The night is deep and quiet.
"Enter battle mode!"
Duncan, who was pretending to sleep, suddenly opened his eyes. In an instant, he grabbed the Northern Land war bow beside him and slung on the two quivers from near his pillow.
From a god's view perspective, his consciousness entered a void sea of manipulation.
Duncan still isn't entirely sure what triggers the battle mode; it seems that when he is targeted by enemies, he directly enters battle mode and switches to god's view mode.
As his figure moved, the witch resting by the carriage instantly opened her eyes too, her sapphire blue gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness, directly tracking Duncan's trajectory in the pitch black night not far away. Currently, there has been little exchange between the two. The witch disguised herself to follow the caravan heading north, and Duncan isn't about to expose her identity, avoiding unnecessary trouble.
He pretended to be attracted by the alluring body beneath the witch's robe, unwittingly casting some glances her way, focusing not on her face, but mainly on her chest and legs.
The original Duncan was a guy seeking shortcuts; otherwise, he wouldn't have flirted with the charming landlady next door, so his disguise was at least ninety percent successful.
The witch clearly thought Duncan was drawn in by her impressive figure.
She believed Duncan did not know her true identity, and Duncan wanted her precisely to believe that he wasn't aware of her identity, gradually approaching her to understand this world's supernatural power.
A man attracted to a woman with an impressive figure is perfectly normal.
Once slightly more familiar, Duncan could try to strike up a conversation.
"But for now, let's deal with the trouble first!"
Duncan's figure closed in on the caravan, stealthily heading towards the direction of the guard leader. The leader was alert, immediately standing up and growling lowly, "Who?"
Around him, several caravan guards quickly woke up, instantly placing their hands on their sword hilts.
These were all seasoned individuals.
According to the empire's mercenary ranks, they belonged to the mercenary soldier level of veterans.
"Those barbarians have sneaked over!"
Duncan dropped this sentence and disappeared into the night. The time should be around two in the morning, the night sky pitch-black, rendering vision nearly impossible, especially considering many people of this era suffered from night blindness.
The guard leader immediately instructed others to stay alert. When he raised his head to find Duncan, the sharpshooter's figure was already nowhere to be seen.
"It's so dark; can he see clearly?" The guard leader's expression showed deep concern.
Not just see clearly.
With a thought, Duncan adjusted the brightness and recognizability of everything projected on the screen, effectively making it no different from daytime.
Still those barbarian remnants.
They seemed unwilling to give up, sneaking back in the dead of night, already lurking in the forest ahead, apparently planning a night raid.
"Could it be that I shot some important figure dead during the day?"
"Does their leader want revenge?"
Under normal circumstances, having suffered a loss once, there was no need to return. Although the caravan carried plenty of goods, given the fighting capability of this group of remnants, looting nearby villages and towns could also gain considerable spoils.
During the day, two enemies cloaked in bear fur appeared; one was shot dead by Duncan, and the other ran very quickly.
In a lush, dense forest.
The barbarian remnants were splitting into two groups, one planning to circle from the south to raid the caravan at night, while the other intended to flank and rout them during the chaos.
"Break them up and hack that sharpshooter to pieces."
"It's dark."
"His archery must be greatly affected."
The barbarian leader's face expressed rage and hatred; his compatriot brother got his head shot by Duncan during the day, this grievance he must avenge by severing that southerner's head to wash away the shame. Barbarian mercenaries took looting within the empire as part of their pay, tacitly accepted by the empire's upper echelons. This major defeat had severely impacted his authority; leaving in disgrace would likely fail to suppress the rebellious barbarian warriors below.
Night attack.
A regular army night raiding a caravan's mercenaries would easily overwhelm them in one go.
"Mark!"
Stealthily moving in the night, Duncan, under the god's view perspective, surveyed the entire battlefield, directly marked the star-labeled units among the enemy.
The effective range of the Northern Land war bow is around one hundred and fifty meters.
Duncan directly calculated the distance, drew an arrow, found a slightly elevated hill, poised his bow aimed at the enemy's path — a slope by a small stream; they had to pass here, or else they would have to cross a small creek.
One hundred and fifty meters, one hundred and twenty meters, one hundred meters, eighty meters...
Whizz!
After obtaining archery skills, the aiming crosshair became increasingly stable, with minimal wobble or dispersal. Duncan's viewing distance spanned the battlefield, able to even see some sort of red pigment smeared on the barbarians' foreheads.
Thunk.
A barbarian remnant was instantly shot in the head; with archery mastery, Duncan's firing speed increased significantly. After stabilizing the aiming crosshair, he could easily lock on to the enemy's critical points.
The night was his best cover.
Duncan deliberately waited until they crossed the river to act; as he released the first arrow, he immediately drew another, aiming at the marked unit cloaked in bear fur. However, just as the arrow flew out, someone happened to block it, getting shot in the ribs and issuing a painful groan.