The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"But what's the point of doing that?" After hearing Huang Yan's words, Fish was still somewhat confused. "It's common knowledge that the autonomous weapons left over from the old civilization era are extremely dangerous to modern people. Even if we don't waste this effort to lure them out and wreak havoc, everyone knows that..."

"I'm afraid 'dangerous' and 'possibly a huge threat' are not quite the same," Huang Yan immediately interrupted Fish. "Before the coup in the Duchy of Fayun, autonomous weapons were only 'dangerous' to people of this era—if you casually approached the ruins of ancient cities or broke into underground facilities, you might be killed by them. But as long as you stayed far away from these places, you wouldn't face any danger."

"And now..."

"After these two incidents, the situation is completely different: autonomous weapons are no longer something far removed from human settlements, like the ghosts in graveyards in ghost stories, no longer distant beings that you will never encounter unless you go out on adventures with warbands and explorers," the sharp-minded Ange concluded for Huang Yan. "They are now terrifying enemies that will launch large-scale attacks on colonies, villages, and even relatively prosperous towns like Oasis Harbor, and slaughter innocent civilians."

"And this is something that has never happened in the last few centuries..." Fish muttered to himself.

“Exactly. From this perspective, everything makes perfect sense—smearing me personally, damaging diplomatic relations between the Duchy of Penglai, the Marquisate of Shisheng, and Oasis Port, and putting us politically isolated and passive are all secondary objectives,” Ange nodded. “Their main objective is to convince ‘certain people,’ or more precisely, those in power, that the self-regulating weapons left over from the old civilization era pose a huge threat to the entire Pan-Pacific Empire.”

"and then?"

"To counter the threat, we must take corresponding measures—and with current military technology, it's not a problem to deal with a small number of ancient autonomous weapons, but it's not enough when facing thousands or tens of thousands of autonomous weapons," Ange thought for a while, "To carry out such a confrontation, we can only look for the legacy of the old civilization era... I understand."

“Yes,” although Ange did not explain what she understood, Huang Yan had obviously deduced the same conclusion. “If the Regency Council of the Principality of Fayun is in charge of all this, then they must be planning to excavate and activate some kind of ancient facility located within the territory of the Principality of Fayun—and this facility was likely considered taboo in the past, prohibited from use, or subject to some kind of strict restrictions.”

"So, with the help of Iskander Lomonosov, the Regency Council pulled off these big things," Ange continued. "Clearly, by instilling extreme fear of autonomous weapons among certain power holders, they could gain some kind of assistance to break this taboo or restriction with the help of the other party."

"But hasn't the Regency Council already completely taken control of the Duchy of Fayun?" Shuangye asked from the side. "Why would they need to seek assistance?"

"Because the Duchy of Fayun is actually more like a combination of many small states, formed by a large number of contracts, promises, and customary laws. Even if one can control the Grand Duke, it doesn't mean one can command and manipulate these states at will," Ange said. "Many lower-level states have special taboos or unique laws that the Regency Council cannot overstep, unless..."

“That makes sense now,” Fish clapped his hands. “The previous intelligence mentioned that Iskander Lomonosov, a key member of the Regency Council and a scientific archaeologist, was originally an advisor to Emperor Anthemius III. Could it be that they were trying to influence… the royal family?”

"That's almost the only possibility," Ange replied. "In that case, we'd better call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Principality of Penglai immediately and have them investigate whether the royal family has had any special activities in Fayun recently—especially activities related to the excavation of ruins and archaeological research."

"Yes, sir." Captain Rabbit, who was at the helm, immediately summoned the communications officer on the cruiser and ordered him to send a telegram. Somewhat unexpectedly, just an hour and a half later, the Principality of Penglai concluded its investigation and sent a reply.

"Your Highness, it seems that the 'special activities' you mentioned do indeed exist," Chief Officer Mint reported after receiving the message from the cruiser's communications room. "Starting several months ago, intelligence agents planted within our territory by the Principality of Penglai noticed that the Royal Family has repeatedly dispatched scientific archaeology research teams to cooperate with the Regency Council. Their operations have been taking place on Timor Island, on the southeastern edge of the Principality, near the Principality of Irian."

"Timor Island? Could it be..." Ange's brows furrowed deeply, "...that's the legendary 'secret realm'?!"

"What is that?" Fish asked. "Why don't I know?"

"Because you haven't officially become the Grand Duke of Fayun yet, my lord—the knowledge about that forbidden area directly belonging to the Grand Duke's family is only fully known to those who have officially assumed the position of Grand Duke, besides people like me who were considered heirs from birth," Anjie let out a long sigh. "If it's there... we don't have time to return to the Duchy of Penglai, we must go there immediately!"

Twenty days after the Oasis Harbor incident, somewhere in the inland mountains of Timor Island, in the forbidden territory of the Lindenhild-Fayon family.

As the sun began to set and the deadly heat finally receded from the land, Iskander Lomonosov, who had been hiding in his air-conditioned observation post, finally pushed open the door and walked toward the construction site not far away.

The moment he stepped out of the engineering observatory, the archaeologist felt a terrible sense of suffocation—the sweltering, humid air gripped him like a giant hand. Even as dusk approached, the temperature near the surface was still over forty degrees Celsius. Within seconds, sweat began to pour from his body.

Around the makeshift observation post, a large group of weary guards and workers huddled in the shade, sipping salted tea and panting—thanks to millennia of global warming, equatorial temperatures were approaching those of the Cretaceous Warm Peak. Even the more resilient new humans would struggle to work long hours in such conditions, let alone someone as fragile as him, even among the old humans.

Therefore, even though his small, loli-like body was covered only by a pair of swim trunks with very little coverage, every second he spent outdoors was utter torture for the scientific archaeologist.

After seeing his boss from afar,

Some workers and soldiers showed a hint of resentment in their eyes—although they all received an extra 60 percent bonus on top of their base salary, working overtime in this hot, desolate wilderness was still not a pleasant experience.

Moreover, various terrifying rumors about the "forbidden land" of the Lindenhild-Faryun family have been circulating among the common people of the Duchy of Fayun for a long time.

Legend has it that this land was sealed away by one of the earliest "Three Heroes," suppressing the evil souls of the defeated ancient humans. Anyone who dares to venture deep into it will be instantly killed by the terrifying guardians bound underground by the ancient hero, with no chance of survival.

More importantly, according to legend, this slaughter was even a mercy bestowed upon intruders by ancient heroes: if they did not die at the hands of the guardians bound by the heroes and forced to guard the seal, their fate would be far more tragic. Ancient vengeful spirits would cast an eternal curse upon those who broke the seal and came into contact with it, condemning them to eternal torment.

Of course, at least on the surface, this "curse" legend has never been proven—not because anyone has personally demonstrated its ineffectiveness, but because the Counts of Timor, who rule this land and are distant relatives of the Lindenhild-Fayenne family, have maintained a guard stationed around this mountainous plain deep within Timor Island for many years, preventing any curious travelers from approaching. In addition, the surrounding mountains, with their vertical drops often exceeding a thousand meters and filled with steep cliffs and deep valleys, form insurmountable natural barriers.

Therefore, at least according to official records, no one has ever successfully approached this desolate forbidden area for centuries.

Of course, Iskander Lomonosov was well aware that official records were never that reliable.

After wiping away sweat with a damp towel handed to him by a short servant with rabbit ears, the archaeologist boarded a pre-arranged off-road vehicle and began inspecting the day's excavation findings.

When the political situation in the Duchy of Fayon had just changed, and the newly established Regency Council ordered excavations to be carried out in the forbidden area, the Count of Timor had vehemently opposed the plan, causing the work to be severely hampered. Fortunately, two weeks ago, Emperor Anthemius III finally made up his mind and issued a decree directly to the Count, forcing the latter to make concessions. This allowed the excavation work to finally end its long "preparatory phase" and begin to make substantial progress.

The terrible event that occurred in Oasis Harbor, which will forever be recorded in history, was the key factor that made the emperor make up his mind.

Although a canopy of canvas draped over the open-plan passenger seats, and even buckets filled with crushed ice on the shelves for cooling, the off-road vehicle still became unbearably hot when the internal combustion engine at the front of the vehicle started burning a mixture of biodiesel and converting it into kinetic energy. Fortunately, Iskandar Lomonosov was in a rather good mood: whenever he thought of the "accidents" that had occurred in the North Pole and Oasis Harbor, the corners of this loli-looking archaeologist's mouth would always curl into a slight smile.

Although Iskander Lomonosov himself was quite aware of the true causes and consequences of those two events, fortunately, most of the people involved in the decision-making process, including the Emperor, had the same understanding of the matter as he had deliberately guided: the Emperor now firmly believed that the old humans, who had been defeated by his ancestors, were manipulating their killing machines to make a comeback and attempt to reclaim this level of world that belonged to them from the new humans.

Therefore, he chose to believe the promise of the scientific archaeologist and authorized him to excavate this forbidden land and search for a means to counter those terrible weapons of the old civilization era.

Among the locals, this forbidden land is also known as the "Great Secret Realm," due to its unique environmental characteristics: depending on the amount of rainfall, the valleys of Timor's towering mountains are either covered with tropical rainforests or lush tropical grasslands, but this small mountain plain, covering more than ten square kilometers, is almost completely barren. The vitrified surface of silicate rocks, melted thousands of years ago, covers the land, forming a solid, smooth, black wasteland.

Apart from a very small number of tenacious lichens and mosses, there is no living thing on this black wasteland.

No one knows where these black glass pieces came from. However, in the shrouded and mythical ancient history of the Principality of Fayun, they were known as the "Great Seal of the Warriors." In the past, people would often venture to the edge of the plains, outside the blockade of the guards deployed by the Earl of Timor, to break off pieces of this black glass. They would then craft them into pendants, ornaments, or even set them into rings, claiming that they could be used to "suppress evil spirits."

The off-road vehicle drove across the glass surface, which was scorching hot under the blazing sun, and finally arrived near the large pit in the middle of the plain: the pit was more than two hundred meters in diameter and roughly funnel-shaped.

Of course, this "funnel" did not exist at the beginning. After forcing the Count of Timor to back down by using an edict bearing the imperial seal, the first thing Iskandar Lomonosov did was to use a set of high-precision portable flaw detectors left over from the old civilization era to conduct a series of explorations on the entire "Great Seal" area, and finally confirmed the existence of a significant underground cavity in this area.

Next, the engineering team drilled a series of holes in the ground and filled them with plastic high explosives. After a series of blasts, the black glass layer above the cavity was finally shattered, revealing the "funnel" hidden below. Subsequently, escorted by a group of armed guards, the workers built an elevator and metal stairs leading to the depths of the "funnel," clearing away shattered rocks and fragments of black glass that had collapsed into the cavity as they continued their exploration downwards.

"Sir?" As the archaeologist's SUV pulled up near the "funnel," an officer directing operations on site saluted him. This man, a close advisor to General Rissmer, chairman of the Regent's Council, held the rank of brigadier general and the title of viscount, making him a significant figure in the Duchy of Fayun. However, in this scorching, deathly place, he, like the ordinary workers, was forced to work shirtless, tanned to a deep black, even the fur on his prized golden fox tail was rough and dry from the sun, resembling a fluffy brush.

"How's it going?" Iskandar Lomonosov asked.

"Over the past five days, we've cleared a total depth of 90 meters. The deeper we dig, the more severe the heat and lack of oxygen become, so we have to build ventilation equipment first," the officer said, pointing to the air compressor humming nearby and the pipes leading to the depths of the "funnel." "The clearing is progressing well, except we've just encountered a closed door."