God's Eye View

The smell of cow dung filled his nose and mouth.

Duncan's head was buzzing. It felt as though he'd taken a heavy punch to the right side of his face. His cheek was swollen, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

His face and body were covered in cow dung. He was sprawled beside a pile of manure and hay. Before he could figure out what was going on, he heard a piercing scream nearby, followed by the sound of a blade chopping into bone like it was cutting meat.

The stench of blood hit him.

Duncan staggered to his feet. As soon as he looked up, he saw a corpse with its eyes still open: a middle-aged man with Western features, dressed like a peasant. His clothes were ragged, and blood still bubbled from his mouth. His chest was soaked in it, and a pitchfork lay pinned beneath him.

Another scream rang out.

Thirty meters away, a farmer's wife was cut down by a sword. Blood spurted more than a meter into the air from the artery in her neck.

A burly, vicious-looking figure withdrew his sword and kicked the woman's body aside. He then wheeled around and ran another farmer through with a thrust as he tried to fight back.

A massacre!

This was an outright slaughter.

Three fully armed soldiers were slaughtering a group of unarmed peasants. They had scattered the rabble like chaff, and with every swing of their weapons, they took another innocent life.

He'd been transported to another world.

Duncan realized it immediately. Then, in the next instant, he reached for the pitchfork beside him.

The weapon did little to reassure him.

But in a situation like this, holding a weapon was entirely different from being empty-handed. He took a second to assess himself. His clothes were ragged, but he was fairly sturdy. This was a new body, young and free of any serious injuries—apart from the likely punch to his right cheek.

He could fight, but he had no chance of winning.

They were a group of defeated soldiers.

His mind was filled with a jumble of information, perhaps the memories of the body's original owner. Duncan had no time to sort through it, so he used sheer force of will to isolate whatever might help him right now.

The Empire had been defeated again.

The defeated soldiers had looted the village, clashed violently with the peasants, and slaughtered the people in this sparsely populated settlement.

They didn't intend to leave any survivors. That way, they could blame the enemy.

"Survive first!"

Duncan realized he could die here at any moment.

"Bandits pass like a comb; soldiers pass like a rake."

These defeated soldiers had become no better than beasts.

When facing a group of peasants, they were as vicious as hyenas, as if it could restore the courage they'd lost when the enemy routed them with ease.

Duncan gripped the pitchfork and quietly backed away.

He didn't think he could take down three well-equipped, professionally trained soldiers with nothing but a pitchfork. One of them even looked like a knight from the Middle Ages, though he wore neither Plate Armor nor a helmet. His gear looked something like a surcoat over Chainmail.

"Where's my cheat? My system?"

"Deep Blue!"

"Give me some points!"

He got no response. By then, he'd backed away several meters. Without a cheat, he had no chance of winning. He didn't know what ties these peasants had to the body's original owner, but since he'd been transported to another world and given a new life, he wasn't about to throw it away so easily.

So he prepared to make a tactical retreat.

"There's another one over there!" The knight-looking man had gone berserk. His bloodshot, sinister eyes swept across the area before he barked, "Hyena, go take him out!"

Nearby, a gaunt man with a savage expression turned and started closing in on Duncan.

He took a short-handled throwing axe from his belt, circled around the haystack in front of him, and gradually picked up speed, trying to take Duncan out with the axe as he reached the corner.

"Enter combat mode!"

Dazed, Duncan thought he heard something. The next moment, his consciousness began to rise. In an instant, it seemed to enter a void, and then he could see everything around him.

A rundown village with few inhabitants.

Three men dressed as soldiers were marked in red on the village map.

It was as if a projection screen had appeared before him, displaying everything around him in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree God's Eye View.

Duncan saw a young man running away, clutching a pitchfork tightly in his hands. About fifty meters away, a gaunt defeated soldier was coming around the side of a haystack with a throwing axe in hand. There was a pile of hay and two wooden houses nearby. If they ran into each other head-on, Duncan probably wouldn't even get the chance to fight. The other man would throw his axe, and Duncan would be badly wounded at best.

Duncan wasn't wearing any armor. He had only a tattered set of hemp clothes.

In the lower-right corner of the projected image,

two red-marked soldiers were still slaughtering the villagers. One of them had a star beside his marker; he was probably a stronger knight. The corpses on the ground were clearly visible. The scene was so bloody and cruel, it was like watching a movie from right inside it.

Duncan's consciousness floated in the void before him. The projected image looked like a game interface.

"A game interface?"

With a flick of his mind, the black-haired boy standing still in the image suddenly moved. He took two steps forward, then one step back, and finally jumped in place.

He was still controlling the boy's body in the projected image, just like he used to control a character in a game in his previous life.

Only this time, he wasn't using a mouse and keyboard. He was using his mind. It felt as if he were right there, playing a virtual game.

"Is this my cheat?"

"If this is a game interface, shouldn't it at least give me some stats?"

"A health bar? Mana? A Stamina Bar or something?"

He focused his thoughts.

The projected image before Duncan shifted slightly. A short health bar appeared, missing a small chunk. The blue Mana Bar was completely empty, while the Stamina Bar was fairly long, though a little had been used up.

He was playing what felt like a virtual action RPG, controlling the young body he'd been transported into.

Duncan's consciousness now hovered above his body, looking down at everything around him as if through God's Eye View!

"Do I have any skills?"

"Surely I can't be limited to basic attacks if I'm going to win this almost certainly fatal encounter?"

How could a boy who'd grown up as a peasant beat three professionally trained warriors?

Especially when his opponents had armor and weapons far superior to the pitchfork Duncan was clutching.

"Pitchfork Mastery: Your upbringing and childhood farmwork have made you far more proficient with a pitchfork than with any other weapon. When fighting with a pitchfork, you greatly increase your lethality, backstabbing, attack speed, and more. No one pays much attention to a peasant holding a pitchfork."

"Combat Skill [Stab]: You have no formal combat training. The only combat technique you have mastered is a single thrust."

"Combat Skill [Roll]: You often got into fights as a child, which taught you a few tricks for rolling and dodging. But it won't always work, especially against quick-witted enemies."

That was it?

Looking at the lonely combat skills, Stab and Roll, Duncan began to feel a little nervous. But fortunately, he'd played countless games in his previous life. He could take a wooden stick into Calradia and fight his way to the arena championship. Now that he'd seen a familiar game interface, he was gradually starting to relax. At least he had a cheat; turning things around wasn't completely out of the question.

Besides, this time he wasn't using a mouse and keyboard. His thoughts could react faster. Never underestimate the combat skills of a hardcore gamer. Now that switching to God's Eye View had helped him overcome his fear and bodily instincts, he was already eager to give it a try.

"I've beaten every Souls game in one life. I refuse to die here."

Beside the haystack,

as soon as he entered God's Eye View, the boy's controlled body became an expressionless, cold-blooded warrior. All the fear had vanished from his face, leaving only a glint of excitement and anticipation in his eyes.

He jumped in place, gripped the pitchfork with both hands, and thrust it through the air. Then he rolled to the right, getting covered in dirt and filth as he moved to the other side of the haystack.

"The controls feel great! Not the slightest bit of lag!"

Duncan was controlling the body, silently calculating the pitchfork's attack frames and range. Through God's Eye View, he saw the gaunt warrior nearby stop in confusion. (One second was sixty frames.)

"Where'd that kid go?" The gaunt warrior looked puzzled. As he raised his head slightly, a scar on his chin came into view.

Though the village was small, a crude fence surrounded it. The gaunt man was an experienced veteran. He'd originally planned to circle around the fence and go straight to the entrance, then take Duncan's head off with a throwing axe.

He was best at throwing Farron Throwing Axes.

But his target had suddenly stopped halfway and was now standing in the gap between a wooden house and a pile of hay.

Visibility wasn't good in this area.

The gaunt man instinctively switched to dual-wielding, but he soon scoffed. His opponent was just a peasant with a pitchfork, and no match for him.

He only had to be careful, and he could flush out and execute the little rat who'd run away.

The gaunt man tilted his head to listen. He heard footsteps nearby, just behind the haystack to the side. The stacks were two or three meters tall, neatly piled with two meters between them. The peasants relied on them for fuel in winter and to feed their livestock. They were also the blankets of this era; without them, people would freeze to death in winter.

The gaunt man kept his eyes and ears open as he cautiously crept forward.

Squish!

But what he never expected was that every move he made was under Duncan's watchful God's Eye View. The instant the man poked his head around the stack, a pitchfork shot out like lightning and struck him in the head. A piercing scream rang out as its prongs burst the defeated soldier's eyeball.

The defeated soldiers were reasonably well-equipped, but they had no helmets or shields, and they'd probably discarded their heavy armor. Most of them wore light armor.

A longer weapon had the advantage.

Duncan's thinking was clear. With God's Eye View, he could catch his enemies off guard.

A pitchfork wasn't a good weapon, but its reach was an advantage. His body belonged to a strong young man, his muscles hardened by years of labor. A full-force strike would do damage, and with God's Eye View, he could keep moving and use the haystack as a natural barrier.

Ah!

The instant the enemy was struck, a health bar appeared above him, then rapidly emptied.

He was dead?

That wasn't just a hit. Duncan had landed a headshot, and the prongs had pierced several centimeters into the defeated soldier's skull. When Duncan pulled them out, he could clearly feel the bone catch.

Unlike a game in his previous life, this was all real damage. A slash to the leg left you crippled; a severed hand was useless; a headshot meant certain death. Otherwise, how could a veteran soldier be killed in one thrust by a peasant with a pitchfork? In a game, they'd have to trade blows several times.

As Duncan pulled the pitchfork out, he noticed its prongs were quite sharp. Maybe that headshot had been boosted by Pitchfork Mastery. After all, this was a tool that had been used for more than ten years.

And under the control of God's Eye View, the move the character used—a "Stab"—had clearly been a full-force strike, powered by his whole body. Duncan himself could never have managed it. He'd probably have been trembling with nerves before he even moved. But with God's Eye View, all he had to do was think, and the body he controlled immediately unleashed its full strength.

His control over this body had reached more than one hundred percent!

"This is winnable!"

The commotion had alerted the other two enemies. The little village had only thirty or forty people, and they'd nearly killed them all. At the sound of the scream, another vicious enemy rushed over.

Worse still, the sinister knight-looking man had just run his sword through a farmer who'd given up and knelt to beg for mercy. He pulled out his weapon and sprinted toward Duncan.

He was an enemy unit marked with a star.

One against two. Dead!

The sinister knight-looking man was better equipped. He wore a surcoat over Chainmail. He still had no helmet, but a cloth hood covered his head, its edge gleaming with metal. He wore arm guards, elbow guards, gauntlets, knee guards, greaves, and metal-reinforced leather boots. If not for the missing Plate Armor on his chest, he'd have been a walking tin can.

This fight was going to be rough.

Duncan's controlled character picked up the throwing axe on the ground. The instant he grasped it, a Cross Star-shaped targeting reticle appeared, shifting constantly. In that moment, he saw his chance to turn things around.

"One chance!"

"I have to aim for the head!"

At that moment, Duncan summoned the same spirit he'd had back in school, when he'd spent days and nights battling his roommates at an internet café. All his attention focused on the crosshair. The shifting, expanding, and contracting reticle showed how skilled he was at handling the throwing axe. With no formal training, all he could do was aim using the violently shaking, unstable reticle.

Just like in a game, good control could make up for a lack of skill.

Hit!

Thud.

With God's Eye View, Duncan was like someone using a wallhack. He timed his throw for the instant his enemy came into view, even predicting it half a second in advance. He hurled the axe with all his strength. From eight meters away, it struck the man right in the forehead. His burly body crumpled to the ground, and his health bar vanished once more.

These enemies had health bars just as short as his.

On the projected image before Duncan's consciousness, the Stamina Bar dropped by a segment, then began to recover slowly.

"Only one enemy left!"

Duncan heard a faint panting. It came from the body he was controlling; his own consciousness felt nothing. When he checked, he saw the Stamina Bar had already dropped by almost half.

Though he didn't feel the loss of stamina himself, the body he controlled still showed signs of it.

Panting.

Two bursts of full strength had already left the body a little tired.

Just then, the sinister-looking knight appeared. He looked a little frightened, his eyes fixed on the boy nearby, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The boy he'd knocked unconscious with a single punch during the chaos had woken up and killed two of his followers.

He should've finished him off back then.

Beside the haystack, the boy expressionlessly pulled the axe from the enemy's forehead and began to back away. He had no chance at all in a head-on fight against a well-trained knight.

The enemy had only one weak spot: his head. Without a headshot, it would be difficult to seriously injure him.

Duncan controlled the body as it retreated, without even turning around. He darted around the corner of a wooden house. The sinister knight hesitated for a moment, then pursued him, taking great care. His enemy knew the terrain, so he had to watch out for an ambush.

It was obvious that both his followers had died in ambushes.

Duncan controlled the body as it retreated at a steady pace, keeping an eye on the Stamina Bar. Under God's Eye View, the enemy's every move was laid bare. When the enemy sped up, he sped up; when the enemy slowed to circle around, he changed direction to avoid him.

They kept about twenty meters between them, but the sinister knight still couldn't find him, no matter how hard he tried. He could only sense that the boy was moving around him like a ghost.

This was impossible!

He couldn't see his opponent.

How did he know where I was?

The sinister knight moved slowly in his armor. The area wasn't large—only about fifty meters across—yet no matter how he pursued the boy, he couldn't catch him.

Wallhack.

The enemy's mental defenses were crumbling bit by bit!

God's Eye View.

Qin King Circling the Pillar.

After noticing a clear change in the enemy's mood through God's Eye View, Duncan's focus sharpened.

It was hunting time!

[PS: I've started a new book. Please follow along.

That's all.]