Got it, update in progress...
In the meantime, I might as well post some SoulCal justifications
SoulCal is a series heavily-populated by One Man Armies. Nearly every playable character is one who has absolutely mastered the use of a specific weapon, some of which are particularly bizarre, to a ridiculous degree, able to perform superhuman feats of mobility and coordination with these varied weapons.
The Ling-Sheng Su temple and the monks within it are renowned across the world, even by these superhuman warriors, as unparalleled masters of their craft. Those who learn and master a Ling-Sheng Su style invariably outskill the majority of the verse, to the point that these combat arts are considered fables to the majority of the world until they are directly witnessed in action.
Some characters, such as Seong Mi-Na and Xianghua, are Ling-Sheng Su practitioners who surpassed the monks in their use of the naginata and jian, respectively.
Kilik is the greatest combatant the Ling-Sheng Su temple has ever produced, far surpassing the other monks in each of their combat styles, and favoring the bo-staff to the point that he can fight every monk in the temple simultaneously and tear them to pieces with nothing but said staff. He is only rivaled by his son Xiba and his best friend Maxi, and far surpasses both of them later in life.
Mitsurugi was an unparalleled warrior at the age of 14, repeatedly described as "mowing down opponents like fields of wheat". He fought in every war he could find, and against countless wandering warriors with all kinds of weapons and fighting styles, desperately seeking and surpassing worthy opponents. His skills ultimately improved to the point that he could singlehandedly defeat an entire gun-wielding army with nothing but his sword, and hiring him as a mercenary was considered an absolute assurance of victory. With every new opponent he fights, he learns their fighting style, and expands his own style to perfectly counter them should they meet again. He even dueled against Olcadan at one point, and was the second warrior (after Edge Master) who Olcadan ever called a worthy opponent, praise that would only ever be given again to Kilik. Ultimately later in life, he managed to hold his own in a battle with Algol through nothing but skill, not only surviving but feeling that if they fought again he could win.
Soul Edge itself has been fighting since the age of myths, gaining knowledge of thousands upon thousands of fighting styles, passing them on to each host that becomes Nightmare, while Siegfried is such a prodigy that he can stand against Nightmare as an equal.
By the time of SoulCal V, both Mitsurugi and Kilik have grown close to Edge Master and Olcadan in skill, and acknowledge that among the entire cast there are no longer any worthy opponents for them, including Nightmare, aside from possibly Algol.
Edge Master and Olcadan are unquestionably the most skilled characters in the series, both having invented and/or learned every single fighting style, martial art, and weapon in the Soul Calibur series, and mastered all of them to the point that they regularly defeat others using their own preexisting abilities, and additionally possesses enough knowledge of every character's fighting style to effectively train them to a similar level of perfect mastery. Olcadan was able to witness a single movement made by Kilik, and determine from that that he was a practitioner of Ling-Sheng Su martial arts, as well as the fact that he was trained by Edge Master specifically. Back in the Time of Myths, Edge Master was the rival of Algol the Hero King, defeating him every time they fought, and both he and Olcadan had a completely flawless battle record marred only by a draw against one another. Both of them predate Soul Edge itself, and have amassed even more combat experience than its hosts.