The speed at which that spear was hurtling toward him was certainly impressive.
Even with reflexes sharpened through hundreds of duels, Musashi would have found it extremely difficult to alter its trajectory the way he had with the spear thrown at him as the opening attack of this match.
Although he was considerably more proficient with the Physical Enhancement spell compared to most other spells, he was still far from being a true master of it.
Of course, ever since discovering its existence, he had trained with it every single day.
But even after four years of relentless practice, he had yet to perfect it.
As a result, in a good number of his battles in this world, he often found himself both slower and physically weaker than his opponents.
Because of that, he usually relied primarily on his extraordinary reflexes and unmatched swordsmanship.
Naturally, that disadvantage disappeared the moment he chose to activate most of the techniques granted by his History Magic—the only magic he was completely certain he had mastered.
And the technique he currently had active was perfectly suited to this situation.
Without the slightest hesitation, matching the spear's tremendous speed, Musashi swung one of his katanas, whose blade was engulfed in flames as hot as the sun.
The strike connected with the very tip of the spear.
Almost instantly, the weapon was reduced to nothing but ashes.
But the dwarf's assault was far from over.
Five more weapons burst from the tornado one after another.
Three swords.
A halberd.
And a massive morning star.
Judging from the speed at which they were flying toward him, Musashi immediately realized that he would only have enough time to strike—and therefore incinerate—the first two with his twin katanas.
He would have to evade the remaining three as best he could.
The first pair consisted of the morning star and a Western-style sword with a deep blue blade.
The samurai incinerate both without much difficulty.
Immediately afterward, he focused all his efforts on dodging the third projectile—a crimson scimitar with an extremely wavy blade.
However, because he had just finished deflecting the blue sword, he was unable to avoid it completely.
The curved blade sliced deeply into his side, leaving behind a serious wound that instantly burst into flames.
The main reason Musashi had not attempted to dodge every projectile was simple.
He did not have enough time to move far enough away to guarantee that any possible secondary effects from the first two weapons would not reach him.
Naturally, he had no certainty that either weapon possessed an area-of-effect ability.
However, thanks to his exceptional sensitivity to mana, he had noticed that those first two weapons contained far more mana than the remaining three.
His sharpened instincts warned him that they were by far the most dangerous.
For that reason, he had decided they had to be destroyed completely.
And Musashi's instincts proved to be absolutely correct.
Had the morning star struck even the arena floor, every one of its spikes would have shot outward in every direction before exploding upon impact, creating a deadly barrage that would have made dodging the remaining weapons virtually impossible.
Meanwhile, if the blue-bladed sword had embedded itself in the ground, it would have generated a powerful whirlpool of water with a radius of roughly two meters around it, trapping Musashi in place and making it almost certain that the remaining three weapons would strike him directly.
The Exiled Hero gritted his teeth.
Even while enduring the burning pain from the wound in his side, he still managed to evade both the halberd and the final sword completely.
Almost at the exact same moment the last weapon passed by him, the flames consuming his wound extinguished themselves.
The effect had likely ended because of the relatively small amount of mana contained within the crimson scimitar.
"Hmm..."
Throughout the entire exchange, Musashi had continued carefully observing both the blurred silhouette of his opponent and the violent winds concealing him.
After enduring those five attacks, however, a doubt crept into his mind.
There was something unusual about both Roterberg's movements and the behavior of the tornado surrounding him whenever one of the weapons caught within the whirlwind was launched.
Unfortunately, with only a vague silhouette visible through the storm, Musashi had no way of confirming his suspicion.
So he decided it was time to change his approach.
"Niten Ichi Ryu: Ring of Wind," Musashi declared.
Changing techniques meant giving up all the accumulated heat surrounding his katanas. But since he was unable to close the distance to his opponent, those blazing flames had become little more than a fragile means of defense anyway.
And so, the flames vanished from Musashi's katanas, revealing—for less than a second—the crimson blades that had until then remained hidden beneath them.
They were by no means in excellent condition.
Both blades were heavily battered and noticeably dulled after Musashi's relentless barrage of strikes against Roterberg's shield and armor.
But almost immediately, they returned to their normal color, and every trace of damage that had been visible only a moment before disappeared.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the blades changed color once again, becoming a pale emerald green as they were enveloped by an incredibly sharp current of wind.
At the same time, the aura surrounding the samurai's body shifted from fiery crimson to brilliant emerald.
He immediately turned his gaze back toward his opponent's silhouette.
And in that instant, a single thought crossed his mind.
"I see…"
This time, however, he did not launch an immediate attack.
Instead, he remained perfectly still, carefully observing the dwarf as he maintained the raging whirlwind.
But he could not stay motionless for long.
Five more swords, each different from the others, were about to be launched.
The instant the first one shot toward him, Musashi charged.
His speed was clearly lower than it had been while Niten Ichi Ryu: Ring of Fire was active, yet he still avoided the first sword aimed at his chest with astonishing ease, as though he had known exactly where that weapon was going to strike.
The moment the second sword was released, he slipped past the very spot where the wind had stopped him earlier, timing his movement perfectly and narrowly avoiding the blade.
A split second later, however, Musashi drove both of his katanas into the ground to anchor himself, preventing the increasingly violent winds from sweeping him away now that he stood less than a meter from the tornado.
From this close, he finally realized something.
Roterberg had never actually stopped laughing.
He had merely lowered the volume of his laughter until only now, beneath the deafening roar of the whirlwind, was it finally drowned out.
'What kind of vocal cords does this blacksmith have...?' Musashi wondered, never allowing his perfect concentration to waver.
The instant the third weapon was launched, the legendary swordsman surged forward once again.
He dodged it effortlessly and finally reached the wall of wind and flying weapons separating him from his opponent.
Then, before the tornado could hurl him backward, Musashi swung both of his wind-imbued katanas, carving a path straight through the barrier before him.
The blades sliced effortlessly through the airborne weapons and, more importantly, through the wind itself.
Illogically, the severed currents remained divided instead of flowing back together to restore the tornado.
Niten Ichi Ryu: Ring of Wind grants the swords wielded by Musashi the ability to cut through anything that is non-solid or non-physical.
Moreover, anything non-solid or non-physical severed by those swords cannot naturally reform.
For example, if Musashi were to activate this technique and cut a narrow slit through the surface of a lake, the water where his blade had passed would remain permanently separated, regardless of how the surrounding water flowed or how much additional water entered the lake.
It would be as though an invisible wall had been placed there, leaving an everlasting gap in the middle of the water.
The same principle applied here.
Even the air returning to feed the tornado would have to pass through that opening in order to restore it.
However, because of the Ring of Wind's effects, the cut itself could not be closed.
As a result, the gap would remain until Roterberg deactivated the tornado.
In addition, this technique greatly increased the overall sharpness of whatever swords it was applied to.
Roterberg's eyes widened with surprise when he saw the opening the Hero had carved through his whirlwind.
For the first time, his laughter stopped.
Only for a moment.
Then, the instant he saw Musashi step through the breach with his two emerald-colored katanas in hand, an enormous grin spread across the dwarf's face.
"Another technique from your History Magic!" Roterberg exclaimed joyfully.
"From inside the tornado, I could only make out your general position. So this is how you managed to overcome both the wind and my weapons... Interesting!" the dwarf declared as he stopped spinning the naginata above his head and lowered it, pointing its blade directly at his opponent.
The tornado that had been protecting him vanished, and the remaining weapons it had gathered rained down onto the arena floor.
"COME ON! SHOW ME WITH YOUR OWN HANDS WHAT THIS TECHNIQUE CAN DO TOO! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!" shouted the dwarf, ending with another thunderous, passionate laugh as the naginata's blade glowed with a brilliant emerald light before releasing yet another devastating jet of compressed air.
The name of this naginata is König Adler.
It had been forged only recently from the remains of an eagle-type Over Beast that had been on the verge of evolving into an Superior Over Beast—one that Roterberg and the rest of his party had hunted primarily for food.
However, because that eagle had possessed an extraordinarily high affinity for Wind Magic, Roterberg had decided to craft a weapon from the parts of its body that could not be eaten.
For that reason, the naginata's blade had been forged from the creature's enormous beak.
Likewise, the emerald feathers decorating the end of the shaft—which itself had been fashioned from the eagle's bones and painted to resemble wood—had also belonged to that very same Over Beast.
As a result, König Adler possessed the ability to generate tornadoes and unleash immensely powerful projectiles of compressed wind.
This time, however, the air projectile released by König Adler was effortlessly sliced apart by Musashi's longer katana.
With his ranged attack rendered useless, the blacksmith had no choice but to engage the Hero in close combat.
Yet the legendary swordsman seemed to know the exact instant at which every strike should be made, rendering every one of Roterberg's movements ineffective.
He slipped effortlessly through the dwarf's defenses before delivering a cross-shaped slash with his twin katanas.
This time, the attack struck cleanly.
For the first time in the battle, Musashi's blades pierced Roterberg's armor.
But just before they reached the dwarf's skin, Musashi deactivated Niten Ichi Ryu: Ring of Wind.
Had he left the technique active, the wind surrounding his blades could have inflicted irreparable damage upon Roterberg's blood vessels, potentially forever severing the blood in them and ultimately causing his death.
So instead, the two gleaming, masterfully forged katanas sliced cleanly through the armor and carved a deep, cross-shaped wound across the dwarf's broad torso.
Roterberg dropped to one knee, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
The victor of the match had finally been decided.
The dwarf understood that immediately.
Yet there was not the slightest trace of disappointment on his face.
Instead, before Pinusal even had the chance to announce the winner, another earth-shaking roar of laughter echoed throughout the arena.
"THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Too bad about the prize money, but I'm completely satisfied! This tournament has given me so many incredible ideas that I can't wait to start forging them into reality!" exclaimed the dwarf from the Hero of Leore's party, his booming voice overflowing with pure joy.
Musashi calmly sheathed both of his katanas.
The relaxed expression he had worn at the beginning of the match finally returned to his face.
Extending his hand toward Roterberg, the samurai said, "I agree. It truly was a fantastic match, Roterberg-dono. I never expected a blacksmith to possess such remarkable skill with so many different weapons."
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thank you, Hero Musashi, but you're making me blush. I know perfectly well that, at best, I'm merely decent with each of these weapons," replied the dwarf as he accepted his opponent's hand.
"Don't worry about it, Roterberg-san. I believe that, for a blacksmith like you, being "merely decent" with such a wide variety of weapons is—at least in my opinion—a far greater achievement, and much more useful, than achieving absolute perfection with only a single one," said the legendary swordsman, a small, relaxed smile resting on his face.
Meanwhile, Pinusal had already reached the two fighters.
Raising one of Musashi's arms high into the air, he declared in a loud, authoritative voice,
"The winner of this match is... Shinmen Musashi no Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu!!"