Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 213: A Dangerous Snake

This beast... it had to be at least Nascent Soul level.

Maybe even stronger.

That was a realm so far above Han Yu’s current cultivation it may as well have been a god. Even if he turned and bolted at his top speed, he’d be dead before his second step. One flick of that beast’s body, one casual swipe of its tail, and he’d be paste on the cavern walls.

But despite its monstrous power, the creature had not reacted to his presence. It hadn’t so much as glanced up toward the tunnel he was hiding in.

’Why?’

He forced his ragged breathing to calm, thinking, calculating.

Snakes were supposed to have a keen sense of smell. Some could even detect heat signatures and spiritual fluctuations. By all rights, this thing should have noticed him the moment it entered the cavern.

His eyes slowly drifted down to his filthy robe. He was covered in dust, dirt, and dried gunk from the previous tunnels. Bits of old beast dung clung to his sleeves and legs, and his hair was matted with cave dust.

"...Wait a minute," he murmured inside his head.

Could it be? Was the filth... masking his scent?

It sounded ridiculous, but it wasn’t impossible. Some spirit beasts relied heavily on smell, and if his current stench was strong enough, it might be confusing or overpowering his human scent entirely.

But as his mind turned this over, a new and much more terrifying thought struck him.

He remembered the claw marks he’d seen etched into the stone walls earlier—the deep gouges, far too wide and jagged to be left by a snake’s fangs or tail.

And then there was the dung—something he had inspected out of habit. It was older, yes, but also far bulkier and inconsistent with a serpent’s excrement.

This creature didn’t match either of those signs.

Which meant...

Han Yu’s pupils shrank.

"...Are there... two of them?"

The thought alone nearly made him slip.

The snake in the cavern was already enough to guarantee his death if it discovered him. But if there was another creature in these caves—a second beast powerful enough to leave claw marks and dung like that—then, he was in even deeper trouble than he’d realized.

He was trapped. Possibly between two apex predators.

’Fuck.’

Carefully, very carefully, Han Yu slunk backward, deeper into the tunnel. He didn’t dare make a sound louder than the rustling of fabric. Every inch he gained from that nest felt like a small victory.

He needed to think. Fast.

If that was truly a Nascent Soul realm beast—or close to it—then fighting was out of the question. Escaping was barely an option. And if another unknown creature was roaming these caverns...

Then survival would require every ounce of his cunning.

’No more charging ahead. No more baiting traps. I need a path out, and I need it without alerting either of those monsters.’

Han Yu clenched his jaw and slid his hand toward his waist pouch, pulling out one of the few remaining low-grade spirit stones. Not for fighting—no. He would not be throwing anything unless he absolutely had to. But if he could modify the unstable runes on one later, he might create a distraction.

One that wouldn’t point back to him.

He crawled deeper into the tunnel, heart pounding, each movement calculated.

For now, he would stay hidden.

But this time, he wasn’t just running for his life.

He was running with a mission still burning in the back of his mind... and a growing need to figure out what the hell kind of hellhole he had fallen into.

Han Yu crept deeper into the tunnel, his body hugging the rough stone walls. The cave narrowed and curved with each step, forcing him to crouch, then crawl, and finally slither on his stomach as if mimicking the very beast he fled from.

The oppressive silence was only broken by the occasional distant rumble—either another tremor or the beast shifting in its nest.

By the time he reached a slight widening in the tunnel, his knees were scraped raw and his arms trembled from effort. He paused there, breathing shallowly, ears straining for any sign of pursuit. But nothing followed. The snake hadn’t noticed—or it didn’t care.

Yet.

His eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom, and he took a careful sip from his waterskin, lips dry and chapped. The taste of stale stream water had never been so refreshing.

"Okay, Han Yu," he whispered to himself hoarsely. "Let’s recap. You’re in an unknown, unrecorded part of a labyrinthine cave system. There’s at least one Nascent Soul level beast out there, possibly two. You’re out of food, running low on light sources, and your only company is your own stupidity."

He leaned back against the wall with a dull thud, then winced.

"Oh, and let’s not forget: you’re on a time-sensitive infiltration mission for a sect that barely tolerates your existence, in enemy territory, with a fake cultivation base."

He gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Fantastic."

But he couldn’t afford despair—not now. Every second he stayed idle was a second lost from the precious year he had been given. A year that could determine whether he was rewarded—or quietly forgotten.

He took a moment to look around the new passage. It sloped faintly upward, and the air felt ever-so-slightly cooler than before.

’Up is good,’ he thought. ’Up means closer to the surface. Maybe.’

He moved slowly now, ears still trained behind him in case the beast decided to slither through the same tunnel. After a few minutes, the passage began to widen again and curve slightly left. A gentle breeze touched his face.

He froze.

A breeze.

His heart began to race. That meant air circulation. That meant a way out. Or at least a path that wasn’t completely sealed.

Cautious but curious, Han Yu chose the latter.

The moment he entered the new chamber, he stopped in awe.

A vast cavern stretched before him, walls lined with crystalline formations that pulsed with a dim red hue, like veins glowing under skin.