Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time
Chapter 219: Getting Past The Watch

Chapter 219: Getting Past The Watch

A figure clad in a plain black robe, simple and smooth, with no emblem, no mark of sect or house. He didn’t mingle with the others, either. He stood on a small ridge by the largest building, arms crossed behind his back, as if simply watching the smoke swirl up from the caldera.

Han Yu narrowed his eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

He watched them for an hour, barely moving a muscle, as the sun began to dip behind the ridges and the sky bled orange and red. Slowly, the disciples began to retreat into the buildings and tents, chatting casually, while a few remained outside—three guards, maybe four, keeping lazy watch around the perimeter.

Han Yu knew what this meant.

Nighttime was his window.

He backed down the hill silently and began working quickly but carefully. He opened his hide pouch, pulled out a few pieces of grilled boar meat, and looked toward the darkened rocks to the east.

"I hope you’re hungry."

A low growl echoed from nearby.

Perfect.

It didn’t take long. The scent of the meat caught the attention of a hyena-like beast—the same kind of creature Han Yu had seen carried away by that giant bird days ago. It slinked forward on four heavy limbs, its hunched shoulders twitching, tongue lolling as it sniffed the air.

Han Yu tossed the meat toward a path that led closer to the outpost.

The beast followed. One bite. Then another. It started to move.

He threw another chunk, this time aiming to send it just beyond a boulder near the western wall of the Mist Eye outpost.

The beast gave a guttural bark and lunged for the meat.

Perfect.

Then, Han Yu took a longer path around, circling toward the eastern edge, crawling from shadow to shadow, boulder to boulder, until he was within sprinting distance of a cluster of volcanic vents.

Then it happened.

A howl. Then a scream. And shouting.

He peeked out from behind a rock.

The hyena-beast had wandered into the outpost’s boundary—and a disciple was down. Another was casting a light spell, flooding the area with harsh white flash. The beast howled, snarled, and lunged into one of the tents.

Chaos.

Han Yu ran like the wind.

Each footstep was perfectly timed to the roaring and yelling from the other side. He reached the shadow of the outpost, hugging the wall, ducking beneath a cracked windowsill, and then disappeared into the crevice of rock leading along the outer rim of the caldera.

He paused for breath, heart pounding, mind racing.

That was too close.

But it worked.

He was in.

Now it was time to find the Ashes of a Fireborn Beast—before Mist Eye Sect, or whoever that man in black was, got to him first.

But the Slumbering Caldera was no mere hole in the earth.

It was a natural fortress, an immense bowl-like depression surrounded on all sides by sheer, jagged ridges of volcanic rock, some stretching hundreds of meters high. The jagged silhouette of its surrounding mountains loomed against the stars like blackened fangs, each ridge carved and twisted by ancient lava flows and old ash storms.

Han Yu stood at the base of the inner slopes, breathing hard.

"This... wasn’t in the mission notes."

He should’ve known better than to expect clear directions from the senior from the mission hall who handed him a map that looked like it had been drawn during a drunken midnight scroll session.

The western side of the caldera had a few known paths, especially to those who frequented the region. But the eastern side, where Han Yu now stood after his detour through beast hell, was wild, uncharted, and clearly avoided for a reason.

He spent hours scouting, picking paths only to find sheer drops, impassable cliffs, or razor-sharp obsidian ridges. At one point, he had to double back after nearly stepping into a sleeping nest of lava wasps—giant, black, twitchy things whose stingers glowed faintly in the dark.

Eventually, when the sun was crawling its way toward the noon peak, Han Yu spotted a narrow crevice between two towering slabs of volcanic stone. It looked like a vertical wound carved into the mountain’s side, just wide enough for a person to slip through sideways.

At the very top of the crevice—precariously jammed between the two rock faces—was a boulder the size of a house, lodged in place like a divine threat.

Han Yu stared at it for a long moment.

"...This feels like a trap."

But there were no better paths.

He tightened his bag straps, took a deep breath, and entered sideways, careful not to dislodge even a pebble. The walls pressed close on either side, forcing him to sidle and twist, his weapons scraping stone and his knees bumping against jagged ridges. Dust rained from above with every gust of wind. The crevice smelled like heated sulfur and hot iron.

Halfway through, a rock clattered down from above and struck his shoulder.

Han Yu froze.

He looked up.

The boulder wobbled—just a little.

He clenched his teeth and moved faster, sliding one foot after the other with controlled panic until he emerged from the bottleneck and found himself in a steep stone chute that led upward, snaking along the spine of the caldera.

The climb was rough.

No solid footing. Barely any handholds. The volcanic glass embedded in the rocks sliced at his palms when he grabbed too carelessly. Several times he had to stop and wedge himself between walls just to catch his breath and stretch a cramp.

His muscles screamed, his wounds from earlier reopened, and sweat poured down his back despite the cold wind that howled through the crack.

The sun dipped low again—shadows stretched long and black across the slope—before Han Yu finally pulled himself over the top ledge and rolled onto a narrow ridge that curved around the inner rim of the Slumbering Caldera.

He lay there for a while, panting, arms spread wide against the rough stone, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of exhaustion.

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