A man of tanned skin and long black hair stepped out in front of Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, stopping his tired advance through the bustling fighting stage. He wore the robe made from the skin of a majestic tiger and a massive black cobra that was still alive and slithered around his neck, resting atop the broad shoulders of the Salvari warrior.
"Wow, you just can't get rid of you guys, huh?" Jet stroked his nose with his thumb as an accompanying gesture to his tease before adopting a fighting pose. Even if he could hardly hold his dukes up, the Messiah of Martial Arts was a fighter until the end.
"Excuse me, Jet, the one they call the Messiah of Martial Arts," the tall man excused himself in a pacifying gesture, extending his palm in front of him. "I was under the impression that you were seeking challengers and were still taking part in this competition. As a martial artist, I was excited to meet you face to face and fight you after seeing the extent of your skills during your fights against the other Salvari. If you don't feel up to it, I will not trouble you."
"Huh? You mean this isn't about revenge for that one guy, or that other berserker lady?" Jet almost couldn't believe the benevolence of this fighting soul.
"Not at all. As a martial artist striving for perpetual self-improvement, also spiritual and physical awakening, I challenge greater and greater opponents. Even the Supreme Being himself knows the sting of my fist. After seeing you awakening such pure dharma, I simply had to face you myself," the Salvari warrior bowed and took a balanced, widespread fighting stance emphasizing sturdiness and equilibrium of body and soul. With the turn of the Salvari's body, a brilliant triplet of blades was revealed in the trident that the Salvari carried on his back which, like a tree of Eden, provided the regal black cobra slithering across his shoulders some places to wrap and coil around and explore the lengths of its own body when resting.
"I'm sorry, but I think my dharma is all tapped out," Jet admitted, standing locked in a deadlock against his opponent. "I can barely hold my arms up and my muscles feel like they're pumping with lead."
"That is unfortunate…" the Salvari broke his stance and straightened his back. Unexpectedly, the warrior bowed and turned around to walk away, only to lean to the side a blink later and let a flying kick narrowly miss the back of his head. Soaring on steps of scorching flames, Jet skidded his feet in a circle after landing and repositioning with a stride and resuming his fighting stance.
"You didn't hear me refuse your challenge, Salvari," Jet smirked. "Even if I do so at my own peril, a greedy and fight-loving martial artist such as I can never refuse a challenge. Even if I am eliminated or end up killed, my sole desire is to see more martial arts, more amazing fighting styles, and ways to fight. That, and not victory or this country, is my ultimate dream. Come, Salvari, introduce yourself and satisfy me!"
"Very well, though I must warn you. Without the use of dharma, you shall not withstand the intensity of my glare. Before the third eye of Dashula, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer, all things turn to ashes," Dashula warned Jet, but it appeared that this warning only added fuel to the rampant flame burning in Jet's martial artist's heart.
"Well met, Dashula, name's Jet!" Jet blew air out and emptied his lungs before shooting off, rolling through the air like a cannonball and extending his arms with open palms. Dashula didn't waver, answering Jet's charge to battle with a rushing press of his own arms, seconding the notion of a mid-air collision that transitioned into a power struggle.
Based on Jet's painful wince, his opponent would be the effortless winner of such a struggle. Though, despite the overwhelming advantage in power, Dashula chose to hurl his opponent into a nearby boulder mound of wreckage as opposed to emphasizing his advantage with the crushing pressure of a vicious beatdown. A whirlwind of flames blew the rocky wreckage apart with Jet skidding in close to his challenger with an elbow shot. Dashula's hand welcomed the attack with a soft palm block. While his free hand grabbed his trident and brought it down with a crushing strike down.
Jet was no longer where Dashula thought him to be, vanishing in a blur and leaving only an afterimage behind to be sliced to bits before he flashed in again with a repeated step-in side punch. Dashula twirled his trident in front of him, deflecting the strike before reeling his weapon for a barrage of lashes that would have devastated Jet had he not jumped up and used the sole of his foot to deflect himself away by catching the twirling trident down by the middle and flipping out and to the left to the attacking Salvari, right on his blind spot.
"You're holding back, aren't you? You wouldn't have even drawn that trident if I didn't force you to!" Jet pointed with vile accusations and an even more vile expression on his face. The Messiah was outraged to be treated like some precious porcelain doll that his opponent didn't want to shatter into pieces.
"Not at all, I would not do such a thing. However, I do like understanding my opponents and their level of power a tad better in the beginning. I wouldn't exactly explode with all of my strength from the start or else I would get caught wide open far more often," Dashula shook his head, denying the accusations brought before him. "If you feel inclined to do so, by all means, attack. I will join you in battle when I feel like I have something to add without asking for your permission."
Jet vaulted forward through the air with a soaring roll, transitioning into a diving kick midway to his opponent, but Dashula merely swatted Jet's feet away, pushing Jet to skid further away and positioning him behind the Salvari. Not feeling content with just being pushed around, Jet soared forward with a flying kick but blanked out upon hearing a nasty, flesh-ripping sound and feeling pain pulsing through his entire body. The feeling came from his gut. But the Messiah of Martial Arts was too spaced out and out of it to face the reality of being impaled on the trident's blades in mid-air. He didn't feel Dashula swatting him away either, nor the disgraceful slide aside.
It was only when he opened his eyes and felt the gravity of his injuries and exhaustion that Jet could welcome the pain and the aggravation of his condition and pay their dues. Because of the exorbitant pressure of his injuries and the wear on his stamina, Jet felt like he had to postpone facing his condition and fight through, fight on for the chance of seeing just a bit more of his opponent's strength.
"The way you are now, you would not survive the all-revealing gaze of my third eye," Dashula straightened his body in disappointment and tapped the other end of his trident onto the floor with a thunderous smack. "I advise you to reconsider your decision of fighting on. I now see the extent of your injuries and inexperience wielding dharma. Let us meet and fight some other time when you are at your full power."
"That's bullshit!" Jet clenched his fist and exploded, lashing out at his opponent. "The conditions for a martial arts fight will never be ideal! Sometimes the fighter has a sniffle, sometimes they are a few years past their peak, and sometimes their leg just didn't land right, and now there's a painful twinging in the joint! The mark of a true martial artist is dealing with the hand that is dealt! I refuse to surrender or to rely on excuses as crutches! If you defeat me the way I am now, you'd have defeated Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, the same way you'd have defeated him if you challenged me when the gong just tolled!"
"I see that we are very different people," Dashula closed his two ordinary eyes. He was no longer judging his opponent with disappointment and was merely contemplating the meaning behind his words. Defying the laws of physics entirely, Dashula bent his legs and assumed a meditational position while levitating in mid-air in a halo of shimmering starlight flashing behind him. "Despite our differences, I never dismiss the resolution of my opponent outright. I have ascended on the infinite peak of Tandava. If you can reach me and awaken me from my meditation, I shall look at you with all three of my eyes and forego my ascension, facing you with my full power in my Samsara Dharma State. If you cannot reach me at the peak of Tandava, you shall be the author of your own destruction."
"The peak of Tandava? What's that supposed to mean?" Jet smirked, flipping forward several times with vaulting sky-high kicks that swung like sabers from the sky. After a handful, expecting to meet a block or any amount of resistance, Jet gasped when he realized he hadn't advanced one bit closer to his meditating and levitating opponent. Despite jumping, charging off, and kicking multiple times, he was exactly in the location he started out in.
As a test, Jet kicked off of his starting position with a swift jab, just to measure the true distance between him and his opponent, but nothing of significance changed. He was exactly where he started. Throwing himself toward his opponent, Jet attempted another flying kick, but he landed exactly in the same place where he was when he took off. It was exactly as if there were infinite leaps and bounds between the two opponents, with Dashula peacefully meditating atop a philosophical peak of enlightenment while his opponent couldn't reach him, no matter how hard they tried.
Jet looked down at his wound, wondering how long he had before the blood loss took its toll and made him collapse in the arena. Since he wouldn't be eliminated after collapsing within the arena's bounds, he'd be at the full mercy of his opponents. Not too many of them would have shown him mercy, given his tangible exploits in the ring. Jet looked back, wondering if there was an infinite distance to the edge of the arena if he were to surrender. A slight skid of his foot backward suggested that there was not. In fact, just a tiny skid of his foot back brought Jet dangling over the edge of the ring with a spaced-out and petrified look on his face.
"What in the world is this technique!?" Jet muttered under his own nose, feeling his own cool breathing refreshing his feverish red cheeks. The Messiah allowed himself a few seconds to ponder on his prospects, shifting his attention from the sweet reward of surrender to the grueling trial of chasing his opponent. "No! I would rather collapse, lose, die, than not know the distance between me and the peak you sit on! You are holding something out, you've mentioned all those marvelous things like your mystical third eye and a unique state of dharma that you are yet to show. I would die before accepting never seeing those things by myself! I am a martial artist!"
Jet took a bold first step toward his opponent. The edge of the arena behind him vanished, and he was once again just twenty-five meters away from Dashula and his starlit peak of meditation. Jet took another step, then another, powering through the space and distance between him and his exalted opponent, yet his quest yielded no results. No matter how many steps, leaps, bounds, and dashes he made toward Dashula, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer remained exactly twenty-five meters away.
"If this is a test of my devotion, the mettle of my beliefs and willpower, then you truly have understood nothing from our brief exchange of blows!" Jet proudly proclaimed to himself and walked forward. Eventually, Jet's arms were weighed down by his sides and he stopped protecting himself because he knew that, no matter what, he would always end up being just twenty-five meters short of reaching his opponent.
It was impossible to say for how many hours Jet walked on, at some point night changed day, then dawn replaced dusk again. Jet's hair began growing out, and his beard and mustache began scratching and itching his chin and the chest they fell over. At a certain point, Jet's nails grew out to a ridiculous extent and the Messiah's muscle structure began degrading, leaving him meek and wrinkled. After sixty more years of walking, Jet collapsed on his knees, breathed out his last breath, and collapsed.
"U-Unbelievable! The Blissful Yogi Destroyer of the Salvari–Dashula has simply stopped fighting and began meditating in the middle of the battlefield and Jet collapsed on his knees not too long after! That is the devastating effect of the Peak of Tandava! Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts seems to have passed out and is now helpless and at the complete mercy of the other conscious competitors!" the announcer proclaimed what the outside spectators and other combatants saw before them. Those who staked no claim in reaching or attacking Dashula did not see their entire lifetime flashing before their eyes, nor were they forced to consider their stakes in this battle and early surrender.
Dashula opened his eyes and gently placed his feet on the tiles below him again, vanquishing the halo of starlight behind him and looking at his downed opponent. A pool of blood from Jet's injuries began accumulating without the active input from the martial artist to contain it by tensing his muscles and clenching the jarring wounds. The large black cobra slithering across Dashula's shoulders and neck extended its tail and wrapped its body around Jet's neck, lifting his limp and unconscious body with rolled-back eyes off the ground and flailing it out of bounds.
"Exactly like I thought, you weren't ready. Let us meet and fight again some other time. No use in destroying a kind, noble, and skilled soul such as you. You need to learn to let go, however," Dashula posed in a praying position while chanting his last words to his eliminated opponent like a mantra. "Did you think you were special just because you would never give up? I have met hundreds, thousands of warrior souls who refused to give up, who claimed they would die before giving up, and who requested that I give up on seeing them giving up. Giving up when you see your death before you when you cannot gauge your opponent's strength, or when you know you will know defeat is a vital skill for a martial artist. Then again, I cannot say that, in your shoes, I would have done differently. Just like you, I am a greedy martial artist and I would have wanted my opponent all to myself, my life be damned."
"And it's over! The final member in the martial artist faction, Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, has succumbed to the Peak of Tandava and collapsed with his mind in shambles! Dashula, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer, scored a victory against the martial artist who has defeated multiple Salvari in combat!" the announcer declared to deafening cheers from the audience.
Manshuri, the Dream of Abundant Love of the Salvari, approached Bishiyari from behind while the Supreme Being rested in a meditative position himself to report the happy news to him. The Salvari were avenged and the Messiah of Martial Arts was defeated. Having once again calmed her loving soul, Manshuri stroked her luscious brown hair with pink dharma beaming from her glowing eyes while she spoke in a soothing tone. The tender voice made Bishiyari open his eyes and stand up.
"I see, so Jet was defeated. Hardly a surprise, the surprise was how long he lasted and how many of us he fought consecutively before knowing defeat. Dashula is one of the top three Salvari for sure, if he saw fighting more like a war for survival, a fight to spend his strength and effort to realize his dream and not a mere martial arts competition, he would likely defeat even me. Against him, Jet's victory was out of the question," Bishiyari replied with a somewhat oppressed tone as if he was almost a little disappointed because the lively Messiah ceased defying odds and surprising him. "Jet… If only he didn't deny becoming a Salvari himself. He would have made a fine one. White dharma is exceedingly rare. I wonder what emotion it signifies. It has a regal, powerful, and authoritative feel to it, that is for certain."
"I am merely glad that our authority, our godhood, in the arena is no longer in question. My boundless love, my grip of my strength were wavering, I'm afraid," Manshuri admitted, hiding her blushing cheeks behind a handful of hair before turning to walk away and seek challenges of her own once more.
"Do not repeat Matrani's mistake and do not lose before revealing the full extent of your strength," Bishiyari warned his peer before returning to meditation. Manshuri graced the Supreme Being with one last look of her pink, loving eyes before turning away and skipping off toward the noise of the brewing battlefield. Mixing in with all the bubbling and the ruckus and disappearing in all the dust.
"With the elimination of Jet, the Messiah of Martial Arts, we've got 50 competitors competing for their spot in the Top 16! The fateful moment of the end of this majestic battle royale is coming closer and closer. So far, it's been quite dangerous to witness this godly event, but I beg of those who have persevered to stay focused until the end! The most powerful, the most opportunistic, the most intelligent, the toughest competitors are still in play!" the announcer proclaimed, reporting on the significant milestone of most of the battle royale having crept past.
The rest was yet to follow.
