The spear user thrust forward, with enough power that the entire avenue was blown aside, Meng Hao flung himself to the side avoiding the initial blow, then picked himself up back into the fight.
It was a battle for the one who took the initiative and the aggressiveness first. Once one of them has the upper hand, the other will be in deep shit. And so far, Meng Hao is looking to be the one on the receiving end.
The Fire Spear followed with a couple spear thrusts that sent several snake like projectiles to home on Meng Hao. The latter blocked using his arms.
The blow connected perfectly against his arms, and from the clear redness and smoke rising from Meng Hao's arms, he felt the blow all too damn well.
But he didn't allow the damage to stop his thinking process as he charged forward.
The best place to be against a spear user is to be inside and right against their face, so that the spear will lose most if not all of its power.
"You have some more?" I heard as Dao Shen seemed to have finished all of his 'snacks'.
"I do," I replied as I gave him another batch of poison pills.
"Tasty," he said as he crunched more and more pills.
The two cultivators next to us were completely stunned and stupefied ad what was going on.
We were casually watching a death battle while eating snacks, poison pills in their eyes. And we didn't seem to be giving a single fuck to how we appeared to everyone else.
"Want some?" Dao Shen said to one of the cultivators, who was too flabbergasted to even reply.
"Stop fooling around, if he eats that he'll die before he can even swallow it, that'll only give me a red skull," I said to Dao Shen saving the poor lad.
"I just wanted to see his reaction, these two are quite boring don't you think," he said.
"You were the one who brought them," I replied.
"Sirs, with all due respect, some of the pills you made have pill veins, just finding one of them can set a cultivator for life, and you two are eating them, boring is actually a compliment for us. It's you two who are strange," he said.
"Oh, he can actually speak his mind, I'll have to withdraw my statement then," said Dao Shen, "You're at least not boring. So, do you still believe that the Fire Spear will win?" he asked.
"I've yet to find anything worthy of note from the man who is using his fists to fight. He is agile I can give him that, and powerful enough to survive a direct blow, but his offensive power is lacking, and he missed several opportunities to retaliate," he said.
I shook my head, "If you were to take any of those opportunities you'd be dead. Meng Hao already noticed that those were feints and fake openings, if he were to take them, he'll have a spear lodged into his head, the fight isn't about who lands the most blows, this fight is about who last remains standing. Look again at their stature," I said.
And once the two cultivators took a deeper look they noticed something they didn't see at first.
Meng Hao, who looked on the losing end, had his breathing perfectly and completely stable. While the Fire Spear was taking deeper breaths and slightly unorganized ones at it too.
"Exhaustion? Strange, the fight just began," said the cultivator.
"No, this is the second round, this fight started yesterday, and now is their second fight, granted, Meng Hao retreated yesterday due to injuries, and recovered, while the Fire Spear, considering his original power at the King Realm didn't do much in terms of recovery before fighting again, the exhaustion from yesterday's fight is finally catching up to him, and now he'll start using wider and broader moves to end this fight rapidly," I said.
As if I was seeing the future, the Fire Spear whirled his spear above his head, calling upon incredible amounts of flames.
"Devour!" he called.
Just as he mentioned the words, I noticed Dao Shen's expressions souring.
"Jealous?" I asked.
"He's using a word he isn't comprehending," Dao Shen said.
The fire above the cultivator's spear emerged into a dragon of flame that surged at Meng Hao's face.
And Meng Hao, as if mocking him, spread his arms wide and said, "Devour!"
Dao Shen's expression grimed even further as he saw what was happening.
"At least this kid is using it correctly," he said.
And just like that, the dragon made of fire seemed to converge wanting to eat Meng Hao only to end up becoming fuel for Meng Hao's dissipated energy.
Flames surged and twirled around his body as they were consumed inwardly, further boosting him and rejuvenating him.
Meng Hao emerged from the flames as a newborn phoenix as his eyes seemed to shine in an emerald and gold behind his mask. His hands looked as if they were bathing in a blue flame as for his forehead, even behind the mask it ignited in a blue flame that felt as if he grew hair made of flames.
Meng Hao flew forward in great speeds, enough that the road behind him surged in flames, admitting his power and mastery of fire against his enemy.
The Fire Spear didn't despair even after his ability was consumed and used to energize his foe, a testament of his experience in battling enemies that were mighty and strong, and took a defensive stance preparing for impact.
Meng Hao's fist turned to a claw and he swiped sideways, the Fire Cultivator raised his spear to block, only to have his back seared in an infernal flame.
Meng Hao's fire claw didn't attack directly but manifested behind the Fire Cultivator and brazed his back.
A grunt was all that Meng Hao could elicit from the cultivator, but the fact that he destabilized him proved great in the follow-up.
Meng Hao stomped on the ground, causing a surge of flames to blast into the cultivator's face and body. then he followed up with a palm to his chest, blasting him far away.
Not one to miss an opportunity Meng Hao flew behind the cultivator at neck-breaking speed and struck him on the side in a mid-air roundhouse kick.
The blow was enough to cause the cultivator to lose his grasp on his spear, to which Meng Hao grabbed.
"Fool!" said the Spear Cultivator as he landed on his feet, "That is my spear, you cannot use it! Burn him to cinders!" said the Fire Cultivator as the spear wanted to resist being used by another that wasn't its owner.
"Obey!" Meng Hao said as he struck the bottom of the spear on the ground while it tried its best to burn his hand off.
"OBEY!" called Meng Hao once again, and even then the spear increased its flames.
"OBEY!" came Meng Hao's final shout, and as if a father telling his son to submit, the spear calmed down to Meng Hao's bidding.
The stunned look on the Fire Cultivator's face couldn't be described with words. How did Meng Hao manage to force a treasure to submit to him without even refining?
The answer is simple. Meng Hao showed the spear who is most worthy.
With that, Meng Hao twirled the spear and grasped it with both hands, a single thrust is all he needed to force a phoenix made out of blue flames to come out and hunt down the Fire Spear.
The Fire Spear slammed both hands together in a prayer motion! "Call of the Infernal Lord! Domain!"
Immediately an incredible heat wave spread all over the area and encompassed a giant portion of the city, us included of course.
Dao Shen whistled. "This is a pretty big domain, oh look at that, he said.
Around us were hundreds of pyres standing tall where the bodies of cultivators seemed to be fueling.
The skies turned dark red as smog and soothe was all we could see and breathe. As for Meng Hao, he was standing still in the flames unbothered by the disgusting domain.
I looked to the side and realized that the two cultivators next to us were suffocating.
I called my hoverboard and used its protective barrier to stop the domain from affecting us.
The two of them finally coughed and took a deep breath.
"Why did you help us?" one of them asked.
"Who's going to pay me my one spirit stone when I win the bet, it'll be a shame if you were to die," I said shrugging.
Dao Shen couldn't help but snicker.
"You do know that the use of this barrier consumes thousands of times more spirit stones than you can even get from them," he said.
"Yes, but a bet is a bet," I replied.
"You two still believe he'll win, though I couldn't help but admire how he stole the spear, he is still stuck in a King Class cultivator's domain." One of the cultivators said.
"That does not mean he'll lose by any means," I said "Just watch, a main character will only shine brighter when he is in deep shit. And you're about to see a star being born."