The hail of a thousand dharmic fists flew straight at Dashula, tempered with a reignited fighting spirit and desperately looking for a way to awaken his Samsara Dharma State with the Peaks of Tandava being useless against the Supreme Salvari. Dashula focused on his impeccable footwork, dancing, dashing, and blitzing in between the incoming blows and slipping out of their way.
With a disturbing buzz, the hovering beads became enlightened with Bishiyari's dharma and fired beams of concentrated spiritual energy at the swift Salvari warrior, prompting Dashula to employ his trident in a defensive whirl to shield him from harm. Just as Dashula stopped moving in place and employed a defensive whirl of his trident to protect him from the dharma beams, Bishiyari focused his efforts on the assault of a thousand dharmic arms, focusing all of his striking ethereal limbs on Dashula's location.
"It was a mistake to stop moving!" Bishiyari declared as his pumping, golden dharma arms struck in a rapid combination of straights. The air around the two combatants became murky and unclear, covered in a thick, murky shroud, and Bishiyari's dharmic arms seemed to be no closer to reaching Dashula than they were before. Even as they extended farther and farther, there was still just as long of a distance between Dashula and Bishiyari's dharmic fists as there was the moment before.
"The Peaks of Tandava… Pointless!" Bishiyari gritted his teeth in scolding for the reckless usage of Dashula's own dharmic illusion technique. Just as ground and sky vanished, swallowed in the murky morning fog, and countless pillars of stacked one on top of another bodhisattva statues began shooting up from the unseeable bottom to the unknowable peak of the illusionary realm, Bishiyari clutched his solemn gaze and pressed on, shattering the Peaks of Tandava like a panel of two-dimensional glass.
However, instead of his fists ramming through the illusion and clobbering the Blissful Yogi Destroyer, the ethereal dharmic fists instead plunged through a rustling pyre of red and blue dharmic flame, leaving round holes where they punched through the blaze before returning to the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness and regaining their ordinary arm length.
"He did it!" Rajul chanted out with a pump of his fist in the air. "Even though the spiritual maturity of the Supreme Salvari renders the Peaks of Tandava useless against him, Dashula used the Peaks of Tandava as a diversion, slipping away into another dharmic illusion underneath that!"
"It's not that your Samsara Dharma State poses a threat to my supremacy in the arena, yogi. It's your naivety and misplaced trust in that technique, the foolhardy bluntness of believing such a technique shall defeat the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness that makes me shatter that naïve hope!" Bishiyari exclaimed, forming a vertical halo of hovering beads around him, all of which became glimmering with concentrated dharma and fired spiritual energy beams at the flare.
"Samsara Bloom!" Dashula's ghastly voice rang from an unclear direction, seemingly echoing from throughout the arena as dharmic lotuses bloomed all around the artificial lake surrounding the arena, turning into whirling pyres from which identical copies of Dashula burst forth. A handful of Dashula rushed in, taking the hit meant for the central blaze that was beginning to take the shape of a blooming red and blue lotus. A few more still took a bountiful leap into the air, vaulting over their front sides and plunging with trident thrusts from above.
Bishiyari focused his dharmic arm constructs on the incoming attacks, sending his thousand arms to pummel and obliterate the incoming dharmic doppelgangers. This proved to be a simple task, however, just as the final dharmic clone vanished without a trace like a snuffed-out torch, the lotus in the center of the arena began sending rampant quakes and rippling shockwaves that made the spectators grip tighter to their seats.
"It's coming! Dashula's Samsara Dharma State!" Rajul exclaimed. With the voice of their announcer pouring fuel down into the fire, the audience began cheering, clapping, and stomping their feet in anticipation, rumbling to the rhythm of the resounding quakes and chanting Dashula's praises.
"Through struggle and a painful crawl, you've awakened it then…" Bishiyari resigned himself to having to hold his own against Dashula's ace in the hole–an overwhelmingly destructive dharma state that surrenders control of Dashula's entire body to his dharma, which in turn becomes one with the spiritual energy of the entire universe surrounding Dashula. The overpowered effect that this has on the dharma of the Blissful Yogi Destroyer and his techniques was nothing short of miraculous.
Not even the Supreme Salvari himself dared to become one with the ever-present spiritual energy of the universe, not only because one risked losing themselves and becoming a more ethereal part of the universe themselves, vanishing without a trace as they dissolved in the universal ocean of all existence like a drop of syrup into the sea, but also because Bishiyari would never subject himself to the corruption and sin of the surrounding universe, rather than existing to purging that sin. Because the Supreme Salvari brought goodness to the world, he did not allow himself to become a part of the world's taint.
In an instant, a rumbling white beam pierced through the blooming lotus and punched into Bishiyari's body, beaming clean through and sending the Supreme Salvari down for the count on the floor. Despite beaming a hole through the Salvari's body, not a drop of blood was shed and no trace of visible damage remained on Bishiyari's body. However, the humbled Supreme Salvari fell flat on his back, sprawled out and staring into the impure by his standard heavens with a dull stare, as if the beam had stricken him dead.
"The All-Destroying Third Eye!" Rajul exclaimed with the audience becoming bereft of their united and unequivocal hype. A significant portion of the spectators gasped and covered their mouths in shock, looking around and wondering why more of them weren't concerned for the well-being of their favorite supreme combatant who lay knocked flat on his back. A look that was very uncharacteristic of him to assume. "The signature feature of the Samsara Dharma State has made its impact already!"
With the potent expulsion of concentrated spiritual energy beaming out from the blooming giant lotus, its fiery, colorful flame petals rumbled and tore open, revealing flashes of a larger-than-life, abstract, masculine shape that embodied the endless cosmos and the stars above. A stationary figure of an electric blue body with purple nebula-like shrouds and starry blinks all across the body of the Blissful Yogi Destroyer. The avatar of cosmic spirituality hovered from the cradle of its awakening with eyes flaring with neon-blue flames of dharma with a disproportionately large crack in its forehead, swirling with the same light, but now shut, for the All-Destroying Third Eye annihilated all that it laid its gaze upon.
"It's that transformation again…" Damisan said.
"It is, however… Dashula-san used an awful lot of his chakra to set it up and it's bound to consume more and more chakra while it is active," Mana nodded in agreement. "If Dashula-san doesn't settle it while this state is in play, he might not settle it at all."
"He might have already settled it," Asuka snickered to herself. "Look, the holier-than-thou-guy is down on his ass already."
"Yet there are no visible wounds on his body, despite suffering such an awful injury. As expected of concentrated dharma techniques, their effect is more spiritual than physical," Shige-H observed.
Without making a sound, the hovering Samsara Dharma State avatar hovered closer toward his fallen foe and reached out with his hand which looked like a man-shaped reflection of the abysmal yet flashy beauty of the cosmos. The audience turned still when it seemed as if Dashula's hand pressed against something solid and immovable, despite there being nothing solid and visible in the Destroyer's path. With a subtle twitch of his arm, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer shattered the panel of reality itself, revealing an identical version behind the shattered window, except for the fact that the Supreme Salvari was standing in a praying position on both feet.
"It was naïve of you to think that the All-Destroying Third Eye can destroy the spirit of the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness," Bishiyari scolded his opponent after opening his radiant eyes and smiling at him with a kind expression. "After all, the Supreme Salvari ranks above all things, so not even that which destroys everything can destroy his spirit."
Dashula brought his arms behind him, dashing forward head-first and ramming against the head of the Supreme Salvari. A bright flash comparable to two colliding galaxies expanded across the arena, radiating in a booming pillar, pulsating into the atmosphere, and filling the solar system with boundless radiance. When the backlash of their collision split the two feuding superpowers up, Dashula flexed his fists of cosmic destruction. The stars depicted all across his body all went supernova one after another, becoming turbulent balls of fire, gas, and pure energy.
Thrusting his fists forward, Dashula sent these destructive bursts of energy forward, hurling them through his body like he was nothing but a living portal to a smaller, contained universe residing within his very body. The fiery comets hurled directly at the Supreme Salvari, prompting his reaction. Bishiyari's dharmic arms pounded supernova after supernova, detonating each burst and vanquishing the spiritual blaze, adapting the shock within his own body. However, Dashula's chaotic dance of cosmic destruction left no space for Bishiyari to counterattack in.
Panting and exhausted, the Supreme Salvari collapsed on one knee with all thousand of his arms weighing down behind his back like a cape. This was the sign of humanity that Dashula was looking for. Like a mad beast, the Blissful Yogi Destroyer moved his arms behind his back and dashed at Bishiyari, pummeling the exhausted Salvari with his own fists before blitzing a fair distance behind him. Where Bishiyari was just kneeling, a fiery pillar of ten thousand collapsing stars roared, launching the Supreme Salvari skyward.
The sky became cluttered with golden stardust that rained down across the entire Agbarah Sheikhate region of the Land of Wind. These were the ethereal sparkles of the shattered dharma of the Supreme Salvari. Emboldened by the scent of blood in the water, Dashula leaned his body back, like a discus thrower, and hurled a spiritual singularity high in the sky that, at first, emitted a grounding pressure across the entire arena, but then sucked Dashula in toward it. As a result, the Destroyer moved at unimaginable speed and accrued ludicrous momentum. When both he and Bishiyari were about to be consumed by the spiritual black hole, Dashula's hand clasped it and crushed it in its grip before shaking his fists in front of him and sending them to work, battering Bishiyari before slamming him down into the arena, leaving nothing but wreckage and dirt underneath.
"Wh-What an absurd match! Is this what a clash between the two strongest Gods of Arena looks like!? It feels like we are unworthy of spectating this heated collision!" Rajul bellowed through the crushing pressure and sucking pull, through the deafening ruckus and the beckoning flashes of the destructive battle.
Without a word or a taunt, Dashula descended closer to his fallen opponent, just to see the overwhelmed and beaten into the dirt Supreme Salvari stand up bruised and tattered, stumbling and confused. While his thousand dharma arms were broken, however, dharma still glowed through the Supreme Being's eyes. Even though his fighting spirit remained unbroken, the Supreme Being of Ultimate Goodness stumbled upon standing up, glaring down in shock at his embarrassing display of humanity and a show of his mortality.
"Quiet, aren't you? I imagine there's not much of the Blissful Yogi left in you in this state. Yes, your trial-loving, enthusiastic self has given way to the cruel, yet fair cosmic destruction. Above anyone else, by becoming an avatar of the universe's unbiased destruction, you've ascended the closest toward genuine divinity…" the stumbling Salvari muttered before his eyes flashed in shock, seeing a gargantuan, three-headed dragon emerging from a star within Dashula's cosmic body.
"Agni Trishula!" the Destroyer spoke with the authority and a magnified authority of seven different, firm, and masculine voices. The humongous dragon, drawing heat and wrath for its rampage from the stars, turned its attention toward the arena outside the cosmic body of its master. The three-headed dread began drifting closer and closer to Dashula's chest, before it burst through, like plunging underwater from one dimension to another and emerging wholly on the other side.
A gigantic, fiery construct of pure spiritual star-fire, shaped like a three-headed, winged serpent, lunged toward the Supreme Salvari, creating a raging whirlwind of a blazing flame pillar that pulsated with red flaming halo and colored the entire district with intense, red light. The peak of the flaming pillar opened its maw, like a hellish abomination of insatiable hunger, and bit with bottomless hatred of the heavens themselves, vanishing into the skies while leaving only a charred surface and burnt and tattered Bishiyari.
"Oh, my! Just look at that!" Rajul exclaimed, pointing at the events transpiring in the arena. "The Supreme Salvari is hanging on the edge of the remaining arena by a burnt wrinkle of his robe! The Supreme Salvari himself is at the edge of elimination! This match could be over in one fell swoop!"
"Destroy away everything, Damaru Nagamani!" Dashula chanted, raising his arm as the vanished stars reignited with white, blinking dots across his cosmic body. Two of these stars glowed with blazing, tiger-orange burn, positioned parallel to one another. With two reptilian slits revealing themselves in the starry blaze, these two stars revealed themselves to be the eyes of a cosmic-scale black serpent, emerging from the depths of Dashula's universal body and wrapping around its master, rearing its fangs and opening its regal flaps.
A trio of ancient-looking drums, positioned horizontally and decorated with a circle of five interconnected trident insignia, hung proudly etched into the serpent's extended rib flaps. After unleashing something in between the roar of a great dragon and a hiss of a grand serpent, the regal black cobra's drums emitted a visible, bright shockwave that tunneled its way without compromise, straight toward the compromised Salvari on the edge of elimination.
The thunderous shockwave went on and on, raging on and on, however, no matter how much farther it went, it seemed to be getting nowhere close to the laid-out Supreme Salvari. In just a blink of his starlit eyes, Dashula realized that there was a scarf of a bottomless universe placed upon the shoulders of the unknowable Supreme Being, looming at the very end of the universe that the hypersonic shockwave would have to cross to reach him.
"Vaijayanti…" Dashula spoke with the combined symphony of seven raucous voices.
"Vaijayanti…" the Supreme Salvari confirmed, shrinking down to ordinary size and letting the gleaming dharmic regalia decorating his body disappear with starry sprinkles sizzling away and scattering according to the whims of the wind. Being rid of his cosmic garland, the Supreme One stood with his heels against the edge of the arena, pressing his hand against his ribs and panting in pain. However, as he just revealed, his fighting spirit stayed strong and his consciousness, his mind, his experiences, and his faith still lingered, despite the widespread spiritual destruction seeded by the Destroyer.
"This is the farthest you've ever pushed me, Dashula. I hope that some part of your consciousness still lingers and that it hasn't become lost in the vastness of the spirit of the universe you've become the host of," Bishiyari smiled. "I don't know if it's one of the many hits I've taken, or if I am taken aback by your tremendous effort, but you've made me a believer and supporter of yours. Just like this audience, I too am cheering for your ascension now. Go ahead, bust through the wall of my supremacy, reach the edge of the universe, the edge of existence, and with crystal-clear eyes, push on! We have no limits! That being said, I do not intend to kneel and take my defeat standing up. I will fight my best fight and use all of my techniques, draw from the bottomless source of my supreme dharma to suppress your rebellion and punt you back to the back of the line."
"Don't let it happen!" someone in the audience rumbled.
"Fight, Dashula, fight on!" someone else yelled out.
"Just one more, push, go!" another spectator heckled the match.
"Incredible!" Rajul exclaimed. "The audience, sensing the downfall of the Supreme Salvari at hand, are encouraging the Blissful Yogi Destroyer to go ahead and claim the throne of the new Supreme Salvari that he's been struggling for so long to claim! Just how many times has Dashula been soundly defeated, just how many times has he come just a tiny bit short of that victory!? The Three-Eyed Destroyer is now the closest he's ever been to claiming the crown! Fight on, Dashula, this day is yours, fight on!"
The Supreme Salvari tilted his index finger, concentrating all of his dharma and summoning his scattered beads to emerge from the wreckage or underwater depths and rotate around the tip of his finger. The shapeless mass of golden dharma began to form a more orderly, galactic-like shape of a saw-like galactic discus with each starlit bead comprising a part of that galactic system, shimmering with the color of a different gemstone each.
"Sudarshana Chakram!" the Protector of Order chanted, hurling his whirling, galactic chakram of pure dharma. The most powerful concentration of the bottomless dharma Bishiyari possessed came hurling and buzzing toward the Destroyer, who leaned back and crossed his legs, assuming a meditative position.
"Is NOW really a good time to meditate?" Damisan grabbed his head, showing how strangely invested he was in this match between respected rivals.
The All-Destroying Third Eye parted from Dashula's forehead, floating in the shape of an obscured torchlight radiating pure destruction. In one swoop, the eye opened up, however, instead of beaming destruction as far as the eye could see, it gleamed like a neon-blue fireball, swirling around the meditating Dashula and forming a blue coil around the Blissful Yogi Destroyer. Another vivid red flare of shimmering crimson energy surrounded Dashula, while the Destroyer maintained the circulation of his third spiritual eye.
"That's… Physical chakra!" Mana exclaimed in shock as the crimson aura that had turned Dashula into a living fireball of physical chakra formed a smaller, head-sized intensely burning red fireball and coiled in an opposite direction to the neon-blue coil, forming paired coils of blood red and neon-blue around the meditating Salvari.
Becoming the spearhead of this meditative dance, swirling with radiant, dancing projections of both aspects of chakra, Dashula flew onward to meet the incoming galactic buzz-saw of Sudarshana Chakram. Everything flashed white, and sparkling pixelated starlight heaved in every direction, storming outward from the point of impact as a deafening rumble flattened the spectating audience to their seats. In a rare instance, when two Salvari were fighting, the hooded arena staffers felt obliged to interfere and erect protective barriers to protect the audience. To Mana this seemed fair, after all, budojutsu was involved, in a shocking appearance.
Behind this strident rage of cosmic destruction, behind all this thundering and growling, all that shaking and rumbling, stood the last man standing. The Salvari to have stricken the final blow. The matchless, indomitable mastery of dharma translated in the swirling vortex of the Sudarshana Chakram against Dashula's emerged control over physical chakra and a more balanced dance of two energies comprising the perfect whole. 100% of what dharma could achieve, matched against two pairs of 50% of physical and spiritual energies.
The collision to determine the winner in the last match of the semi-finals.