Greetings, Gaming Photographer Community! How are you today? I hope you have an amazing day! This post is my entry for the weekly contest. It's a fun and challenging contest to participate in. To my friend @tommyl33, this is my entry this week contest, I hope you will be able to join too in the future and have the fun together. Best of luck!

I am very interested in the theme of this week's gaming photography contest which is Stealth Combat. Although I rarely use stealth combat in my virtual battles in the Ghost of Tsushima game, this time, for the purpose of the contest, I will use stealth combat as much as possible. I am super excited.

Before I begin, I want to talk about my gear. For the entire of today's gameplay, I equipped with gears that support stealth combat and make stealth combat even deadlier. I equipped (and maintain my health below 50% all the time):

1. Genbu Straw Hat (the power of darkness and shadow),
2. Thief's Wrap (for those wishing to stay anonymous),
3. Ronin Attire IV (reduce enemy detection speed by 20%, major increase to melee damage, after leaving pampas grass while crouched, enemies will be much slower to detect you),
4. Genbu's Darkness Sword (for warrior who celebrates the shadow),
5. Charm of Kagu-Tsuchi (deal bonus damage while 50% health or less),
6. Charm of Izanagi (landing a headshot has 40% chance to return an arrow),
7. Charm of Fortunate (abilities that use resolve have 15% chance to refund 1 resolve),
8. Charm of Unyielding I (moderately reduce damage taken while 50% health or less),
9. Charm of Shadows (reduces enemy detection speed by 10%),
10. Charm of Hidden Sight (enemies stop hunting for you 40% faster),

I was at the top of Crown of Violet while I decided what to wear, and I am wondered around to collect more bamboo and sell it for supplies. I need it to upgrade my gear especially my Ronin Attire, to maximize the benefits from it which is beneficial to my stealth combat. I manage to upgrade my Ronin Attire to level IV, one more level to maximum upgrade, but I lack of silk, which is hard to get now. I continue my virtual adventure to unlock more undiscovered area, and search more resources. There was a '?' marked South-East, which 380 meters from the top of the Violet Crown. I went down the mountain, travelled by my fastest ride, Wira, it was dawn at that time.

As I was on my way to the place I had marked on the map, I came across some Mongols who were on guard, and they had a female hostage with them. Without wasting time, with the help of the dawn fog and the surrounding grass to hide myself, I took out my bow and shot one of the Mongols from a distance.

My arrow shot hit and killed the target. However, my presence was noticed, so I escaped in the middle of the grass and then went down the slope using a rope. The Mongol army appeared to be looking for me, but they did not find me.

After the situation calmed down, I went back up and started shooting with my bow like earlier, hitting and killing the target.

When they started looking for me, I was hiding in the bush, they were completely unaware of my presence. I defeated all the Mongols there then rescued the woman who was being tied up.

As I rescued the bound woman, it was daylight, the sun was beginning to rise from the eastern horizon. The woman told me about a location where the Mongols were logging, cutting valuable timber to repair their warships. I am very grateful to that lady for the information she told me with.

I continued my journey to the South-East, the place where the woman told. I arrived early in the morning, making me think how to launch a shadow attack during the day? I didn't want to wait until night again, so I continued with my plan to attack by stealth and then destroy this logging camp.

My first target was the archer guarding the watch tower. I approached this archer slowly, then drew a short sword, specially for stealth combat. Ending the archer's history with one stab.

My actions were completely unnoticed by the two Mongols who were sitting and talking while warming up near the bonfire. I used this opportunity to kill one with my bow, then jumped off the tower and poked through the body of the other Mongol. It was a sudden attack, lasting only a few seconds. The two Mongols who were talking earlier were killed in the blink of an eye.

Then I went back outside the camp, and watched on a high place, covered by long grass. My presence was felt but they don't see where I am. I'm waiting for the best opportunity to do an ambush, stealth combat! I jumped off the high ground and proceeded to kill another Mongol, while his other friend was stunned for a moment and then took a step towards me to counterattack. But I activated chain-assassinate before I jumped and attacked earlier, so after one of them died, my body movement continued to dodge the counterattack and continued to turn around to the opponent's back, slashing the opponent's back, and ending his history.

I started moving into the camp. I hid in the bushes and tall grass to avoid a head-to-head fight. I must attack stealthily this time. Then, I came across a small camp, where I saw a Mongol sleeping soundly. Without thinking, I drew my sword and stabbed the sleeping Mongol in the stomach. So, he immediately went to sleep and did not wake up again.

As I move around the camp, I often feel threatened, apparently their archer tower was refilled with another archer even though I have killed the previous one. So, I shot the archer, just once and the archer fell down.

I moved back out of the camp because there were still many Mongols moving in. That was difficult for me. So, I moved to the entrance of the camp and ran into a big Mongol. Slowly, I approached him, then stabbed his neck through the head. All enemies today are killed with just one stab, that's the advantage of stealthy combat.

All the Mongols who were in the camp, noticed my presence, but they could not see me. Every Mongol who saw me would surely die, but that was not the case with their Boss, The Camp Leader, their General who was fully armored in gold. The Leader also moved out of the camp to find me, I came out of the bush and stabbed his exposed neck. I'm not surprised, the Leader didn't die with one stab. So, after stabbed him the first time, I went back to hide in the bush. They quickly lost track of me. Then, the second time, I approached the Leader slowly and came out from the bush, attack the same spot, which was his neck again. This second attack left no vitality left on the Leader, he finally fell with my small knife.

After the Mongol General was killed, his bodyguard began actively looking for me outside the camp. Actually, luring them out of the camp was a very smart move. There were plenty of long grass and bushes to hide outside. So, I easily defeated the General's bodyguards without using any samurai stands. All were killed, one by one, with a single stab, without them having time to react to the attack. That's the beauty of stealth attack! Attack hide attack hide, one hit one kill.

I moved back into the camp. There were only a few Mongols left in the camp. They were still wondering what happened. From early morning, until evening, they were not sure what attacked them.

While I was collecting all the valuables found in the camp, I ran into another Mongol who was very relaxed and asleep. Has no one awakened him from sleep? After all the chaos that had happened all day, he still slept very soundly. So, I woke him up, but as soon as he woke up, I stabbed him so that he could go back to sleep without having to wake up again.

Then I moved to the place where the prisoners were imprisoned. All the cages made of bamboo look neatly arranged and imprison some unfortunate villagers. I released them and escorted them out of the camp. Look at the face of one of the rescued villagers when he arrived outside the camp, he was very excited and happy, right?

After escorting the hostages out of the camp, I went back inside to complete the last mission, which was to destroy the logging camp with a lot of explosives. But, before that, there was another Mongol that I let live for the last cut. I challenged the Mongol to a stand-off fight, then defeated him with one slash. All the Mongols were killed before I destroyed the place with explosives.

So, that's all for today. Thank you so much for your support, until next adventure in Tsushima! Have a nice day, goodbye!

Note : All photos were screenshots taken by me while playing Ghost of Tsushima game. My thumbnail picture was edited using PixeLab apps, the photo in there is my face with a samurai ronin armor that was generated by ToonMe apps.