Chapter 5: Not the First Battle
"O King! The mask of flesh and blood, the myriad things, the things that flutter high and bear the name of mankind! The heat and strife, rolling southward across the sea, move forward!"

"Broken Path No. - Red Fire Cannon!"

In the desert, a low chant came from Xia Mu's mouth.

His language had a slight accent and he didn't speak it very fluently. After all, he didn't spend a particularly long time learning the language of this world. But this did not affect his ability to perform ghost arts.

The chanting of ghosts does not require any accent in the language. The essence of language seems to be to form a unique force of rules, so that the disordered spirits in the world become orderly, and then under the control of the spirit power of the god of death himself, these spirits are pushed to burst out with powerful power.

So, as long as you can accurately express the meaning of the language, that will be enough.

The more accurate the expression, the better the arrangement of the spirit particles in the heaven and earth, the easier it will be to use one's own spiritual power to push this force, and the greater the ghost power exerted.

On the contrary, if one abandons the chanting of the spell and directly recites the "name" of the ghost, although it is also possible to pry open the spirit particles in the world, the combination of the spirit particles in this state is very scattered. In order to pry open this power, it requires extremely strong spiritual power of the god of death himself and the ability to manipulate spiritual power. Not only is it laborious, but the power of the ghost displayed is also average.

The latter is the advanced technique of the ghost way "Abandoning Chanting"!
Of course, the above theories were not told to Natsuki by Watanabe Yuji, but were deduced by Natsuki himself in the process of learning the ghost way. He has an extremely deep control over his own spiritual power. When practicing the ghost way, he can even keenly feel the spiritual particles in the heaven and earth throbbing with the recitation of the spell.

For the God of Death, this feeling is called "spiritual perception". The God of Death is different from humans. When fighting, in addition to using the five senses, he is also accustomed to using spiritual perception, or in other words, he relies on spiritual perception the most.

The five senses may deceive us, but spiritual perception cannot.

Unlike other death gods, Xia Mu's spiritual perception is extremely sharp.

He didn't know if this was a unique talent of his, but it certainly helped him a lot.

For example, at the moment, his perfect control over spiritual power allows him to perform ghost arts easily, and his keen spiritual perception allows him to accurately locate the moving position of the virtual being in front of him, and then fiercely bombard the opponent with the red fire cannon.

Thick smoke rose from the desert.

In the smoke, a humanoid figure rushed out with injuries. Although he was in human form, he let out a roar like a wild beast.

Xia Mu leaped out of the desert and performed Flash Step. In an instant, he came to the side of the Hollow. The Zanpakuto that was originally hanging at his waist was unsheathed. He swung the sword, and a cold light flashed, falling on the mask of the Hollow.

Xu's roar came to an abrupt end.

Its mask cracked, and finally its body fell to the ground and died.

There is no need to deal with the other party's corpse. According to Watanabe Yuji, whether it is a Hollow or a Shinigami, they are all made up of spirit particles. After death, if they are not specially handled, such as preserving the corpse, it won't be long before they turn into pure spirit particles and dissipate between heaven and earth.

As long as the spirit particle still exists, a new soul can be re-formed after a long period of time.

However, no one can tell whether the new soul is the original existence.

But one thing is certain.

When the God of Death uses his Zanpakutō to kill a Hollow, it is to liberate the Hollow. This is not killing, but redemption.

In contrast, this is not the case with the Quincy.

The Hollows killed by the Quincy will no longer have any spirit particles. All traces of their existence will be completely destroyed between heaven and earth. Therefore, if you encounter a Quincy slaughtering Hollows, don't think too much, just stop them.

No one knows what kind of past Watanabe Yuji had. He seems to know a lot of things and seems to have had contact with the Quincies. When telling Natsuki some things about the God of Death, he couldn't help but mention the Quincies.

After Xia Mu killed the Void, not far away, under the sand dunes, a figure suddenly broke through the sand dunes and rushed out.

It was Yuji Watanabe.

He performed Flash Step and in an instant, he was beside Xia Mu. "Well done. As far as first-time battles are concerned, I didn't do as well as you did."

Actual combat is the best training.

Although Natsuki had been practicing with the people in the expeditionary force, it was just a simple sparring, so he couldn't help but slack off because he knew there would be no danger to his life. So after Natsuki had roughly mastered the four basic abilities of the Grim Reaper, Watanabe Yuji directly let Natsuki practice actual combat.

This is the Hueco Mundo, and the thing it has the most is Hollows. And because this is the outer circle, the most common ones are ordinary Hollows. Big Hollows will occasionally appear, but the probability is not high.

Soon, he found a lone Hollow, and then there was a scene where Xia Mu fought with it.

"It's just an ordinary Hollow."

Natsuki did not feel complacent because of Watanabe Yuji's praise.

This kind of ordinary virtual and virtual circles are countless.

Above it, there is the Great Void.

Even if it is a Hollow, a Hollow like Gillian is no different from an ordinary soldier.

If the Hollow in front of him was an Achucas or a Vastod, he would be quite satisfied.

"Besides, this isn't my first battle."

Natsuki added another sentence to Watanabe Yuji.

Although the first battle was a bit confusing, it was true that his first opponent was the giant Killian.

When Watanabe Yuji heard what Xia Mu said, he was also stunned and thought of the scene he saw at the beginning.

He was actually quite surprised to find out that the Hollow was killed by a man who accidentally picked up a Zanpakutō. This was also the reason why he chose to keep Natsuki in the expeditionary force and teach him. He was sure that Natsuki was a rough diamond and could become a powerful Shinigami with a little teaching.

The same is true.

Over the past six months, Xia Mu's strength has improved by leaps and bounds. In addition to learning the language, he has also made achievements in learning the four basic abilities of the God of Death.

His hand-to-hand combat and slashing techniques can only be considered passable, but his instant movement and kidō are definitely excellent.

Coming back to his senses, Watanabe Yuji discovered that after saying this, Xia Mu was also distracted. He couldn't help but ask Xia Mu: "Are you still thinking about what happened back then?"

Xia Mu nodded. "If what you said was true, that Hollow was killed by me, then at that time, I should have awakened my Zanpakutō. Only in this way could I have killed the other party."

"But after that, I followed the method you taught me and kept trying to resonate with my Zanpakutō, but I was never able to hear the sound of my Zanpakutō and then master the Shikai."

(End of this chapter)