With an intrigued look, Kusagoro observed the audience clamoring for the Salvari, as the enamored sheep somehow interpreted the exchange between the delusional Salvari woman with the gall to label herself a goddess yet losing before she could prove that vain title and a mere composition of human guts placed inside a metallic and plastic framework as something testifying the divinity of the Salvari. While the strength of Dashula intrigued Kusagoro a little, namely the fact that he too failed to showcase the full extent of his skill against Jet, because of Jet's physical state when their battle took place, the Salvari hadn't stood out for Kusagoro until now.

The one calling himself the Supreme Being sounded interesting if a little conceited at first. Then Kusagoro saw his tricks for exactly what they were–mere illusions and an assault on the mind. It took a warrior who was cowardly to match his opponent with their body and one who lacked confidence in their training to attack their opponent's mind. Just because ninja didn't usually engage in fair one-on-one combat didn't mean that they should not have known how to do so.

Kusagoro never engaged his opponent in a fair fight either. No fight against him as an opponent could have been called fair. He always held an unfair advantage against any foe, solely because he was the strongest. His strength was unquestionable because of a lack of any respectable suggestion to the otherwise or reasonable objections. In that way, Kusagoro deserved his title of the Sannin, the strongest of all ninja in his village. Given how Konohagakure was now acknowledged as the village with the most powerful military, would that not also mean that his was the superior strength in all the world?

This delusional audience certainly didn't seem to think so. Kusagoro couldn't stand the idea of trampling Bishiyari when he had experienced multiple fights already and taken some licks, but he wanted to shatter this façade of superiority and crumble the dreams of these deluded fools in the audience expecting their gods, the Salvari, to keep the land of the Agbarah Sheikhate under the control of the locals. It was a fairy tale ending if there ever was to be one–the local champions of the arena obtaining ownership over the country they fought in and continuing to entertain these self-deceiving drools until they all kicked the bucket.

A worthless thing deserving ridicule!

Kusagoro's mood soured as he untangled his arms and spread them like wings, boldly taking a ground-shaking step toward the Supreme Being. Kusagoro didn't like to give himself titles, but he has proven many times facing off against beasts that man was the strongest beast there was. And he was the strongest man. That made anyone labeling themselves in such a pathetic manner mere placeholders until Kusagoro caved their faces in and stripped them of that title.

Not for himself. Merely to rip it apart and send the ground dust of those empty labels scattering like ashes in the wind.

In a flash of eggplant purple and streaks of azure, a dark-skinned, long-haired Salvari warrior with a sheepish smile of clubbing, rock-like square chompers and bovine horns resting atop his head appeared before Kusagoro before the Konohagakure Sannin could make himself known to the Supreme Salvari. A barrage of rapid punches topped off by a boisterous cross ripped Kusagoro's black undershirt and sent him skidding back a decent eight meters while the eggplant-skinned horned Salvari pulled his smoking fist back and glared at it with awe.

"My punch could drop a Ushi-Oni dead in one blow! You're made of some stern stuff!" Vasupala complimented the Konoha ninja.

"I have words for your top dog. I have no time to waste on pups with a loud bark and my head aches from your squeaky whines. Move aside or I'll walk you out," Kusagoro snarled with the nasty stare of a delinquent looking at a helpless granny with her handbag which, she didn't yet know, held his beer money.

"The Supreme Being is meditating. He doesn't just fight anyone requesting it or else he'll have to fight everyone. Any man that steps into a ring wants to be the strongest. That means beating the strongest. If all of them had the audience with the Supreme One, Bishiyari would never stop fighting. It is the role of the mid-carders to cull the weak," Vasupala stroked his curved horns before leaning his forehead down, like a bull ready to charge.

"If that is the case, what are you doing standing in my way? Go make sure that nobody obstructs my sun," Kusagoro sighed, realizing that he wouldn't be able to merely move this stubborn fool aside with reason. "In any case, this pissant challenge of yours actually benefits me. I'll end up taking some licks so that you have no excuses when I trample all over your golden boy!"

"So vain! You could use some knocking sense into…" Vasupala lamented before taking off and attempting to ram his adamantine forehead into Kusagoro and send him flying out of bounds. Deafening cracks resonated all the way from the horns' tips to Vasupala's skull and rang through his wobbling brain itself, stunning the bovine Salvari when Kusagoro's hands firmly gripped his horns and stopped all of his advantages.

"Chakra Rocket!" Kusagoro chanted out, releasing Vasupala's horns and slamming his forehead into that of the Beast of Love. The elbows, armpits, shoulder blades, and backs of Kusagoro's knees all molded into cannons, releasing white beams of chakra and propelling the savage Jugo clansman forward with enough force to dash right back at Vasupala and dragging him double the distance back that the Salvari's combination skidded Kusagoro earlier.

Reeling and showing some mean bruising on his forehead, Vasupala was not willing to give up just yet. With his azure dharma flames for eyes blazing hot enough to spill out like cerulean wildfire, the Beast of Love charged forward immediately after Kusagoro's chakra cannons shorted out. "Gopala Gada!" Vasupala barked out while losing himself in a mad flurry of blows, all hitting Kusagoro square in the jaw and chest with so much raw speed and force packed behind them that even the reckless Sannin reeled back and winced in pain.

"Not half-bad…" Kusagoro dragged the back of his hand across his busted lip while smirking and showing red smears where Vasupala's cracked knuckles decorated the Sannin with the Salvari's own blood. Regardless of how much resistance met the fists of the Beast of Love, he did not back down and pain seemed to only bolster Vasupala's wild punching barrage. "Your fists actually sting and you don't throw them like a man. True to your name, your disposition is like that of a wild animal in a fight."

"You too deserve praise. Though I fear expressing it, lest it all go to your head and make it bloat even more," Vasupala breathed out at last and let his buffed chest deflate while relaxing his smoldering and bleeding fists. "You commit yourself to an all-out attack like no other opponent I have encountered. Unlike other ninja I have faced, there is nothing underneath your brazen mugging of an assault."

"Of course, I have nothing to fear. I am the strongest man, after all…" Kusagoro shrugged with childish innocence.

"And that is why you will come short," Vasupala declared, bringing his head down and pointing his forehead and horns onward, intending to lock bodies into a ground-shaking struggle with the Konoha Sannin. "The essence of a vigorous man is to live a life that allows them to transcend the life of a man and ascend to the ranks of beast. Beasts are stronger than men in most things. Tigers are faster runners than men, bulls are stronger than men, and arrows that could pierce a man's heart would only anger an elephant! Your folly is resting on the laurels of merely being the strongest man, for you are now facing off against the Beast of Love!"

"Again with that love crap? Are you going to make me feel so bad for you I'll commit suicide like that puppet did for that wench friend of yours?" Kusagoro sneered with a heap of mockery that even his almighty hands struggled to plow through and store on one-half of the scales.

"My love is different from that of Manshuri's! My love represents the carnal, physical love for a woman and my bestial ability to please the harem of 161 concubines!" the left side of Vasupala's face sneered in return for Kusagoro's mockery. While having the precious partner of the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness mocked before him stung for certain, Vasupala relied on the pleasure of returning the favor by questioning Kusagoro's manhood in a different field. While the comparison between their power and skill was yet to be determined, in terms of lovemaking, Vasupala was peerless even amongst the Salvari.

"161? Are you stupid? I can hardly stand the whelping of one wench, you're telling me you're hassling with over 161? Forget victory, I'll do you the favor of mercy killing…" Kusagoro broke down guffawing, nearly curling himself up and collapsing on the ground.

"Wh… Are you not at all impressed!? Not even one bit!? What kind of man are you!?" Vasupala's dark violet shade of skin went a few pitches lighter.

"Unbelievable! The carnal conquests of the Beast of Love are entirely ineffective against Kusagoro, the Konohagakure Sannin!" the announcer grabbed his head and slipped the colorful bandanna off his head, slamming it beneath his feet and stomping on it furiously while leaning against the railing and frothing from the shock of this revelation. "Is there no number of partners one can please that would impress this violent man at all!?"

"Heh…" Kusagoro smirked, relaxing his tense muscles and straightening his muscular body with an expression that looked more amused than violent.

"Has the sum of your hubris finally become clear to you once you've seen the impassable schism between man and beast? In both love and violence?" Vasupala wondered about the reason for Kusagoro's cheer.

"Something hilarious has just occurred to me. If you've got time throughout the night to entertain 161 wenches, how long does one session of coitus take you?" Kusagoro's face sneered in mockery. "Because from the impression I'm getting, you're an animal alright–a rabbit!"

"You mock the conqueror of the hearts of the thickest milkmaids in all of Land of Wind at your peril, you unlovable dolt!" Vasupala seethed, blowing out steam from his wide nostrils and launching himself forward. "Gopala Headbutt!" he chanted out.

Kusagoro extended his hands and grabbed hold of Vasupala's horns. Given the excess of blazing red dharma pouring outward from the human missile body of the Beast of Love, it seemed like a fruitless struggle to stop him. Even to a man of Kusagoro's unruly strength. However, just as Kusagoro's round muscles swelled to the point of tearing free from the restraint of his undershirt, wood-like roots plunged out from his heel and grounded the Jugo clansman as his feet began morphing into massive, square, and flat platforms that rooted him in place with downward and backward jets blasting blazes of chakra assisting Kusagoro in his task of halting Vasupala's desperate all-out attack.

After feeling like he had grounded most of the incoming force and neutered Vasupala's offensive, Kusagoro returned his feet and heels to their ordinary size. However, he kept the triplets of chakra barrels sticking out from the back of his calves. Still holding the Beast of Love by his horns, Kusagoro blasted off with a pulse of chakra jets from his legs and took it to the air, where he let the flowing chakra jets in his calves assist with the power of his kicks.

"Chakra Concord!" he chanted out, riding the rush forward while delivering a pair of heated roundhouse kicks and leaving the Salvari warrior spinning out of control and stuck in mid-air. Kusagoro landed on both feet shortly before the Beast of Love crashed on his back. Covered in minor bruises and with his Konoha uniform in tatters, the Sannin cracked his neck to the right while flexing the muscle and reducing general numbness in the area. "So, did your thick milkmaids juice you dry, or do you have something more to show?" Kusagoro sneered with a mocking grin after turning to the laid-out Salvari.

"Love and violence do not conflict with one another," Vasupala proclaimed, rolling over and pushing himself up into the position of all-fours. Then, the Salvari seemed to abandon his bestial outrage style by bridging his body and vaulting over his front side, ascending onto two feet, and posing for prayer while an inner golden outline of dharma coated his body with a blazing flame of tiger-colored aura raging outward on the outer side. "Love does not tire, nor does it make one impotent in fighting. Love is the reflection of the spiritual, the divine. In that way, a loving fighter fights like a god, smiting their foes with divine strength."

"For someone who makes love with 161 lovers in a single night, you sure lack understanding of what love is about," Kusagoro waved his hand in dismissal and disdain of everything that Vasupala preached. "Love is like fighting, I'll give you that. But that's only because in love, just like in fighting, you crush your dance partner. Love is a struggle, with the dominant partner trampling all over the weaker one and making them theirs. In that way, both loving and fighting are a lot like feeding. The predator crushes and devours their prey whole. If you submit to your milk wenches or enjoy their company, then it is they who are the predators in your relationship. Perhaps you should just fuck off and I should fight one of your milkmaids, then? The one that wears the trousers in your relationship, preferably…"

"You have much to learn in love, just like you have in life. Only the man who has risen to the ranks of beast and transcended that rank can ascend to godhood. You speak a big deal about your alleged strength, but you wallow in the first stage of dirt with the rest of the men, sneering at the beasts out of sick jealousy and denying the existence of spiritual awakening outright, because you cannot see yourself getting any closer to it," Vasupala proclaimed while stepping on his toes and reaching higher and higher still. All the way until his toes left the ground and left him hovering in the air. "It is the responsibility of the gods, however, to humble the men when they attempt to rise higher than the plane they belong in."

"Don't wear yourself out trying to humble me then," Kusagoro smirked sheepishly before letting his heel branch off into a lone barrel that blasted him forward with a widespread, grappling-style stance.

"Gopala Sudarshana!" Vasupala muttered like a prayer. Without taking a single step forward or involving his impressive horns at all, the Salvari rotated his arms out in front of him. The golden outline and their stupendous speed made his beefy limbs blur in motion, creating golden mirage after-images that all together began resembling a wheel.

"Am I supposed to believe that you'll be able to use those beefy arms of yours while twirling them around like a sissy?" Kusagoro mocked his opponent with a hearty snort before letting his arms wrap around with an outer layer of wooden texture and his fists grow out of shape, resembling hammers. Slamming his hammer fist with an overhead hook, then unleashing a boisterous flurry of blows, Kusagoro sought to obliterate his opponent's exalted stance but even his infinite pride shattered upon the sight of every single blow being deflected by the "wheel" of moving blurry arms.

"Panchajanya!" Vasupala chanted out like a mantra, clapping his dharma-coated hands together in point-blank distance to Kusagoro and causing a roaring ripple shockwave to rip Kusagoro's eardrums asunder and wreak havoc upon his inner ear. The look in the Sannin's eyes went dull and his impeccable balance on his sinewy feet fumbled, showing that the Sannin needed little aid in falling down in his current state of stupor.

"Kaumodaki!" Vasupala continued his mantra, putting a handful of the wheel's handles together to form double ax handle hammers that pounded into Kusagoro's sides, "Padma!" he chanted again, undoing the double ax handle grip to unleash all the "wheel's" handles into a ceaseless barrage of punches that caught Kusagoro off the ground and held him suspended in mid-air as machine-gun-like punches battered him into a pitiful pulp without the support of his feet being able to touch the ground. "Gopala Arrow!" Vasupala bellowed like a bull, kicking Kusagoro's limp, airborne body with his right foot and sending the Jugo clansman flying after a point-blank sonic boom lash resulting from his push kick.

"There it is!" the announcer somehow overpowered the audience's clamoring for one of their favorites, taking off yet another cocky challenger. "Vasupala's flawless Gopala Sudarshana stance–the flat-out divine martial arts stance from which the Beast of Love can transition into one of three impressive techniques! Now that he's attacked the Konoha ninja with all of them at once, there shouldn't be any way for even a Sannin to prevent this ring-out!"

An intense, devilish blaze covered Kusagoro's body mid-flight. It beckoned so brightly that all of its surrounding regions drowned in total shade while it drew demonic Curse Seal patterns across Kusagoro's body. Sharp exhaust pipe-like cannons emerged from Kusagoro's shoulder blades, expelling a violet burst halo of chakra and stopping his reckless flight toward elimination while a thoroughly satisfied peal of mirth filled the arena.

"Yeah… Yeah… That's it…!" Kusagoro's irises and pupils vanished away in the blacks that drowned out the ordinary look in his eyes. When they returned, the eyes of the Konoha Sannin lit up with a radiant amber blaze and bulged out like those of a madman. His teeth grinned with an upward crescent–the moon phase of sadistic madness. "Now this is worth my time! I think I see your point about this whole love business because I've come to love everything your fists just told me! But I wonder, ox-man… I wonder if you can withstand the nature of my requital to your girly love taps?"

"Hmm? What is this?" Vasupala wondered with the golden gleam outline snuffing out and his arms weighing down by his sides, dragged to the ground as his spine buckled under the gravity's pull and sweat poured down the Salvari's face. "After battering such as the one I gave him, I was sure that you'd sleep for eight days straight…"

"You might not have known this about us Jugo. When we get excited, we lose control. We simply go berserk! The more control we shed, the wilder our destructiveness goes! Because I'm here on a mission, I tried preventing raising hell like this, but… Oh well… Now I can kill the fuck outta all of you!" Kusagoro shrieked with a look of madness gleaming on his face and a roaring waterfall of boundless chakra booming from all the pores in his body, creating a swirl of vile yet bottomless chakra that boomed into the atmosphere and colored the evening sky in black like a projectile vomit of ink over a blank canvas.

"This vile dharma…" Bishiyari's feet touched the ground, and the Supreme Salvari abandoned his meditation to turn to Kusagoro. "It's radiating with pure murder. I must eliminate it at once, lest it consume and bring about the end of everything."

A mad howl came from Kusagoro's direction as he turned his mad scowl back to Bishiyari, terrifying the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness with a single glare. Not because of the immense power he contained within his twisted body, but because of the unfiltered wickedness that Kusagoro's nature was in this state.

"Oh, don't you soil your panties just yet, "Supreme Being"… This is just Curse Seal Level 1! I can dial it much higher than this!" the berserker rumbled before turning his mean grin back to Vasupala. "Now, let's pound me a ground beef burger, how 'bout it!?"

"Incredible. No sense of restraint, none of the vanity that this man was brimming with earlier. Only sadism and bloody murder, the screams of thousands of victims that didn't know any better permeate this despicable dharma… I might be in trouble. You're no man, you're a demon," Vasupala muttered while slowly dragging his sweaty and exhausted body back, just to buy a few more inches of distance and increase his odds of reading the incoming assault.

The chains holding Kusagoro leashed to sanity chipped and came one crack closer to shattering.