The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"...Your Highness...are you alright...?"

After the last fragments of memory faded, those uncontrollable, vivid daydream-like images finally disappeared completely from Fish's eyes. As his consciousness returned, he found himself still lying in the communications center deep underground in the "Secret Realm," with Ange's anxious face less than a foot away from him.

"My lord? Are you awake?"

"I...cough cough cough...I'm fine...at least I feel fine," Fish touched his hands and feet, and moved the major joints of his limbs, finding that none of his major parts were missing. "But how exactly..."

"Aside from the extremely minor bruises from the fall when you lost consciousness, your body is completely unharmed; I've already confirmed this through the medical assistance system," Huang Yan said. "Furthermore, your brain function is fine... however, your brain activity was extremely chaotic just now; I've never seen anything like it before. Did you... see anything?"

"Uh...it's a long story," Fish muttered. "How long did I sleep?"

"One hour and forty-eight minutes, during which you were in a very special state of light sleep for two-thirds of the time, and in a deep coma for one-third of the time—however, due to your special condition, I dare not wake you up rashly," Huang Yan said. "An Jie was very worried."

"Ah... I'm so sorry," Fish said apologetically to Ange, "I made you worry about me for so long."

"It's alright, my lord, your safety is the most important thing," Ange said with a smile. "As long as you are here, the future of the Lyndon Hilde-Fayon family is not a problem."

"Hmm... but how is that 'Grandmaster' doing?" Fish asked.

"It... is dead," Huang Yan reported. "Right after you activated the communication system and saw its image—according to physiological monitoring information, the human individual that it parasitized, as well as the 'Tai Sui' parasite located inside the individual, have completely lost their life response."

"Dead? How did he die?"

"For no reason at all, it suddenly died of natural causes less than ten minutes after you lost consciousness. If I had to describe it, it would be 'sudden cessation of vital functions,' like a switch being turned off," Huang Yan's tone was full of confusion. Clearly, even she couldn't understand what had happened. "Excuse my bluntness, but this is very likely not an accident, but a deliberate suicide."

Just as Huang Yan said, on the screen at this moment, the young man was no longer moving. His pale body lay quietly on the hospital bed, still in the position of hugging his knees, but his eerie red eyes were closed forever.

"Look on the bright side, this way the crisis will naturally end," Ange said sweetly, glancing at the screen. "Our purpose in coming here is to deal with 'The Grand Duke' and stop the 'Grand Duke' infection from spiraling out of control. Since it's so considerate of us and has chosen to end its own life, we can only be grateful to it."

"No, things are probably not that simple." Fish shook his head. "That's what my gut feeling tells me."

"My lord, did you... just see something?"

"That's right, the moment I made contact with that guy's consciousness, I suddenly discovered something... uh, how should I put it? I should call it memories," Fish took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, "I... saw the past. Things from the end of the old civilization era a thousand years ago."

"A thousand years ago?" Huang Yan asked. "Are you sure this isn't a dream or an illusion?"

"I wish it were so," Fish said. "Could you look up information on Singleton, the staff officer of the Fifteenth Expeditionary Fleet?"

"Yes, I have that entry in my database," Huang Yan replied immediately. "Colonel Singleton, the artificial human staff officer, was one of the first standard products of the expeditionary fleet's military staff project—incidentally, one of the further evolutions of this project is me. He participated in the famous Shura Star Battle, and the earliest 'Tai Sui' samples on Earth were also brought back by the expeditionary force after the battle."

"Could you tell me more about the Battle of Shura Star?"

"Yes. In this world, for the first time, humanity of the old civilization era faced extraterrestrial intelligent beings hostile to humankind and waged war against them. The final investigation revealed that these beings were all controlled by the 'Tai Sui' parasite. Although the enemy's resistance was suppressed during the war by capturing the 'Tomb Slayer,' Shura Star was subsequently determined to be 'unsuitable for human habitation,' so the occupation operation was abandoned halfway. After destroying the enemy's main military assets, the expeditionary fleet withdrew immediately."

"Then……"

"As you all know, the 'Grandmaster,' the supreme controller, was imprisoned and researched. The 'Tai Sui' samples, stripped of their superior control, were used as playthings by the hedonistic and irresponsible inhabitants of Earth at the end of the old civilization era, and were used in 'entertainment facilities' such as death arenas—the ones we found in the North End were among them. In the chaos of the collapse of the old civilization era, a small number of 'Tai Sui' escaped and went wild after completely losing control, becoming parasitic creatures that can be occasionally seen in the forest."

"Then, my 'hero' ancestor moved the 'Tomb Lord' down here and completely sealed this facility by burning the surface..." Ange's words trailed off as she suddenly realized something. "Wait, why did they do that? Why didn't they just kill the 'Tomb Lord'?"

"That's why I felt something was off." Fish twitched his fluffy cat ears. "The 'hero' of the past obviously spared this guy for some reason, and the 'Grave Chief' has probably lived to this day for some reason as well. And its sudden 'death by natural causes' after the communication was established is probably not a good thing."

"But then again, Mr. Fish, how could you possibly know about Chief of Staff Singleton? And even possess his memories? Logically speaking, that's simply impossible."

"I don't know either, but that's the truth. I saw him directing the battle on Shura Star and discovering 'Tai Sui'..." In the next few minutes, Fishman briefly recounted what he had seen and heard in his memory. "I don't know where these memories came from, but I guess they are mostly true."

"Very likely." Huang Yan was silent for a moment, then said, "It's a pity that a large part of my stored data from the final stage of the old civilization era has been lost, otherwise we might be able to deduce the reason why you obtained these memories. However, in any case, since the 'Grave Master' is dead, there is no point in staying here any longer. We'd better leave this place first and then make further plans."

"Wait, what about those Imperial troops who tried to break in earlier?" Fish asked.

"Their situation is also very strange," Ange said. "After we made contact and you suddenly lost consciousness, the communication center's system immediately started some kind of encrypted broadcast that couldn't be deciphered, and it couldn't be turned off at all—in the end, based on Huang Yan's suggestion, I had to physically destroy the equipment to stop the broadcast." She pointed to two control consoles that were mostly burned by the plasma beam and sighed.

"and then?"

"The Imperial soldiers surrounding the communications center suddenly withdrew after the encrypted broadcast began. Then, they all went silent. I really wanted to go out and see what was going on, but I didn't dare leave my unconscious husband behind..."

"Damn, I have a really, really bad feeling right now..." Fish said. "Get ready for battle, we're going out."

For safety reasons, Fish didn't even walk directly out of the communications center. Instead, he had Ange release a mini loitering munition to scout ahead. Although these loitering munitions have limited observation capabilities due to their small optical sensors, they can transmit real-time images observed within 600 meters back to "Golden Soup" and then share them through the tactical information network between the smart mechs.

As Phoenix Flame transmitted real-time images to the helmet display, Fish saw the scene in the corridor: besides the slain bio-assassins "Cain" twins, the Imperial Guard soldiers had also suffered considerable casualties in their attempt to storm the communications center. Even now, the mangled corpses remained where they were. The corridor was covered in blood and burn marks.

"That's strange," Fish said quietly.

"Yes, Your Highness, you noticed?"

“That’s right. For any normal army, unless they can’t clean up the battlefield, their own dead should be taken away. Especially since we weren’t pursuing them, transporting the dead shouldn’t be a problem at all,” Fish said.

"Perhaps they've encountered another emergency and have to prioritize dealing with it? For example, some kind of automated defense system within the facility has been activated?" Ange came up with an explanation.

"It's not very likely, at least I haven't detected any significant vibrations. This means that it seems there's no fight going on down there," Huang Yan said. "Also, did you notice? There are actually drag marks here."

"Yes." After Huang Yan's reminder, An Jie noticed that there were indeed some bloodstains on the corridor floor, as if they had been left by dragging a heavy, blood-stained object. However, there were also many scratch marks and handprints near these bloodstains, suggesting that the person who was dragged away was not only alive but also very unwilling.

"They took the wounded but ignored the dead," Fish concluded. "In a very urgent battle, someone might do that, but that didn't happen."

"And the injured are struggling violently—although some seriously wounded people do this instinctively, I don't think it's normal." Ange instinctively tucked the fluffy "foxtail" between her legs, a subconscious action when she felt extremely tense. "It's really strange..."

The small loitering munition continued its flight, fueled by the limited power stored in its battery. Finally, it left the end of the nearly 100-meter-long corridor and followed the trail of blood into an underground hall. Previously, this had been a temporary barracks for the Imperial Guard, filled with equipment, supplies, and daily necessities used by those patrolling below. But now, something that looked... ominous had appeared here.

They were human-sized objects covered in a sticky, beeswax-like substance, resembling insect eggs or cocoons. Some of them were even slowly wriggling. Thin tubes extended from their edges, rhythmically expanding and contracting, as if breathing.

"What...what is this?" Fish was completely dumbfounded.

"Some kind of biological structure... I guess? I don't have anything like that in my database," Huang Yan said. "But at least, there doesn't seem to be any trace of enemy personnel outside, so I should be able to get out without any problems."

“I agree to leave now,” Ange said. At the same time, the image on the helmet display suddenly blurred and dimmed, then disappeared after a few seconds—the small loitering munition’s built-in battery could only last that long. “There’s nothing we can do if we stay down here—after all, I just deliberately destroyed the communication equipment here out of caution.”

"Okay." Fish nodded and walked out of the communications center. For some reason, a phrase that seemed to come from Singleton's memory suddenly flashed through his mind.

"This is just the prelude to the final act."

"What did you just say, my husband?" Anjie asked.

"Uh, well... it's nothing." Fish shook his head awkwardly, realizing he had accidentally said that. "I mean, I have a feeling something big is about to happen."

Just as the loitering munition's sensors detected, dozens of enormous "eggs"—though judging from the material of their shells, perhaps "cocoons" would be a more accurate description—had already been piled up outside the corridor connecting to the communications center. As the two approached, some of the "cocoons" seemed to sense the danger and began to wriggle and struggle slightly; beneath their translucent shells, something was trying to escape.

"Stay away from them," Fish said in a low voice, activating the Phoenix Flame's lighting system. A penetrating beam of light swiftly pierced through the outer layer of the cocoon, illuminating the slightly trembling entity within—a shadow resembling a human, yet subtly different.

"Hmm, this does remind me a bit of that guy from StarCraft," Huang Yan muttered.

"Hey, who did you say?"

"Uh, it's nothing, just some ancient memories from an old civilization era," Huang Yan replied. "Threat level assessment: currently unknown. However, my personal suggestion is to open fire immediately and eliminate the target."

"Um... since the level of threat is still unclear, why do we need to eliminate it?" Ange asked, still somewhat confused, even though she had activated the ion shoulder cannon and the monomolecular blade in her hand and assumed a fighting stance.

"Because of intuition."