The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

For Finn Barnard, a science archaeology assistant who was conducting a routine patrol in a Goron walker through the passageway beneath the funnel, this night, like many others in the past, was filled with weariness and boredom.

Although Finn Barnard was initially excited when he received the emperor's order to join the investigation in the legendary "secret realm" heavily protected by the Duchy of Fayun, reality soon delivered a harsh blow to this young man who aspired to become a scientific archaeologist.

The initial hardship came from the voyage—after joining the scientific archaeology team, Finn Barnard, along with ninety other assistants and sixteen scientific archaeologists, boarded the Imperial Guard First Brigade's transport ship "Tolerance" and began their journey to Timor Island.

Although this 4,000-ton transport ship was designed specifically for ocean voyages, unfortunately, after entering the low latitudes, Finn Barnard still felt the "hospitality" of the tropical ocean: in this era of global warming that has lasted for more than a thousand years, the storms in the tropical seas, in terms of both intensity and frequency, far exceed those of the old civilization era.

For those unaccustomed to sailing, navigating the low-latitude oceans means endless rocking and vomiting, as well as a profound sense of powerlessness in the face of raging nature.

After being violently shaken for over a week, to the point that his brain was almost shaken to its limit, Finn Barnard and his 103 companions—one assistant who died from a sudden illness on board, and two others who drowned while venturing to the deck for fresh air—finally landed on this remote tropical island with the First Imperial Guard.

On the day he landed, he could even clearly feel the ground shaking beneath his feet. It took a long time for that feeling to completely disappear.

Then, even worse things happened one after another.

Finn Barnard never imagined that the forbidden land, the legendary "secret realm" that the Lyndenhild-Fayon family had forbade anyone to enter for generations, would turn out to be a desolate, empty, black, vitrified field. Although the seasoned archaeologists were quite excited about it and discussed its formation enthusiastically, he only felt fear: Finn Barnard had a rather terrible feeling when he first saw this endless black expanse.

His intuition told him he shouldn't be here. This black, glassy field exuded an unsettling aura; beneath the lifeless earth, something lurked, watched, and awaited his arrival.

If it weren't for the hope of gaining experience through this exploration mission and preparing him to become a formal archaeologist of science, Finn Barnard might have succumbed to the ominous feeling and asked to leave. Afterward, as the exploration progressed, the feeling gradually subsided—not because Finn Barnard was no longer afraid, but simply because the heavy, arduous work completely occupied his mind, making it temporarily impossible for him to continue thinking about this matter.

Over the course of more than two weeks, they measured the ground, used pickaxes, hammers, and chisels to create openings in the smooth, vitrified surface, inserted detectors provided by senior archaeologists, and deployed and detonated explosives at different locations—all supposedly to measure changes in the propagation of sound waves underground in order to locate cavities buried deep in the bedrock.

In addition to these arduous tasks under the scorching sun, Finn Barnard and others also had to handle a large amount of calculation and paperwork, leaving their brains as exhausted as their bodies.

Fortunately, their hard work paid off at least in some way: after a long struggle, the scientific archaeology team finally located the ancient facility sealed beneath this black glass earth and found a passage to enter it.

After a series of arduous excavations and blasts, they blasted a gap in the molten and solidified black glass layer, which the soldiers called a "funnel," and successfully entered it...

...However, at that moment, the nightmare became reality.

Shortly after successfully excavating the "funnel" and clearing away the shards of glass below, Finn Barnard unearthed a heavy armored door blocking the passage below—fortunately, his shift ended just as the door was cleared. The responsibility of demolishing this obstruction fell to the next shift.

Not a single one of them survived.

Finn Barnard witnessed the chaos while eating in the mess hall: a massive humanoid robot emerged from the "funnel" and began indiscriminately unleashing an ancient and brutal rage upon everyone around it. Although the Imperial Guard's 1st Brigade had been prepared for this, in the brief minutes of fighting, several heavy weapons positions were destroyed, and more than fifty people—including the ten techno-archaeology assistants who were replacing Finn Barnard's shift—were killed instantly.

Ultimately, it was only after the powerful "Crystal Knights" sacrificed one of their members that they managed to defeat the ancient guardian. However, the whole affair also definitively confirmed the reliability of Finn Barnard's initial intuition.

Yes, this is a dangerous and ominous place.

Unfortunately, although theoretically the members of the scientific archaeology team, including Finn Barnard, were not soldiers but civilians who "volunteered" for this excavation mission, they were free to leave at any time.

Unfortunately, all the means of transportation to leave this scorching island were controlled by the Imperial Army, and the original agreement did not stipulate that they could use these means of transportation freely.

Therefore, when Finn Barnard finally began to consider leaving, he found that he could no longer go.

Fortunately, due to the continuous threats posed by the ancient ruins beneath the "funnel," Dr. Iskander Lomonosov, who was in charge of managing the excavation operation, immediately took corrective measures after the first accident: the number of scientific archaeologists entering the "funnel" each time for excavation and cleaning was limited; timed detonation was used for blasting important blocked areas and closed gates; and non-combat personnel were evacuated to a distance of one kilometer to avoid being drawn into the firefight with the awakened guardians.

Furthermore, for safety reasons, Iskander Lomonosov thoughtfully provided the "Goron" walking machines, originally used by the Imperial Guard, to the scientific archaeology team members who needed to enter the ruins for cleaning, inspection, and patrol work. Although these armored giants built in the old civilization era could not necessarily guarantee the safety of their users, the fact that they were "flesh wrapped in iron" was enough to give them at least some confidence, allowing them to muster the courage to resume their work.

Finn Barnard was exactly like that at that moment.

Through the bubble-shaped canopy of the ancient walking machine, the assistant in charge of technological archaeology strained his tired, bloodshot eyes to observe everything within the complex underground tunnels, which resembled anthills.

According to formal archaeologists, the ancient ruins buried beneath this black glass field are likely the most complex underground sites ever discovered, with hundreds of branching passages, ascending tunnels, and shafts, many of which conceal secret chambers and hidden doors.

Although the archaeological team has found some diagrams and directional markers left from the past in some areas, unfortunately, they have not yet found what Iskandar Lomonosov was looking for.

Another major challenge of this mission was that almost no one knew what they were looking for. The specific mission instructions that Iskander Lomonosov, who was in charge of the operation, received from the Emperor were classified as secret. He only told others to report to him immediately once they discovered a secret room with a special number and marking.

The purpose of the secret chamber and what it contained were also classified as top secret. The extreme scarcity of information meant that the various methods archaeologists typically used for locating targets—such as analyzing relic structures and organizing clues—were completely useless here. Once inside the "funnel" and beginning their work, all they could do was conduct a thorough search of the entire area, hoping for a stroke of luck to find their destination.

"Ugh... I've had enough of this godforsaken place... If I'd known being a scientific archaeologist meant this, I should have listened to my mother and become a clerk at the family convenience store..." Finn Barnard muttered to himself after "Gorlon" turned past a directional mark painted on the wall with fluorescent paint.

Of all the assigned tasks, the most unpleasant was this nighttime patrol mission. Although the cleared tunnels were theoretically safe, the scientific archaeology team still arranged a strict patrol schedule to prevent accidents and to prevent unscrupulous individuals from sneaking in. Assistants like him were responsible for carrying out the patrols.

Although he could sit inside one of these armed "Gorlons" while on patrol, accompanied by a fully armed infantry squad, none of this offered Finn Barnard much solace: after all, since the "funnel" was opened, he had witnessed firsthand the horrors lurking beneath. Both he and the soldiers accompanying him on patrols were well aware that their only hope for now was that the tunnels were indeed empty.

Otherwise, neither the mechanical bodies forged in the old civilization era nor the rifles and 60mm anti-tank rockets produced by the Royal Armory could save their lives.

Fortunately, the patrol was drawing to a close for the night. After seeing the ninth turning mark painted with fluorescent paint, Finn Barnard knew that he only needed to go around a 200-meter-long curved passage to reach the main passage exit located below the "funnel" and then leave from there.

However, just as he began to feel relieved that he had safely completed yet another patrol mission, two subtle abnormal signals suddenly appeared on the "Gorlon's" monitor.

As a technological product of the old civilization, all "Gorons" possess extremely complex and sophisticated sensors to detect changes in the external environment. These composite devices, which integrate centimeter-wave radar, vibration sensors, broadband optical sensors, and carbon dioxide/pheromone detectors, can keenly detect living and non-living things within hundreds of meters, even if they are obscured by smoke, glass, rock formations, or other obstructions.

Upon seeing the two points of light that shouldn't have appeared, Finn Barnard was initially startled, then quickly realized—these two signals were similar in size to those of ordinary humans, proving they weren't the ancient, autonomous weapon guardians hidden beneath. Furthermore, they were both enveloped in a halo representing energy radiation, indicating that the two were wearing some kind of wearable device that could provide auxiliary power.

Such devices are either uncommon lightweight engineering exoskeletons that have only occasionally appeared in the ruins of a few old civilizations' laboratories, or the renowned intelligent combat armor. Considering the current situation, only the second possibility applies. And given that the "Gron's" friend or foe identification system showed no reaction, these two armored warriors are not members of the Imperial Army.

They are intruders!

Upon confirming this, Finn Barnard was initially taken aback, but this surprise quickly turned into smug delight: clearly, two men who did not belong to the Imperial Army and were obviously plotting something had infiltrated the excavation site, but he had been lucky enough to discover them.

Yes, armored warriors are indeed very powerful, but that's only in comparison to humans. When facing a "Goron" walking machine weighing nearly ten tons, an ordinary armored warrior doesn't have much of an advantage.

Moreover, this "Goron" is a military model equipped with a six-barreled .303 caliber machine gun. In close-range fire, even heavily armored smart combat armor with enhanced defenses cannot withstand the barrage of armor-piercing rounds from this weapon.

At this very moment, on the other side of the curved road, the two invading armored warriors had clearly not yet spotted him—after all, the "Goron's" high-precision sensors were naturally quite heavy, making them far too cumbersome and difficult to carry for intelligent combat armor. In this environment separated by a large expanse of rock, he naturally held the information advantage.

Discovering first means being able to destroy the opponent first.

Having made up his mind, Finn Barnard signaled his infantry to halt, and then had the "Gorlon" stop advancing to prevent its massive disc-shaped feet from continuing to make noise and alert the enemy. He then aimed his machine gun forward and began his ambush—if the two intruders dared to appear, he would pull the trigger before they even realized what was happening.

And what happened next happened just as he had predicted.

As soon as two figures clad in smart combat armor appeared, "Gron's" six-barreled heavy machine gun roared into action. A hail of bullets quickly enveloped their location, piercing through the smart combat armor and the people inside... To ensure the kill, Finn Barnard continued firing until the bullet counter reached zero before finally letting out a sigh of relief.

Then, he discovered something astonishing: the two corpses wearing intelligent combat armor were equipped with a layer of crystal-like additional protection!

To immerse yourself in reading Chapter 151, "The Funnel," please click here.