Just as the match began, Dashula took off dashing toward Batsudoru with a wound-up thrust of his trident. His body erupted with a blazing aura that made the rushing Salvari look like a soaring comet. Just as the Blissful Yogi Destroyer would have thrust his trident, the surging ethereal flames of spiritual energy converged at the trident's tip, forming a miniature sun that registered even considering the colossal size of the Cursed Warrior.
Batsudoru's hand-shaped obsidian wings fluttered, stopping the incoming crash of the spiritual sun dead in its path. An invisible force began ripping the dharma sun apart, slowly dissolving it from all sides until only an empty singularity of ripping vacuum remained in the epicenter of Dashula's attack. Another wave of Batsudoru's wings slammed straight against the tough body of the Salvari, who reared his chest and brought back his shoulders, spreading his feet to maximize his balance and stonewall the gale blasts.
This proved to be a fruitless attempt, however, as the more and more these windblasts pelted at the staunch Salvari, the looser his balance grew until the very arena ground that supported Dashula turned on the Blissful Yogi Destroyer. The soaring titanic condor proved incredibly skilled with its command over air currents, sending house-sized air bullets surrounded by sharp air pocket halos that cut Dashula like an invisible sword and sent him flying from the immense concussive force as the air bomb hit him dead-on.
Gnashing his teeth and fumbling in the air, soaring further from the center of the arena and closer to its edge, Dashula tipped himself over and landed on his feet on the eastern side of the arena, just around 75 meters away from the edge. Strangely enough, it didn't look like the titanic aerial weapon pressed its advantage. Instead, Batsudoru remained hovering in the air exactly where it started–far off at the western wing of the arena.
"What incredible attacks!" Rajul exclaimed out loud, turning to address the audience of stunned spectators who expected a spectacle similar to the battle royale itself from this match of two of the favorites to win the entire Succession Tournament. "Despite being one of the toughest warriors, utterly relentless and immovable on the battlefield, Dashula is flung back by the mere fluttering of Batsudoru's tremendous wings!"
"I don't think that's just Batsudoru waving its wings," Damisan shook his head. "If you look at these Cursed Warriors as a type of puppet, I'd say those air bombs would be one of the weapons in its arsenal. It proved incredibly capable of concealing itself in the upper atmosphere. It's more than likely that bombing targets with explosive air bombs such as those is one of its functions."
"A Cursed Warrior as a puppet?" Endo grinned. "Instead of going through your bothersome existential crisis, build a puppet that's half as cool as this thing. Then we'd have a much easier time on our missions."
Seeing a chance to take on the offensive, Batsudoru waved its hand-shaped obsidian wings, sending more undulating air bombs surrounded by slicing wind halos. After twirling his trident around him, Dashula slammed one aerial projectile away, only to detonate halfway across its way to the audience stands and stun the spectators with the sonic boom and the raging gale that flattened them to their seats. With his impressive trident handling routine, Dashula managed to deflect a few more air bombs before evading the next one and entering an acrobatic evasive rush.
Just when it seemed like the Cursed Warrior had cornered its opponent by reading Dashula's moves and spitting an air bomb ahead to where the Salvari warrior would end up after completing its evasive bound, Dashula thrust his leg down and vaulted straight off the arena. This proved to be something stunning to Batsudoru as the Cursed Warrior ceased attacking at once and began merely holding itself suspended above the western wing of the arena. After a brief while of the announcer refusing to eliminate Dashula and no splashing noise signaling the Salvari's elimination, the Cursed Warrior hovered to the southern side of the arena with just a few wingbeats.
Blooming on the artificial lake and dancing along at the beat of the rustling tides was a large, lone pink lotus blossom, gleaming with rays of bright sky-colored light. Before Batsudoru's own eyes, the lotus bloom closed and vanished underwater. The Cursed Warrior hovered above the rustling lake. While the obsidian condor could not experience confusion, based on its behavior, it was self-evident that Batsudoru's pilot was bewildered.
A deafening crash ripped across the arena, expelling a dominant shockwave and further tormenting the ears of the bedazzled spectators. Dashula had slammed into the side of Batsudoru with a flying kick, bypassing the titan's flurry of ranged air bombardment defenses. Batsudoru's heavily armored obsidian plating churned and almost screamed from internal pressure, expelling streams of pressurized air to relieve it and salvage the hovering destructive weapon from internal obliteration.
After the inertia did its work, Batsudoru bounced off of Dashula's feet while the Salvari stayed in the air, surrounded by a vivid violet flame with a red tip, entirely produced by the unbelievably powerful dharma produced by the Salvari that amped the Blissful Yogi Destroyer up. Kicking and thrusting with his trident that ignited the air it cut through with the same destructive dharma flame, Dashula unleashed an offensive flurry, but the Cursed Warrior beat its wings to put some distance between the Salvari warrior and itself.
Instead of merely fleeing, the condor weapon weaved its hand-shaped feet, wings, and tail together. Even Batsudoru's head turned upside down with the crown-like upper appendages tied up with the weaved wings, feet, and tail. This left Batsudoru as a hovering sphere, with only the creature's beak sticking out from the top as an antenna. No matter if the blazing trident slammed against the protective sphere, or tried thrusting through it, it simply skidded off the polished and impenetrable surface of the Cursed Warrior's defensive sphere formation.
Vaulting over his front, Batsudoru slammed his heel into the upper side of the sphere, punting it down as a ball and making Batsudoru crash down into the ring, expelling a booming pillar of compressed air, dirt, dust, and debris shooting off into the sky. The resulting impact sent quakes felt across the entire continent. As the spiritually immolating Salvari hovered above the destructive site of Batsudoru's crash-landing, a fuchsia-colored light sparked deep inside the cloud of dust and debris, prompting the Cursed Warrior to react.
With a backside swing of his trident, Batsudoru deflected a fuchsia-colored thunderbolt that shot from the epicenter of the destructive crash, letting it fizzle out as it flew far past its effective range. This proved to be just a potent momentary distraction, however, as the black egg with a sharp, beak-like rod sticking out from its top hurled itself from the cloud of dust and debris and stabbed the beak into Dashula's abdomen, stunning the Salvari in place and prompting him to cough up blood.
"Oh, no! Dashula is injured!" Rajul slammed his fists at the railing that was put up knowing the lively way in which the announcer reporting the tournament reacted to its developments.
While from first sight it would have appeared that, because of Dashula's toughness, only the very tip of Batsudoru's beak penetrated the Salvari's abdomen, this was not the sum of Batsudoru's attack and was only the beginning of the Salvari's troubles. Upon mere moments of the shallow impalement, the egg-shaped defensive form of Batsudoru sparkled with fuchsia-colored electricity which it transferred through the beak that was impaling Dashula and shocked the Salvari warrior until it thrashed and twitched itself free of the shallow prong stabbing him.
"You're stronger than the foes from the battle royale, that is for certain," Dashula panted for a few seconds after having landed on his knees. Then, the Salvari stood up and straightened his back, swiping the trident aside while casting a sparking arc of violet and red flames in the path that the trident carved through. "You are exactly the type of opponent I have come to this place to seek."
"The Blissful Yogi Destroyer Dashula has shown respect to his opponent! Seeing how it's Dashula, respect like this is high praise!" Rajul exclaimed, turning to the audience that finally overcame the awe and the struggle against the rampant air pressure, the sonic booms, and the ripping gales to cheer in excitement. "It appears that Dashula is just getting fired up!"
"Even though it hurts me to know that you are just a puny pilot controlling this fearsome flying monolith, however, in a way, it is also soothing. There is nothing but the fight. It's almost… Hypnotic," Dashula pointed out as white decorative patterns of light began drawing up across its body, decorating Dashula's face, his arms, and his chest with circle patterns that gleamed with lunar light. As Dashula opened its eyes, starlit beams cast from within them.
"Incredible! It appears that the silent nature and the destructive power of Batsudoru has lulled Dashula into a hypnotic state of pure fighting instinct! A meditative warrior's trance in which nothing but the fight exists! The Blissful Yogi Destroyer is taking this fight up a few notches!" Rajul reported, which caused plenty of cheers and waves in the audience.
"This much spiritual chakra…" Mana covered her face with a trembling hand. "In ordinary ninja, spiritual chakra would be completely invisible. It took me some training to accomplish something with it alone and my chakra resources and control surpass that of all but the elite ninja."
"If mental energy is the aspect of belief and imagination, it's as if this man is using imagination and faith in his own abilities, goals, and aspirations to augment his abilities. This is a lot like chakra augmentation, except purely spiritual," Shige-H observed, crossing her legs and leaning back in her seat. The fighting style of the Salvari was quite something to observe, as it was as if someone had weaponized a mere elemental aspect of the chakra that ninja used to fight and honed it until the difference between dharma and chakra was difficult to tell.
"It may just be that this dharma is far more dangerous than chakra," Asuka nestled herself into her seat, making herself more comfortable and preparing to enjoy a delectable sight. "Because chakra uses both physical and spiritual qualities, it's at least partly rooted in the material reality. In that way, it might be more potent in the physical plane, but it is also more limited in terms of how you can use it. It's as if these Salvari bring forth their very imaginations to life through the power of meditation, focus, and discipline."
"I'd like to see all that imagination stacking up against cold and very real steel. I've never seen bad intentions block a sword strike," Endo sneered, dismissing the Salvari fighting style. Based on his expression, which showed no signs of relief or boredom, he didn't necessarily consider dharma-based fighting styles weak, however, his disdain came from a more conceptual level. There were countless ways to become strong and this way merely rubbed Endo the wrong way.
Because it was merely a weapon in the hands of an assassin and a thief, who murdered Batsudoru's original pilot and took over commanding the destructive condor, it was impossible to tell what reaction Dashula's power-up inspired in the obsidian avian. However, it was safe to say that Batsudoru didn't dismiss Dashula's hypnotic warrior trance. The egg-like sphere lost its shape as the obsidian marble spread tremendous hand-shaped wings behind it. With a couple of wingbeats, Batsudoru created a raging typhoon on the ground level that threatened to rip the audience members from their seats and tore turbans and hats, carrying them far off beyond the visible horizon.
Despite the raging windstorm, Dashula stood still, weaving in place, almost like an aspen tree. Completely entranced, the Salvari warrior wholly submitted to the flattening typhoon and bowed to its demands, becoming rooted and immovable, however highly malleable, while faced with the dominant windstorm. That way, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer completely brushed off Batsudoru's attempts to throw him out of balance.
"B-Batsudoru hovered high into the atmosphere!" Rajul howled out, competing with the turbulent typhoon made because of Batsudoru's wingbeat. "Wh-What is it planning!?"
Batsudoru spread its wings and stiffened itself, fully extending its wings, and feet and turning its head back into place with a stony rumble. Upon stretching itself out, it was as if the soaring behemoth had covered up the sun and lingered like a dark cloud that called forth the night in the middle of the day. The audience gasped and shuddered, as the neon glow from the decorative patterns all over the avian mountain intensified and became torchlights that fired a magenta-colored blaze that swallowed up the Cursed Warrior itself.
"Wh-What a nightmarish sight!" Rajul reported the development that nobody capable of sight could have missed. "Before our very eyes, Batsudoru transformed itself into an obsidian sun, casting its vile, cursed energy and becoming encased in it as a substitute for sunlight! It's like Batsudoru has become the center of its own Cursed Universe and we all have no other choice but to be cursed alongside it!"
Batsudoru loosened its stiff extension, adopting its original, condor-like form and diving down while carrying the nova of magenta-colored cursed energy around it. The speedy, dive-bombing weapon swept just a mere meter above the ground, swooping back up on the other side and submerging the entire arena in its cursed magenta inferno. The audience, stunned by the pulsating heat, the clamor, and the chaos, covered themselves up and braced themselves, but, as they opened their eyes, they couldn't help but gasp as the surface of the entire arena had turned into a maze of infernal magenta walls.
"Wh-What an incredibly devastating attack! B-But where is Dashula? Could he have been completely incinerated to a pile of ash!? No! I refuse to believe it and I know that so will the audience! The Blissful Yogi Destroyer is himself indestructible!" Rajul grabbed the railing in front of him and shook it frantically. All the while the announcer scanned the arena for any signs that his favorite competitor was still alive and kicking after Batsudoru cast the stage into becoming a complicated, infernal geoglyph that depicted some kind of engineering blueprint.
With a snap, Dashula appeared directly above and behind Batsudoru. Before the Cursed Warrior could turn around or even swoop away from harm, the starlit Salvari with a crescent moon insignia shining on its forehead thrust its trident down and impaled Batsudoru on the back, driving it to slam back down onto the arena and snuff out the infernal magenta blueprint it had painted with its cursed energy.
A thunderous blast resounded across the Sun Disc and carried off a halo of dust and debris far beyond the arena's reaches, spreading off far into the town of Agbarah itself and spilling over beyond its walls and into the desert beyond, forming calamitous sandstorms that extended in all directions from the epicenter. With the Cursed Warrior vacating the skies, the sun once again shone upon the Sun Disc arena, Agbarah, and the boundless deserts of the Land of Wind.
"He's down! Batsudoru is hurt and it's down!" Rajul yelled out with ecstatic enthusiasm. "This is incredibly fortuitous for the Blissful Yogi Destroyer, for his hypnotic dharma trance elevates Dashula's abilities further and further and intensifies his focus the longer Dashula stays in that state! That means that Dashula is about to continue mounting greater and greater advantage!"
"It's tough to believe it…" Ryoku Genshi muttered, staring at the arena while his vizor only relayed a smokescreen of mist-like energy that was impossible to make much about. It was because of this downside of his visual aid that Ryoku Genshi felt stuck to having to listen to Rajul's commentary for the context of what was going on in the fighting stage. "A fighting style that makes you stronger and faster the longer you use it. Even now, Dashula seemed to have completely vanished and evaded an attack that drowned the entire stage in cursed flames. How are you supposed to fight against that?"
"Seriously? This cheap-ass technique got you whimpering?" Endo scoffed. "Haven't you been paying attention? Dashula is lost in a meditative trance, focusing on drawing more and more dharma out and becoming one with the tide of battle. Because of that, all it takes is one good blow and he'll snap right out of that trance and all the dharma he's been building up will be lost. In other words, he'll be back to normal."
"Make no mistake, none of this comes free to Dashula," Shige-H added. "Because dharma is a form of chakra that is almost purely derived from the spiritual aspect of chakra–mental energy, by drawing and molding more and more of it, you effectively use more and more dharma. That means that you also run at the risk of running out of it if you keep this up long enough. Based on the size and toughness of both combatants, we're in for a long fight, so Dashula isn't doing himself any favors by fighting this way."
"I was going to suggest that, because he is constantly aware and one with every minor aspect of battle, Dashula cannot purposefully avoid certain details, such as those that serve as genjutsu focus. Not to mention, because Dashula molds and channels dharma, not chakra, he'd struggle to dispel genjutsu after he's fallen for it," Mana shrugged. "Though, I suppose, what Shige-H-san and Endo said are also brilliant observations."
"Incredible!" Ryoku Genshi gasped. "You guys completely saw through a technique that this fighter used in no time at all! Each one of you offered different weaknesses too!"
"That's because, in our line of work, you only have a few moments in between you see the jutsu coming and when it kills you to figure things out, or else you're dead," Damisan replied in a grim tone.
"Besides, each one of those guys just gave you the observation that's the most relevant to them. Endo is an aggressive and relentless swordsman in battle, meaning that he's most interested in violent solutions. Captain-lady here is a medical kunoichi, meaning that she has an advantage in prolonged slobber-knockers where she can sustain herself and remain in peak fighting condition, then overwhelm her opponent. Mana is an expert illusionist, meaning she'll always be able to tell how effective her thing will be in any given situation," Asuka pointed out.
"That's incredible!" Ryoku Genshi noted with a respectful tremble to his lower jaw. "I'm fortunate to only have to worry about running into one of you in the bracket. I don't think even an idealist like me could keep his dream of the World Sports Games alive with all of you to worry about."
Meanwhile, in the fighting stage, Batsudoru shuffled around and pushed itself off the ground with the help of its wing, feet, and tail fingers, however, it couldn't take flight without leaving itself open to Dashula's swift counterattacks, so it stayed grounded until it could find an opening. The ground-shaking battle between these two proved to be every bit as block-busting and nail-biting as the audience thought it would be, and it seemed to have only barely scratched its surface.