Chapter 4: Head Harvesting

Once the barbarian mercenary army loses a battle, they have to loot the Empire's people to restore morale.

This is an old tradition of the Empire.

Those barbarian troops must burn, kill, and loot first before they can restore their combat effectiveness. If the Empire's military pay cannot keep up during wartime, they can directly slaughter nearby villages and towns to gather military pay and supplies on the spot. For some high-level officials of the Empire, barbarian armies might have a higher cost-performance ratio, because sometimes military pay doesn't need to be issued.

These enemies have a numerical advantage, but they didn't launch a strong attack.

Because the caravan's guards still have a certain combat effectiveness, a strong attack would likely cost not small casualties.

The guard leader on horseback shouted toward the distance, speaking in Northern Barbarian language. The caravan traveled all over the place all year round and was good at multiple languages. The meaning was probably to leave half of the goods to them and let the others live.

These barbarian routed soldiers refused.

A fierce man looking like a leader walked out, wearing bear skin, with a fierce expression, and said in a low voice: "Leave all the wealth and women, and I will let you go."

It turned out that the barbarian scouts had sharp eyes and saw that there were actually some women in the team, and suddenly barbarian warriors were restless.

The caravan people looked hesitant upon hearing this.

Whoosh!

A sharp arrow broke through the air and directly shot the head of the nearest barbarian routed soldier, the negotiation broke down instantly, and the battle was on the verge of breaking out.

Deng Ken saw it very clearly.

The arrow flew out from the crowd suddenly, without seeing anyone drawing a bow, just like an arrow shot out of thin air, making negotiation impossible anymore.

That witch did it.

There were only a few women in the caravan, and as soon as the opponent said they wanted wealth and women, a barbarian routed soldier was shot dead immediately.

The enraged barbarian army began to attack.

They should be a hundred-man team that was broken up, with about thirty people, equipped differently. Unlike the Empire's army, they mostly wore animal skin medium armor, and some were even bare-chested, holding two-handed battle axes or two-handed swords, like routed soldiers from different troops gathered together.

But these guys run so fast!

If the knight Deng Ken circled around before had their running speed, I'm afraid he would have been finished long ago.

"This speed is about the same as a 100-meter sprint!"

"Is the barbarians' physical fitness so strong?"

If they were allowed to charge head-on, except for a few mercenaries with good skills who could hold on, the others would probably collapse instantly.

"Give me a war bow!"

Deng Ken put down the low-quality hunting bow without a word and directly reached out to grab a northern war bow from a guard nearby. The caravan guard was also a bit stunned and hadn't reacted yet, when the war bow in his hand had already been snatched away by Deng Ken.

"Give you this."

He threw the low-quality hunting bow over, instantly drew the bow to a full moon, the bowstring tightened. His body after transmigration had good fitness, and he could fully draw the war bow. In the moment the crosshair kept shaking in the projection interface, relying on the experience of playing games for more than ten years, Deng Ken relied on the crosshair to aim and lock the target despite his archery not being enough.

Whoosh!

A barbarian berserker charging at the front was instantly headshot, a health bar appeared in an instant, then disappeared, clearly having a longer health bar than the people encountered before.

But it was still in the range of ordinary people.

"As long as there is crosshair correction."

"My technique is still there!"

This arrow stunned everyone else on the battlefield. The barbarian routed soldiers also looked terrified. The person who died should be one of the leaders, or else he was a warrior of the barbarian class, equivalent to the Empire's noble knight.

These high-level warriors who were said to have been blessed by the Shaman possessed vitality far exceeding ordinary people, and it was very difficult to kill them without a fatal wound.

During the Empire's conquest of the barbarians, they even dared to charge the Empire's imperial guards directly.

"One kill!"

Deng Ken drew his bow unhurriedly, paying attention to the changes in the stamina bar. Drawing a hard bow was quite stamina-consuming. I don't know if it was because he shot too accurately just now, but the changing crosshair actually stabilized a lot. According to the understanding of playing games before, after archery is practiced, the aiming crosshair should become more and more stable, finally becoming a correction crosshair that hits wherever it points.

Don't even think about the rate of fire for archery.

"Double kill!"

The arrow broke through the air, and another barbarian warrior wearing bear skin was headshot on the spot. Barbarians like to charge at the front, have poor discipline, value bravery first, and often have situations where the backbone of the army charges too fiercely and gets killed, but their combat will is high, advocating that dying on the battlefield is a real man, and dying in bed is a coward's behavior, so even if the officers die, they can still fight, and after being routed, they can still gather the remaining soldiers to fight again, which is much higher than the Empire's army's morale.

But seeing two officers die in a row still made them feel fear.

Routed soldiers have already been defeated once, and their morale was not high to begin with.

When Deng Ken drew his bow again, there were clearly barbarian routed soldiers with terrified expressions, actually turning around and fleeing back.

One arrow per person.

This is too scary!

"Sharpshooter!" The caravan guard leader looked shocked. In addition to being pleasantly surprised, he brought two guards to protect Deng Ken on both sides, seeming to be afraid that he would be killed by the barbarian archers.

In small-scale local battles, the deterrent power of a sharpshooter is quite amazing.

"The feel is still there!"

Deng Ken gradually became calm.

If he had to go up himself, he would probably be shaking so much that he couldn't even draw the bow smoothly by now, but in the God's eye view interface, the momentum of fighting one against a hundred in games in the past had all come out.

"I am the sharpshooter of Calradia!"

"Arena champion!"

"Fearless knight of the battlefield!"

"Lord of Cinder!"

Deng Ken raised the angle slightly, parabolic shot, taking advantage of the good feel now, kill one if he can.

"Triple kill!"

The arrow fell in an arc, piercing the chest. Although it didn't kill the enemy on the spot, it was estimated that he wouldn't live long.

Barbarian mercenary armies rarely had heavy armor, and routed soldiers had discarded some armor and shields. Dealing with light armor units as a sharpshooter is really too cool. Barbarian territories are mostly high mountains, deep forests, and primitive forests. In dense forests, the threat of archers is not that great, and they are not used to wearing heavy armor to fight in forests.

Deng Ken's feel was invincible for a while, preparing to take a five-kill in one go.

Whoosh!

But just at this moment, a sharp arrow struck. Under God's eye view, Deng Ken was instantly alert, already realizing that he was being sniped by an enemy archer, but before he could react, the arrow seemed to hit something in the air, actually deviating from its direction, falling softly and weakly, and stabbing into the butt of the man paralyzed on the ground in front.

He immediately wailed, thinking he was going to die.

The guard leader next to him slapped him directly, knocking out one of his teeth, and knocking this unlucky guy almost unconscious.

"Shut up!"

With a knife at his throat, he became honest instantly.

Under God's eye view, Deng Ken noticed a figure wearing a hood approaching him, with a graceful curve, definitely a woman. She just made a slight lifting action, and the arrow shooting at him deviated from its trajectory.

Witch!

The mark of the yellow neutral unit changed to blue instantly, and even showed signs of transforming into a green unit.

Has this become a friendly unit?

Deng Ken didn't hesitate at all, the arrow turned toward the barbarian archer's direction. He remembered that he could plunder the enemy's abilities after killing them. Killing one or two barbarian archers might be able to point out the archery skill.

"Quadra kill!"

"Penta kill!"

Deng Ken's feel exploded, a wave of continuous shooting, seven arrows directly five kills, three died on the spot, two were seriously injured and dying, single-handedly shooting the offensive of this wave of barbarian routed soldiers into collapse.

The routed army leader wearing bear skin was so scared that he retreated out of range.

Under God's eye view, Deng Ken's point-killing ability was really too strong.

Their only chance was to charge and collapse them while the caravan guards were in a panic. Once the defensive formation was set up, it would be impossible to break through all at once.

"I didn't expect that after playing games for more than ten years, I would kill all sides in such a situation!"

Under God's eye view.

The youth controlled by Deng Ken's consciousness had a cold expression, as if he were a ruthless sharpshooter, with only a hint of evil smile slightly hooked at the corner of his mouth.

Once entering God's eye view, the controlled body would become a killer who seemed mechanized.

There were only about thirty barbarian routed soldiers in total, and one-sixth were reduced all at once. Their morale had been shot to collapse. Caught in a dilemma, they could only retreat first. It was impossible to break through the vehicle formation with a strong attack all at once. After all, the caravan had quite a few guards, buying Deng Ken some time; ten kills were not impossible.

More importantly, the barbarian leader wearing bear skin was afraid that he would also be headshot.

Deng Ken's archery was of course not that accurate, but with the blessing of God's eye view, plus crosshair correction, he didn't need to care about anything else, nor did he need to control his body. As long as the feel came up, aiming was a headshot kill.

Shooting arrows himself and shooting arrows in games are two different things.

"They retreated!" Some caravan guards were cheering.

Deng Ken finally drew his bow, aiming at a super long-distance parabola, the arrow broke through the air, directly spanning the entire battlefield, about three hundred meters away, landing less than three meters from a certain barbarian routed soldier.

This distance actually had little lethality anymore.

But the deterrent power was undoubtedly full, and this barbarian routed soldier retreated into the forest at a faster speed.

Everyone else on the scene looked extremely shocked, and the masked witch also looked surprised, not expecting that Deng Ken could almost hit the target from such a long distance. If he changed to a stronger bow, he might be able to kill another enemy.

"Did not leave combat state."

Deng Ken maintained vigilance while controlling his body under God's eye view, and others in the caravan also began to act. The guards dispersed to his left and right, already treating him as the backbone and protecting him.

The witch also kept a certain distance from Deng Ken, seeming to protect him as the center.

The caravan set off again in a mess.

The young man who was shot in the butt didn't even look at the corpse of his fellow villager not far away, crying and asking others to take him along. Finally, the guard leader couldn't stand it, picked him up with one hand and threw him on the mule and horse cart. As for the arrow in his butt, no one cared. He wailed again after touching it.

The enemy hadn't given up yet.

Those routed soldiers were hanging behind the convoy, wanting to find a chance to take revenge.

Deng Ken controlled his body, followed the convoy with God's eye view, walked for half a day, and finally, after shooting an arrow into the woods, those hanging barbarian routed soldiers finally retreated.

They found that this sharpshooter was simply a hawk-eye!

They were scared!

"If the archery was a little higher, give me a horse, card the distance well, I could solo them."

If the crosshair corrected under God's eye view was more stable, Deng Ken was confident he could harvest them all.

Of course, he didn't want to take such a risk right now.

Not a life-and-death moment, no need, just force the enemy back, his strength will only get stronger in the future.

—"Archery Mastery: You have gained the combat skills of a skilled archer, familiar with conventional long-range weapons such as hunting bows, war bows, longbows, etc. Your hit rate and rate of fire have improved."

—"Combat Style-Decapitation: Barbarian berserkers are very good at decapitation offensives, their fierce blow can directly decapitate the enemy. Additional intimidation, fear."

—"Adrenaline Burst 【Special Ability】: A strange ability of barbarian berserkers. After receiving the Shaman's ritual blessing, they can go berserk in battle, using a unique way to let adrenaline burst. Lock the stamina bar when activated, significantly improve physical fitness, and fall into a weak and tired state after ending."

The skills dropped this time were not many, and it seemed that not every enemy would drop skills.

However, in Deng Ken's combat column, the two basic styles of split and cut both became light blue borders, which should be that barbarian warriors are very good at these two basic styles.

If all of these were filled, would it be one kid per knife?

"Special ability?"

"Sure enough, there are quite a few supernatural powers in this world."

Deng Ken hoped more to open the mana bar, at least he could be like a Witcher, using some simple tricks and signs.

Pure vegetable knife is ultimately a bit short, Gandalf can also cast a flash spell.

Witch.

At this time, Deng Ken finally had a chance to carefully look at the witch mixed in the caravan. Her face couldn't be seen, but her figure couldn't be covered by the robe at all. Standard witch series female sorceress figure, a pair of azure eyes, and you could find that her appearance was very high just by looking at her facial contour, belonging to the kind that could fight quite well.

She seemed to have no presence in the caravan, and others seemed to subconsciously ignore her.

"My badge is trembling."

Although curious in his heart, Deng Ken was very restrained, after all, that was a neutral unit marked with a skull.

Don't mess it up.

The caravan arrived at a village before dark. The border village was not big, with only one or two hundred people. The villagers were very vigilant and only allowed them to camp and rest at the threshing floor. Some caravan staff went over to negotiate and exchanged some things from the villagers.

The place where Deng Ken stayed had a smell of cow dung, and there were haystacks nearby. Refugees moved some over without permission, spread them on the ground and used them as beds.

The young man who was shot in the butt had already pulled out the arrow, minor injury, simple dressing, little impact. At this moment, he was bringing two refugees to spread a place for Deng Ken to rest with a flattering look, nodding and bowing, looking like a dog-legged guy.

Before he could chew dry food, the caravan guards sent food, and a small pot of wine. The staff exchanged some seasonal vegetables from the villagers and cooked a pot of mixed meat soup, completely ignoring other refugees. A young staff member brought a big bowl with full flattery, put it down with a cautious face and left, looking back at him from time to time, looking slightly respectful.

The northern war bow was placed on the side, and the caravan guard didn't come over to ask for it back at all, didn't mention it, and even prepared two arrow bags specifically for him.

The whole village was very quiet, and you couldn't hear the sound of any poultry or livestock.

Empire's old tradition.

Cow dung is still there, cow is gone.

……………… ===== CHAPTER 5 =====

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