"F*ck, I was looking forward to fighting that guy," Ning thought. The match was over but he didn't leave the stage. It was time for the finale to start.
Faran gave a disappointed look towards Gai and shook his head.
"What?" Gai said angrily when he saw that. "If you saw what his other beast could do, you would quit too."
"Tsk. Go talk with the master, I won't say anything," Faran said and walked up the stairs onto the stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the moment you have all been waiting for. The final fight, between the Number 1 and the Number 2 winner of the last competition. This will reveal who is the best of the young generation in all of the scattered isles is.. "
"Let the battle… Begin"
Faran immediately brought out the blue spear and got ready to fight.
Ning looked at him curiously and asked, "Did you know that's my spear?"
Faran was a little surprised and asked seriously, "What do you mean?"
"I dropped it near the lake when the Flood Dragon attacked me. I came searching for it on the 4th day but couldn't find it. It seems you had found it earlier than me," Ning said.
Faran looked at the spear in his hand and said, "If you lost such a good spear, then you were never worthy of it in the first place."
"Yeah, well…" Ning smiled and said, "I've got something better."
Something blue appeared in Ning's hand all of sudden. When Faran saw the thing in Ning's hands, he couldn't understand what was happening.
"Why are there two of the same spear?" he asked. "Is this part of a pair?"
"No, the one I have was made later and is thus better," Ning said.
"I doubt it."
Faran slashed his spear in front of him sending an attack towards Ning. Ning blocked it with his spear easily. Ning didn't have spear techniques that could create such attacks, so he decided to use sword slashes instead.
He assumed the long shaft was the sword handle, and the small blade was the blade of a sword. He then slashed as well.
A not very amusing slash flew forth and was easily stopped by Faram. "Tsk. I guess close combat is all I can really do for now," Ning thought and dashed forward.
With as incredibly fast speed, he reached in front of Faran and launched the One True Spear strike. Faran barely managed to stop it and was pushed so far back that he nearly was thrown off of the stage.
Faran finally realized just how strong Ning was. His arms felt numb from the hit on the spear shaft. He knew it was time to get serious.
He took a deep breath and got into a low body stance where the end of the spear was pointing top behind him, and the tip was pointing towards the ground a little ahead of where his feet were.
Suddenly, his clothes started rippling and so did his hair. Ning could see what seemed like tiny glints of light in the aura that Faran was putting forth now.
'Is that Qi?' Ning wondered, however, he couldn't tell at all. The glints of lights occasionally turned to spear heard but reverted back to glints of light again.
Ning was genuinely surprised for the first time seeing anyone's fight today. "Spear Intent?" he said in shock. He didn't expect somebody in the Foundation Establishment realm to have learned the spear until he got Spear Intent at all.
One had to be very passionate about spears in general and must have practiced it for a very long time to even have intents appear in the first place.
Ning got into a stance as well. He wasn't scared of the Spear Intent; He was happy.
Faran made the first move. He launched forward and stabbed at Ning. The Spear Intent followed the path of the spear and moved forward as well.
Ning hit the incoming spear aside but the intent of the action was still there, so the energy behind the attack still followed through and hit Ning.
Ning didn't take any damage, but he was pushed back. Ning looked up and saw that Faran was already doing an overhead swing.
Ning quickly held the spear horizontally to block the attack. However, once again, the energy followed the intent and hit him.
"Urghh, this is annoying. How do I fight this?" he thought. He pushed Faran back and started his own attack. If Faran never got to hit, he wouldn't have to worry about Spear Intent at all.
Ning started swinging and slashing and stabbing as much as he could. This forced Faran to go into a defensive position and he could do nothing but block the attack.
BANG BANG BANG
Faran kept getting pushed back with each attack and was nearing the edge of the stage. With each attack, he was getting closer and closer to falling off of the stage.
The audience looked in awe and believed Ning was going to win now. However, such fears never appeared in Faran's face.
Suddenly, Faran's aura erupted and the glints of Spear Intent started appearing once more. They were constantly fluctuating turning to spearheads, before returning back to normal glints of light.
Ning kept on attacking, however, he couldn't push back anymore, and with each attack, the period of time the spearheads lasted started getting longer and longer.
Ning suddenly stopped and stepped backward. "F*ck, he's using me to temper himself right now," Ning said. Faran was continuously getting better with each attack he handled. His Spear Intent was slowly treading towards its higher form.
Ning tried to attack but his hits were not being blocked more efficiently. Faran was continuously getting better and better and at some point, he started counter-attacking.
Ning could have probably won already if he used his full physical strength to fight, but he wanted to have some fun before he did that.
Just then Faran spoke for the first time in a while, "You can't beat me like that. Bring out your beast that the others are scared of."