From the beginning moments of the match, Dashula took off and dashed at Bishiyari. A pulsating, expanding halo of red and blue flame, seeming ethereal and transparent, yet feeling hot enough to burn one's very soul to ash, burst from beneath Dashula's bare feet after the Blissful Yogi Destroyer took off in an arrow-headed direct assault. Meanwhile, the Supreme One remained in a neutral, praying stance.
Dashula thrust his trident as if attempting to impale his eternal rival on its prongs, only for Bishiyari to glare directly at his opponent, with eyes overflowing with dharma of such intensity that they became beacons of white spiritual light. Dashula grunted, feeling his entire body frozen in place from overwhelming pressure that seemed to offload the tremendous weight of Bishiyari's supremacy upon every individual cell of Dashula's body, separating them and leaving them stranded in the vastness of their own universe of solitude.
"O-Ho!" Rajul exclaimed, witnessing rumbling shockwaves emanating from the stationary and untaxed body of the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness. "What overwhelming dharma! Without even directing his dharma or attacking the challenger with it, the Supreme One left Dashula completely overwhelmed and paralyzed in place through the insurmountable size and mastery of his dharma alone!"
"How lowly," Bishiyari scoffed at Dashula's primitive method of attack. "You fight like a cornered animal, a captured slave who's forced to fight for their life, not as a God of the Arena. Have you mistaken my supreme goodness for perilous weakness?"
"Not a chance!" Dashula smirked with cheer to be alive and present in the moment. "It's been a while since we've last fought, so I intend to enjoy this to the fullest! I'm going to use every skill in my arsenal, one by one until I find the answer to your supreme power."
"I've never seen chakra have such an effect," Shige-H squinted with focus at the sight of a tall and athletic warrior with sublime masculine features frozen in place, shivering as if stuck in a mountain blizzard, alone and stranded for all eternity with the ever-present allure to succumb to the cold and weary and sleep forever in the snow, becoming part of the mountain itself. "If this dharma is merely the spiritual aspect of chakra, how can it be more advanced than the real deal?"
"Dharma is more complex than just the spiritual aspect of chakra," Mana replied. Her sensory abilities allowed her to better understand the mystical light show that all of them were admiring from afar. "It's chakra that emphasizes the spiritual aspect. Physical chakra is still present, that's how dharma attacks affect the physical plane, however, spiritual chakra is vastly dominant in the recipe of how dharma is molded. Because of how prominent the spiritual side is in dharma, one's emotions, consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, focus… It's much easier for dharma to have a spiritual effect as opposed to chakra."
"Those dharma techniques should still be weaker though, right? If they're focusing less on physical chakra, that is…" Damisan wondered. Mana suspected that, just like she was, Damisan was trying to formulate a battle plan against a dharma user in case Mana or Genshi had to face off against one.
"Not necessarily in general, however, balanced chakra would overcome dharma in most cases. Specifically, because of lack of physical energy in dharma," Mana replied.
"Good, so, when you eliminate poor Genshi in the semi-finals, if I can stomach looking like you without throwing up, I can transform into you and tag you out in the finals. There shouldn't be a way for either of those two to break Barrier Ninjutsu," Asuka suggested in jest.
A necklace of beads began rustling in unease around the neck of the serene Bishiyari. The narrow thread split, releasing the beads into an orderly hover, orbiting the neck of the Supreme One like planets orbiting a star. Without as much as a twitch of his finger and acting with the pressure of his dharma alone, Bishiyari sent his beads hurling toward the paralyzed Dashula, battering him like a barrage of bullets and sending the Salvari stumbling away from the proximity where the pressure of Bishiyari's dharma rendered the yogi helpless. Then, just like that, the beads returned to hover around Bishiyari's neck.
"It's not like you're taking this all that seriously either," Dashula dragged the back of his fist across his cheek too, easing the sting where the beads pelted him without dropping an amused smirk for a blink.
"My punishment is appropriate for the sin I see being committed. Since you did not attack me with serious force, your only transgression is blasphemy against my supremacy. Escalate the conflict, however, and you will feel the weight of my fists, yogi…" The sassy eyes of the Supreme One gleamed with beckoning starlight, glaring directly at the stumbled and hunched Dashula as if judging him from above.
"Oh, I just can't wait!" Dashula exclaimed, twirling his trident around and throwing it at the ground in front of him. The trident embedded into the hardened sandstone like it would have pierced through a marshmallow, cracking the tiles with terrifying force. "I'm coming at you for keeps now, I just can't contain the excitement anymore!"
Dashula began gleaming with a sky-blue aura, flexing his arms on the side and tensing his entire body with focus so hard that his chiseled muscles became tough as stone. The audience began clapping and hailing at the sight of the blazing sky-blue dharma pyre swirling into two horizontal whirlwinds that then tightened into the shape of another pair of arms, entirely constructed by dharma. So advanced was Dashula's control over the spiritual aspect of chakra and shape manipulation, that his arms clearly displayed the patterned properties of armor. They weren't at all shapeless; they looked as if they were assembled from chunks of animated armor.
Grabbing his trident, with his real arms and pulling it from reinforced sandstone, Dashula took off from place again, shimmering with an intense dharma aura of his own. This time, when he met against the tidal wave of sacred white dharma crashing from Bishiyari's side, Dashula's own radiant dharma provided enough resistance to keep the Salvari afloat. Like a lonely boat in a stormy ocean, however, that was enough to trek across the boundless waters.
Dashula swung his trident like a hammer, clashing with the invisible shockwave of dharma emanating from Bishiyari's body. At this point, Dashula wasn't even fighting the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness but merely fighting his way through the overwhelming pressure of his entire dharma. Holding his trident with his real arms, while sifting through the overflowing spiritual energy with his dharma arms, Dashula began swimming through the boundless ocean of spirituality, one step at a time.
A visible, cloud-like pulse of spiritual energy slammed against Dashula, threatening to throw the Blissful Yogi Destroyer off his feet and send him tumbling back where he first stood before foolishly attacking the Supreme Salvari. However, Dashula heaved his trident over his head and slammed its fork into the ground, vaulting off of it and gaining altitude, as well as employing all four of his arms to push himself against the insurmountable tide of Bishiyari's dharma.
From a mid-air position, Dashula thrust his trident forward as an answer to the Supreme One's intense dharma resistance. This caused a whirling flame of blue and red fire to emerge around Bishiyari, greatly weakening the Supreme One's dharmic wrath and giving clear way for Dashula and his trident, emblazoned with the same whirling spiritual flame, to come down upon the Supreme Salvari and, for the first time since the beginning of the match, make contact!
The audience howled and yelled, pumping their fists and exclaiming praise for both combatants, as Dashula rose from his position directly in front of Bishiyari, while the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness straightened his back and looked his worthy challenger right in the eyes with a visible gash on his cheek that spilled blood. A mark of battle and a successful blow landed by the Blissful Yogi Destroyer.
"Incredible!" Rajul exclaimed, leaning over the railing as his howls echoed through the entire Sun Disc arena. "The first one to draw blood in this match is none other than the Blissful Yogi Destroyer–Dashula! Overpowering the peerless dharma of the Supreme One is no easy feat. However, Dashula fought his way through the tides of righteousness and left his mark!"
"Man, the Supreme Yogi Destroyer might not capture my nature as accurately as my previous title, but you have to agree it has a powerful ring to it!" Dashula smirked with challenger's moxie, looking back at Bishiyari's eyes with a glare of electric-blue dharma torchlights shimmering from his eyes and answering the bottomless depth of Bishiyari's own spiritual stare. The two stood before each other as equals, although Dashula looked shorter than Bishiyari, he certainly looked thicker. "I wonder what your title will be after I nab your crown of supremacy? You're not exactly known for being particularly blissful, after all."
"Don't get ahead of yourself," the Supreme One thundered down at his challenger, who only snickered with a smirk of boundless excitement. "Vanity is a sin that requires purging too. As long as you allow yourself to be vain, your dharma will never be as pure as mine, no matter how strong you grow."
"You forget… That I'm stronger than even you, Bishiyari!" Dashula exclaimed, shooting onward with a palm strike of one of his dharma arms, cracking a shot straight into the Supreme Salvari's face and forcing him to flinch in pain. Twirling his trident around, Dashula slammed it into Bishiyari's chest, pinning the Salvari to the ground. It was only because of the incredible pressure of the overflowing dharma that the trident failed to pierce Bishiyari's chest and impale him, succeeding only in slamming him to the ground with devastating, concussive force.
Dashula's trident slid forward in the yogi's hand until Dashula's grip tightened around its other end. Extending the trident's reach to its greatest length, Dashula swung it in an upward arc, letting his surging dharma coat his sacred tool of war and create a celestial energy arc that cleaved Bishiyari upward, firing him into the air. With blue and red spiritual flame, Dashula swung his trident around his head like a club, smashing the trident's front into Bishiyari's chest and smashing him away with a resounding nova of fiery dharma blaze that burnt the Supreme One's passive dharma up in the same way true fire consumed oxygen.
With his mighty dharma aura snuffed out, Bishiyari landed on both feet and skidded backward, wobbling from the damage he'd sustained. With a glare of solemn fury, the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness pressed his hands together in a prayer position, erupting in a golden aura of most pure and sacred dharma. The raging aura slammed against Dashula with all its tidal might, forcing even the battle-hardened Salvari warrior to kneel on one knee to maintain enough balance to oppose the overwhelming dharma of his opponent.
"Finally taking this seriously, aren't you?" Dashula snickered in excitement, using a restrained tone meant only for himself.
Before the awe-stricken yogi stood his opponent, with a golden ephemeral tower resting upon his head like a crown, with systems of miniature planets circling around its floors. Extending from behind Bishiyari's back were a thousand arms, with each dharma hand pressing with the other in a position for reciting a mantra, as the Supreme One finally unleashed the true power of his dharma. It was as if Bishiyari had assumed his true form as the Supreme God of the Arena, the absolute greatest warrior in existence, seated at the very pinnacle of combat ability.
With a look of pure ecstasy, Dashula launched himself straight at the cradle of the Supreme One, clenching his trident in his right dharma arm and thrusting it straight through the golden surge of dharma, aiming for the center of Bishiyari's head. Without a chance in his expression, Bishiyari tilted a single finger of one of his dharma arms to oppose the streaming thrust and the full weight of Dashula's dharma that lay behind that strike.
The audience screamed out and braced themselves, as a lone star blinked at the point of collision before exploding with full, unbridled might and washing the arena in the radiant afterglow of its entire existence, beginning and ceasing in the split-moment instance. A starlit, strident energy pillar boomed off into the sky and washed across the heavens, creating a majestic white aurora in the clouds, shimmering in a bright desert afternoon.
"Oh my! The unchained full might of the Supreme Salvari's aura would have crushed the fighting spirit of any opponent, however… It seemed to have only driven the Blissful Yogi Destroyer into a berserker state of excitement, leading Dashula into reveling in his battle madness!" Rajul exclaimed, grabbing his head and witnessing the shiny whiffs of dharma loosening enough to reveal the frozen-in-time struggle between Dashula, robbed of all momentum and force, stuck in fruitless opposition against a rippling dharma barrier protecting the Supreme One from harm.
"Indeed, you are not like most warriors in this arena. Despite craving conflict and seeking challenging battles, it is not violent impulses that drive you, not sadism at all. There is purity in your intentions. You crave trials like a sword craves to be sharpened and how a diamond craves to be shaped and polished. Unlike the Dark Mother of War, you do not battle for the murder and the carnage of it, you fight for the trial of combat. You relish in the tribulation of a good fight," Bishiyari spoke his judgment, staring right back at the gleaming torchlights of pure dharma with a dharma-infused look of matching intensity. "Very well then, you shall have the tribulation you seek."
With a light push of his finger, the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness made the rippling dharma barrier protecting him erupt into a violent, ethereal supernova, flinging Dashula away like smacking away like a lone sailor caught in an apocalyptic storm. Unlike that sailor, however, Dashula permitted his defining death wish to take over, opposing the indomitable burst of dharma every step of the way and letting Bishiyari's unbridled might blast him away mercilessly, taking far more damage and strain than it was necessary.
"We've exchanged fists so many times that I'm not surprised you understand me so well, Supreme Salvari," Dashula laughed out after picking himself back up and bursting with his fiery blue and red dharma all around him. "After all, life is full of suffering and stumbles, but it's those challenging adventures that make it worthwhile. You may be the supreme warrior, but there's no such thing as supreme philosophy. The best we can hope for is a way of life that's been tested all throughout our lives and has either withstood the tribulations put before it, or adapted to overcome them. In the same way, warriors must fight and seek the toughest challenges so that their strength matches the value of a worthwhile life. There is purity in Shakali's carnage in itself. She crushes and murders sinful sadists and murderers, not unlike you, who punishes and eliminates impurity. However, you were right in that our reasons for fighting are different, even if both of us seek violence."
Bishiyari's white-eyed expression shifted from strict judgment to a delightful smile. Dashula snickered before transitioning into a hearted, passionate laughter and bowing to his opponent with all four of his arms pressed together, expressing his boundless gratitude. "I am grateful for the supreme trial you impose on me, Supreme One!" Bishiyari declared.
Beginning Dashula's trial, the Supreme Salvari erupted with a sky-piercing pillar of fiery dharma that pulsated through the floor with heavenly light. With a pained grunt, Dashula slammed his dharma arms into an invisible concussive barrier with enough strength to expel sparks, like two chainsaws colliding in a foolhardy attempt to cut through one another, despite being two of a kind. Bishiyari's bright dharma pillar intensified, his thousands of dharma arms elongated and loomed above his opponent, unleashing a hail of meteoric, ethereal energy fists upon Dashula.
With elegant hops and dashes, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer eluded the raining attacks, only to turn his attention to Bishiyari's beads that were turning into shaking energy bombs, filling up with intense dharma. Before Dashula could even put together a plan for the interception, the overloaded dharma beads became unstable beacons of light and sent a hail of white fireballs hurling toward the yogi. With a forceful exclamation, Dashula thrust his fist at one of the fireballs, punching it away with a vicious, aerial tunnel rip of concussive force, but the beads didn't stop hurling punishment his way. Dashula simply didn't have enough arms to snuff out all the spiritual fireballs.
A heart-breaking sound of shattering glass made the audience exclaim in shock, as Bishiyari sent his overdriven beads toward Dashula, who responded in kind by swatting a few of them aside with his trident but had to employ his dharma arms to clash with a couple more beads hurling straight at him. The shattering noise came from the dharma construct arms breaking on impact with the overloaded with dharma beads, that surrounded Dashula and began sparkling with white flares, before unleashing a point-blank hail of white dharma fireballs and forming a white firenado in the eastern side of the arena, taking the overwhelmed Dashula for a ride before throwing him out of the blaze and dropping him limp on the ground.
"As you've stated before, you are stronger than me in terms of power, speed, and toughness…" Bishiyari closed his eyes, accepting the outcome of his opponent suffering a devastating blow and his dharma shattering in a fruitless attempt to compete with Bishiyari's pyre of purity. "However, the strength of your dharma and its size, it pales compared to mine. In all of our previous encounters, the same was the case, which is why the outcome remained the same. Unless you can find your answer to our dharma existing in different worlds, you will not overcome this trial, Dashula."