My Scumbag System-Chapter 293: Scumbag Diplomacy, Lesson One

"We’re moving forward," I announced.

Raphael’s grin split his face. "Hell yeah. Boss chamber, here we—"

"Into their wing."

His grin faltered. Died. Resurrected as confusion. "What?"

"We’re saving them."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the screaming from the other side seemed to pause, as if the universe itself was waiting for an explanation.

I gave them one.

"Not because they deserve it," I said, hefting my bat onto my shoulder. "They don’t. Julian’s a coward. Petrova’s a fascist. The whole lot of them would leave us to rot if our positions were reversed."

I turned to face the resin wall, studying the chaos of light and shadow on the other side.

"We’re saving them because that’s what Onyx does. They show mercy when they can afford it. They demonstrate that they had the power to let their prey die and chose otherwise." I glanced back at my team, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "Besides... imagine the look on Julian’s face when he realizes he’s alive because I allowed it. That bragging right is worth more than any Core."

Understanding dawned across their faces.

Raphael’s confusion morphed into something darker. Hungrier. The kind of smile that promised violence wrapped in charity.

Skylar let out a low laugh. "You absolute bastard."

"Thank you."

"That wasn’t a compliment."

"I’m choosing to take it as one anyway."

Natalia was watching me with that intensity that made my blood run hot. "You’re going to save them just to humiliate them."

"Humiliate, obligate, and demonstrate." I rolled my shoulders, loosening up for what came next. "The Trinity of Scumbag Diplomacy."

"I don’t think that’s a real thing."

"It is now. I just invented it."

Isabelle stepped forward, her spear humming with barely contained wind energy. "The resin wall is several feet thick. We’ll need significant force to breach it."

I studied the barrier. Translucent. Organic. The product of some long-dead creature’s secretions, hardened over centuries into something approaching concrete.

There. A crack near the base. Structural weakness where the ancient material had begun to decay.

"Raphael. Hikari." I pointed at the flaw. "Make me a door."

The two berserkers exchanged glances. Then identical grins spread across their faces.

"Finally," Raphael growled, kinetic energy crackling around his fists like captured lightning. "Something I can punch."

"Ooh! A team attack!" Hikari bounced on her heels, her massive flail already glowing with accumulated virtual mass. "We should have a cool name for this! What about the Demolition Duo? Or the Wall-Buster Brothers? Wait, I’m a girl, that doesn’t work..."

"Focus," Isabelle said dryly.

"Right! Focusing!"

They took positions on either side of the crack. Raphael drew back his fist. Hikari raised her flail. The air itself seemed to tense.

"On three," I said. "One. Two—"

"THREE!"

They didn’t wait for my count. Of course they didn’t.

The impact was catastrophic.

Raphael’s kinetic burst hit the crack like a thunderbolt. The shockwave propagated through the resin, spiderwebbing fractures across the entire surface. Before the material could even begin to recover, Hikari’s flail completed its arc.

The weapon struck with the force of a falling meteor.

The wall exploded.

Chunks of hardened organic matter flew in every direction. Some were the size of my head. Others were the size of small vehicles. The corridor filled with dust and debris and the shriek of ancient material giving up its final resistance.

When the smoke cleared, there was a hole. Jagged. Irregular. Big enough to drive a truck through.

And on the other side, hell had come to visit.

I ran.

My legs pumped through the knee-deep water. [Protection From Arrows] screamed warnings in my skull, danger coming from everywhere at once. The air tasted wrong. Dead wrong. Wrong in ways that had nothing to do with the usual dungeon rot.

The cathedral chamber opened before me, vast and terrible. Pillars carved with dying magic. Water like liquid darkness. Bodies floating face-down.

Bodies in silver armor.

Sentinels.

And standing in the center of it all, looming over a girl with white hair and a crumbling ice shield, was the thing that had killed them.

Fifteen feet of nightmare. Shadow wrapped around bone. Claws like harvesting scythes. A jaw that opened into infinity.

And dangling from its forehead, glowing with obscene light, a lure shaped like a crying child.

"Help me," the lure wept. "Please, it hurts, please help me."

The monster’s claw was descending.

Celeste Vance knelt beneath it, her mana depleted, her defenses shattered. She’d closed her eyes. Accepted her death. Given up.

Something hot and sharp twisted in my chest.

Not today, Ice Princess.

I didn’t slow down. I didn’t stop to aim. I just raised my hand, felt the power surge through my arm, and spoke the word.

"SEVER."

The invisible blade launched from my palm. A razor of pure force that crossed the chamber in the time between heartbeats.

It hit the Angler’s arm just above the elbow.

The limb separated cleanly. Fell away. Splashed into the black water with a sound like judgment.

The monster screamed.

I skidded to a halt on a crumbling balcony overlooking the chaos. Behind me, my team poured through the breach. Isabelle’s spear caught the light. Skylar’s smoke began to fill the air. Raphael was already crackling with lethal intent.

Below me, the Argent Sentinels lay broken and scattered. Their formation destroyed. Their pride in ruins. Their golden prince cowering behind a pillar like the coward he’d always been.

Julian’s face was a mask of pure terror. All that aristocratic superiority, stripped away in an instant. He looked like what he was.

A fraud.

A failure.

A scared little boy who’d never known consequence.

I smiled down at him.

"You dropped something," I said, gesturing with my bat toward his hiding spot. "Your dignity. And about half your team."

Celeste’s eyes opened. She looked up at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Shock, certainly. Confusion. But underneath it...

Hope?

Interesting.

The Angler recovered from its initial shock. Its empty eye sockets locked onto me with murderous intent. The stump of its severed arm spurted black ichor that sizzled where it hit the water.

The child-lure wailed louder than ever.

"Why?" it sobbed. "Why won’t anyone help me? It hurts so much!"

"Yeah," I said, rolling my shoulders as the monster lunged toward me with its remaining claw.

"Cry harder."