Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 765: Trapped?

Han Yu looked up. "This is a generous mission."

Kun snorted softly. "Generous because no one wants it. Takes too long, too tedious. And the overseers there are… temperamental."

Han Yu nodded.

He had repaired similar systems before. Massive belt structures, dozens of synchronized formation arrays, scanning nodes that needed precise recalibration. A single misalignment could cascade into hours of troubleshooting.

"I'll take it," Han Yu said without hesitation.

Kun did not seem surprised. He rarely was when it came to Han Yu.

"Good," Kun said. "I'll mark it as assigned to you. Take care of it properly. That warehouse will be seeing increased use soon."

Han Yu's eyes flickered. "Increased use?"

Kun gave him a sideways glance. "Didn't hear it from me."

Han Yu inclined his head. "Understood."

Kun turned to leave, then paused. "Ju Fan."

Han Yu looked up again.

"You've been doing good work," Kun said. His tone was flat, but the words themselves were rare. "Don't get complacent."

Then he was gone.

Han Yu watched him leave, then exhaled slowly.

"Increased use," he murmured.

Violet Spirit Quartz.

The timing fit too well to be coincidence.

Han Yu gathered his tools and secured the puppet parts he had been working on. Within minutes, he was on his way, heading toward the outer regions of the sect.

The journey took longer than most of his usual tasks.

Warehouse Forty-Seven was far, situated near one of the auxiliary gates that rarely saw foot traffic from inner disciples. Only the outer court disciples who were assigned boring, low paying duties and slaves were usually present there.

The further Han Yu traveled, the more the environment changed. The dense clusters of peaks gave way to broader pathways, larger structures, and wide-open logistics yards. When the warehouse finally came into view, Han Yu could not help but pause for a moment.

It was enormous.

A long, low structure stretching nearly three kilometers from end to end, its walls reinforced with layered stone and formation arrays. The roof rose in gentle arcs, dotted with venting structures and Qi dispersal nodes. Even from the outside, Han Yu could sense the dormant formations embedded within it, countless layers of organization and control.

He approached the main entrance and activated his token.

The doors slid open soundlessly.

Inside, the air was cool and dry. The interior was cavernous, the ceiling supported by massive pillars spaced at regular intervals. Rows upon rows of conveyor belts and sorting lanes stretched into the distance, forming a complex web of mechanical pathways.

And yet…

It was empty.

No workers.

No slaves.

No supervisors.

Han Yu frowned slightly.

That was unusual.

Even when a sorting puppet malfunctioned, there were usually people around. Supervisors, at least. Slaves waiting to resume work once repairs were complete.

He stepped inside, the doors closing behind him with a dull thud.

Han Yu walked deeper into the warehouse, his footsteps echoing faintly. The belts were motionless. The sorting arms hung idle, frozen in mid-position.

"Strange," he muttered.

He extended his spirit sense cautiously.

At first, everything seemed normal. The puppet's core formations were dormant but intact. There was residual Qi buildup in several nodes, consistent with overuse.

Nothing alarming.

Then, without warning, the doors behind him moved.

SHUA

Han Yu turned sharply.

The massive warehouse doors were closing.

Not sliding.

Slamming.

DANGGGG

He barely had time to react before a thunderous boom echoed through the structure. The doors collided, and in the same instant, a wave of bone-chilling cold surged through the air.

WHOOSH

Han Yu's pupils constricted.

Frost exploded outward from the doorframes, racing along the walls like living veins. In seconds, thick ice spread across the stone, climbing, thickening, sealing every seam.

The doors were gone beneath a meter-thick slab of ice.

Han Yu spun, spirit sense flaring.

The temperature plummeted.

His breath fogged instantly.

The walls, the floor, the pillars... everything began to frost over, intricate patterns of ice forming with unnatural speed and precision.

This was not ambient cold.

This was cultivated frost Qi.

Powerful.

Controlled.

Deliberate.

Han Yu's heart sank.

"This wasn't a repair mission," he said quietly.

The warehouse had become a trap.

A prison of ice.

And somewhere within it, the source of that bone-chilling aura waited.

Han Yu's senses were stretched to their absolute limit.

The moment the frost sealed the warehouse shut, he had already known. This was not an accident, nor was it the doing of some overeager inner disciple. The level of control, the precision with which the frost Qi had spread, and the deliberate timing all pointed to one place.

The Kidney Peaks.

The question had never been whether someone from there would come for him. It was which side of that cold coin he had landed on.

Han Yu remained still, his posture straight, his breathing steady, even as the oppressive cold gnawed at his skin and seeped into his bones. The ice did not simply chill the air. It carried intent. Authority. Pressure that weighed down on his spirit sense and made his Qi circulation slow as if it were moving through syrup.

He kept his head lowered, eyes fixed on the frozen stone floor.

His spirit sense, however, was razor-sharp.

The man standing before the main sorting belt was impossible to miss now that Han Yu had locked onto him. Six feet tall, average in build, yet his presence filled the entire warehouse as if the structure itself were merely an extension of his will. White hair flowed freely down his back, untouched by frost, as though ice itself dared not cling to him.

The aura he radiated was vast.

Han Yu could not see its limits.

Nascent Soul realm was far too low. Dao Shell realm was likely, but even that felt… insufficient. The pressure was not crushing like a Dao Treading cultivator's Dao Embryo, but it was far deeper and heavier than anything Han Yu had felt from a Nascent Soul expert.

It was the aura of someone who had stood at the threshold for a very long time.

And chosen not to fall.

Madam Cold Fang's Ice Qi had been sharp, lethal, honed like a blade meant to kill. This man's Ice Qi was different. It was tyrannical. Overbearing. It did not seek to cut, but to dominate. To suppress everything beneath it until resistance ceased to exist.