Chapter 125. On the run

After a few good hits, I now was in the possession of two Leadstones.

I still think their stupidly expensive just to know my way in the Nether, actually do they work in the other dimensions as well?

I should try this when I get home, it could be proven useful if so.

But I was still salty about the price.

"Thank you old man, but I have to leave this place as soon as possible, I don't know when they'll start looking after me."

"Don't worry hero, we should deal with the aftermath of this conflict, go in peace, and thank you once again."

I drank one more fire resistance potion to keep myself cooled while I left this bastion.

With the effects on me, I put the golden armor in my inventory and left the old man's place.

The tunnels were as I left them, with minimal activity and nobody knew what just happened behind closed doors.

With quick steps, I got out, then climbed the stairs until I arrived at the common area, where there was a lot of activity on the streets.

In the end I used the strategy of walking with my back against the wall to avoid bumping into people.

After an hour I was finally at the gate, which was unfortunately closed, and it was too heavy for me to open it by myself.

There were four brutes waiting bored beside the door, so it was easy for me to climb the stairs towards the top of the walls.

"I'm telling you, the best way to cook pork is by manually doing it, slowly rotating it over a small fire."

"Why would I bother doing that for hours when I can just put it on the furnace and be perfectly cooked in a few minutes."

"It's not about the time! It's about the control over the ingredients. How can you call yourself a cook if you don't do anything yourself!"

On top of the wall, there were two guards arguing about how to cook, and since they were so invested in their conversation I could slip past them and place a few blocks on the wall to safely get down.

Of course, I broke all the blocks that I placed leaving no evidence behind.

I escaped successfully.

With one last look at the bastion I turned around, equipped my enchanted iron armor, and started running towards my portal .

POV: Unknown Brute

I woke up feeling sore all over my body, the age started to catch up with me and I couldn't keep up those insane training exercises anymore.

It was such a shame that I couldn't work at my peak anymore, but at least I can guide the next generation to do better.

I was alone in my small room, even though I accumulated riches throughout my life I didn't like to show them off too often, sure I had chests filled with gold and other items not found in this world, but I didn't like to place them out like thropies.

My room only had some rugs, paintings, furniture, and a few chests on the wall.

I got out of my apartment and walked towards the training ground, where the best warriors were training to be the next special force like me.

But once I arrived at the training ground there was a commotion which caught my attention.

There where a group of people surrounding something that I could only assume was a fight, unfortunately, I couldn't see past it.

So I took one of the youngsters from the edge with force.

"Hey! What gives- oh Sir Diamond Vine, sorry I didn't greet you, is there something I can help you with?"

"Yeah, what's happening here, isn't everyone supposed to be training right now?"

Suddenly the group of brutes started to cheer loudly and quickly dispersed making me see what was finally happening.

"Prince decided to visit us today, and one of the Diamond warriors decided to challenge him to fight after an argument. And as you can see, it probably got accepted."

The Diamond Warriors were the highest grade a brute can get, and we work directly under the Royal Family, that's why it's such a surprise that one of those Brutes decided to challenge a member of the Royal Family in public.

Usually, when someone has a problem, it could be solved with a private duel, there's no need for the extra audience.

But once I looked over who the Prince was, I understood how this came to be.

The Diamond warrior was one of my colleagues, a stupid brute but powerful nonetheless, he got us in a lot of trouble in youth, and I can see he likes to keep this tradition when he's old as well.

As for the Prince in question, it's one with a unique title in the whole Royal Family.

The Mad Prince.

A few decades ago we found out about the existence of the Outsiders taking over a fortress, and the Diamond warriors were originally made to hunt those kinds of places.

But because we didn't have contact with outsiders for so long we got moved to another section, that's why we were taken by surprise when they first attacked one of the bastions in their area.

Unfortunately, nobody survived to tell us more information about the enemy so we assumed the worst.

We sent some scouts to gather some information, but the bastion was lotted and abandoned, so there wasn't a lot we could get.

In the end, we found out the location of their fortress and spied them from afar.

But they kept their warriors hidden only seeing the field workers with enchanted iron armor.

At that time the Big Bastion split into two sides.

One wanted to attack the place before it grew too powerful and the other side wanted to wait more in hopes of gathering more information.

As the two sides bitched with each other, a third party started to emerge, one mostly composed of Piglings.

They weren't as strong as us the Brutes, but they were in very important positions of managing the Bastion.

And they chose neither side, actually, they didn't want to fight the outsiders at all, their question was:

'Why would we want to conquer them if we can't even stay in their lands.'

After all that everything became a political battle, if we should attack or not.

Should we keep our traditions and honor our ancestors, or abandoned them, and start a new path?

In those years, the outsiders didn't conquer any more territory, they actually started to trade with the local bastion of all things.

And once they did that, the Piglings got another chip in their favor.

'We can trade with them, why waste good warriors on this stupid war?'

Now the conflict is about fighting with them, or trading with them, neither one gaining any ground.

And that kept going for years and years, but now something was different than usual.

Someone managed to break the scales, and that someone was the the Mad Prince.

The Royal Family had brute blood in their veins, they were superior in strength but a little dumber than the Piglings.

There were some political marriages with the Piglings, but those were always female, and their sons were always brutes.

But there was one exception in the history of the Nether.

The Mad Prince, the second son of the King with a Pigling's mother.

He is a man almost three blocks tall and smarter than any Pigling we have ever seen, he won the best of both bloods, and the reason he is called the Mad Prince is because he's the first one in the Royal Family to choose trading with the outsiders instead of fighting them.

Now he's fighting for the throne gaining more and more power while making more waves across the Big Bastion.

The two fighters went into the battle arena where the seats were filled with warriors yelling excitedly about the next fight.

My friend put on his diamond armor and took out his enchanted axe, while the Prince stood on the other side of the field, also in enchanted diamond armor but with a sword.

One of the instructors came into the middle of the field and started to yell.

"Ladies and gentlemen, warriors of all kinds, today we shall see the amazing fight between the Diamond Fist and the Mad Prince!"

He then turned towards the two contestants.

"This is not a fight to the death, so if you are heavily injured surrender immediately, we don't want to lose a warrior here. Start in 3-2-1 go!"

The presenter quickly ran out of the way and the two warriors started.

Both of them took out a portion and drank it, my friend took out his usual strength potion and the Prince took what I think was a speed potion.

I was proven right as once he was loading his crossbow it was unusually fast, he aimed and shot at Diamond Fist all in one second.

But my friend while stupid, wasn't a weak warrior, as he just moved his head to the side dodging the arrow.

After he dodged the arrow he started to run towards the Prince at great speeds, only to stop once the Mad Prince placed a lava bucket in his way almost hitting him.

The armor had fire resistance on it, so it wouldn't take damage from the lava, but I would hinder his movements, which made him retreat to not fall into the trap.

The Prince also had to get back, but continued to shoot Diamond Fist with his arrows making him constantly move and draining his energy.

Suddenly he stopped and started to run towards my friend and the only response he gave, was a mad grin.

That battle maniac.

I'm sure at this point he didn't challenge the Prince because he was mad about his political stand, he only wanted to fight someone strong.

The Prince didn't attack with his sword, instead, he raised his shield ready to crush his opponent, and my friend braced himself for the impact.

But what came was something unexpected for all of us as the shield clashed with Diamond Fist but had no force behind it, instead the Prince used an ender pearl to teleport behind his opponent leaving the shield as a distraction.

Before Diamond Fist was able to figure out what just happened, a sword stabbed him through the back which made him critically hurt.

But he was a battle maniac, and that was not enough to bring him down, instead, he turned around and slashed the Prince with the sword still inside him.

The battle was still won by the Prince in the end even without a weapon, but my friend didn't go down without a fight, showing how resilient were the Diamond Troups.

"Winner, the Mad Prince!"

Everyone cheered and chanted his name, even though the Prince didn't change his expression throughout the whole fight.

Slowly everyone was getting back to their training and went to see how my friend was holding up.

"How are you doing my friend?"

"Diamond Vine is that you? Of course, you had to see me lose in such a way. That boy made such a dangerous weapon! How can you put such a high level of Piercing on a sword? He's a madman!"

I gave him a regeneration potion to bring him back to his feet more quickly and we decided to move our conversation to our headquarters.

On the way there we talked more about the fight, and while he didn't like the fact that he lost, I could still see a glimpse of admiration in his eyes at the Prince.

We the Brutes are simple creators as Piglings say, and I tend to agree with them, we respect two things, gold, and strength, and it's hard not to admire the Prince when he has both of those.

In the end, we arrived at our headquarters where something caught our eyes, a lapiz block placed on the shelves started to pulsate red light.

Both of us stopped and looked at it with wide eyes, then a smile formed on our faces.

"Looks like someone decided to rebel. Time to get those old bones back to work."

We both laughed and started to gather the rest of the crew.