The elimination rounds of the Second Swordsmanship Tournament officially ended.
From start to finish, they had taken only a week.
Hundreds of arenas could accommodate nearly a thousand combatants at once.
And there were more than ten thousand entrants.
That meant each arena only needed to host a dozen or so matches.
Battles between swordsmen sometimes ended quickly. An overwhelming difference in strength or a single opening could decide the outcome.
Other battles were fiercely contested.
But even those could be settled within an hour or two.
With that, the 1,024 swordsmen representing the elite of the seas were ready.
The powerful swordsmen who had concealed their strength would now reveal their edge.
After all, anyone who could stand out among over ten thousand entrants and place near the top was, at the very least, outstanding even among Swordsmen.
Some of the more exceptional ones could even force a Great Swordsman to reveal a portion of their strength.
There were renowned, top-tier swordsmen.
There were young swordsmen rising swiftly and charging toward the summit.
Simply reaching the main tournament was enough for the young "Hawkeye" Mihawk to take pride in.
Precisely because he was young, however, in this golden age of swordsmanship, with so many top-tier swordsmen on the seas...
Making it into the next stage, the final sixty-four, was all but impossible.
But one must not forget that he was only twenty.
By the next Swordsmanship Tournament, his time on the stage would come.
The equally celebrated "Godspeed" Xiaer was already one of the foremost monsters on the seas.
Having made his debut at the Sky Arena, he returned after many years and displayed overwhelmingly dominant combat strength once the main tournament began.
Even without using his Devil Fruit powers, he was unquestionably a Great Swordsman.
In the years