Lind showed no surprise as he looked at the eight contestants who had advanced, though he did feel a little frustrated.
After all, half the quarterfinalists were outsiders, and those four outsiders were considerably younger than the Oran Empire's four contestants. They were even stronger, too.
At the very least, Lind probably had little hope of winning the strong division's championship. With bad luck, all four of the Oran Empire's contestants might even be eliminated in this round, leaving nothing but outsiders in the semifinals.
Lind could only hope Speka and the others would come through. After all, she had trained for so many years, so her combat skills and experience should far surpass Katakuri's and the others'.
And since they had all only recently broken through, the gap in raw strength would not be too large. There was still a chance of victory.
The draw results were soon announced. Under the circumstances, the tournament organizers certainly could not rig things behind the scenes, so the draw was completely random.
The four matches were Katakuri versus Tao, Marco versus King, Speka versus Tao, and Baal versus Bai Mu.
The worst-case scenario had not materialized. At least one person was guaranteed a place in the semifinals. Now it came down to how Tao and Speka performed.
As the only Great Swordsman among the eight contestants who was not a Devil Fruit User, Tao's strength was beyond question.
He had trained both his Haki and swordsmanship to an extremely high level. Combined with over twenty years of combat experience, that made him an exceptionally difficult opponent.
Katakuri might not even have been born when Tao first set out to sea. He was unquestionably someone who had fought his way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Although Katakuri's strength had improved