish kicked his legs hard, trying to shake off his opponent, but he failed. The grip strength of the "Tai Sui" host was really amazing. Without the Phoenix Flame providing any additional strength enhancement, Fish had no advantage over this guy at all.

Worse still, behind the swimsuit-clad girl, a tentacle with sharp barbs at the tip slowly emerged, ready to deliver a penetrating wound to Fish's thigh.

"Let go of Karin!" Fortunately, before the guy could even make a move, Alicia had already swiftly severed his wrist—unlike the blatant act of murder, cutting off an arm seemed more acceptable to her, so Alicia at least didn't experience nausea and vomiting again.

The "Tai Sui" host, now missing a hand, let out a bloodcurdling scream and plunged heavily into the water, knocking over two other companions who were trying to climb onto the roof. The splashes they made were so large they could have easily resulted in an 0-0 score in a diving competition. However, these three weren't the only ones trying to climb onto the car. Soon, more than a dozen hands and several tentacles reached onto the roof from different directions.

"I won't let you touch Karin!" Alicia screamed, unleashing a dazzling series of afterimages with her long sword, followed by dozens of severed arms and screams of agony. Soon, the mutated school swimsuit girls had completed a rather unsightly "dive," but this did nothing to deter even more people from swarming in!

"Don't just stand there, hurry up, kid!"

Perhaps it was because Alicia's entire combo was too smooth and gorgeous, or perhaps it was because he was attracted by the sharp longsword in her hand that had cut through dozens of bones without being dulled or damaged at all, Fish actually froze on the spot at this crucial moment! It wasn't until Huang Yan reminded him that he snapped out of his daze, quickly rushed over the roof of the bus, and after a high-speed running start, leaped to the other side of the swimming pool.

Thanks to the two large, bulky bulges on Moonbeam's chest, Fish felt an extra pressure on his chest after leaping into the air, which made him feel slightly nauseous. Fortunately, he endured the discomfort and adjusted his body posture in mid-air, landing with a paratrooper-style knee roll.

Fortunately, Fish landed on a relatively soft patch of grass. Although his fall severely damaged some small flowers and blades of grass, he himself was unharmed—in fact, the only noteworthy injury he sustained upon landing was hitting a sign at the edge of the lawn, which prominently displayed the words: "Please respect school rules and refrain from trampling on the grass!"

Although the sign itself didn't cause any damage, the undried paint and the phrase "Consciously Uphold School Rules" were all imprinted on Fish's face. He frowned and muttered, "Damn it, why should I follow the rules?"

However, as Fish brushed the dust and bits of grass off his plaid school uniform and slowly stood up, he suddenly realized that his movements seemed... a little too fast.

"Wa ...

The moment Fish regained his footing, Alicia's figure, who had followed him as he jumped over, almost filled his entire field of vision in an instant!