On the universe created to be the battlefield, the battles continued. At those high levels, the battles were extremely short when one party was far stronger than the other to practically finish it with one hit, or extremely long when neither was able to kill the other quickly.
Of course, those dragging the battles on purpose were different since they just made it feel their opponents like they were unable to finish the battle quickly.
Thousands of years weren't a strange time for a battle of that level, so in most cases, those battling were already prepared to have a long battle since they weren't able to finish quickly.
Everyone had a lot of experience fighting and had a lot of methods to increase their chances of survival, so unless they were really powerless facing their opponents, staying alive was still possible.
