Henry immediately put away his rifle and, from behind the corner, began taking out a 50-pound tnt from his space every 20 meters or so. After activating the 20-second delay electric detonator, he released it, letting it drop to the ground. He continuously released 5 tnts, which were scattered evenly along the roadside for the first 80 meters.
Finally, he placed another tnt with a 15-second delay about 100 meters ahead.
As he neared the bend about 200 meters away, Henry continuously tightened and loosened the reins, quickly slowing the horse. Then, he first freed his feet from the stirrups, released the reins, jumped off the horse, and rolled!
Fortunately, it was all muddy ground, and with Henry's LV4 horsemanship and powerful Constitution, he stood up unharmed after rolling a few times.
By this time, the horse had already turned a corner and run behind the hills.
Henry immediately released the chest-high granite stone from his space. Just as he leveled his winchester lever-action rifle with both hands, a large cavalry detachment began to appear at the road intersection over two hundred meters away. This road allowed five or six horses to charge abreast.
It would only take about 10 seconds for the leading cavalrymen to charge forward!
Henry stood steadily, letting the cavalry vanguard shoot at him, only counting silently in his mind. After three seconds, waiting for the cavalry vanguard to pass the third to last tnt, he began to shoot.
"Bang bang bang"
Henry attacked with a steady rhythm of 15 shots in 8 or 9 seconds, like an emotionless robot.
By this time, many cavalrymen had realized they were ambushed; there were tnts on the road!
However, once cavalry started charging, you couldn't just stop them immediately.
At this moment, they could only pray to charge through the trap section at high speed.
After Henry shot down the five foremost cavalrymen five times, there was a loud "boom." The first and sixth tnts exploded almost simultaneously, blowing the cavalrymen in front and behind into disarray.
This was followed by four consecutive explosions.
The six explosions unleashed a high-temperature shockwave of over 2000 degrees Celsius that swept across the road for the first 120 meters!
The cavalrymen and warhorses within this range were at least severely wounded.
Not a single cavalryman escaped the explosion range!
The first 120 meters of the road seemed like hell projected onto the human world—flesh and blood flew everywhere, with broken limbs and remains scattered across the ground. Not a single horse or person could stand intact.
He had just seen an unfortunate soul hit by the shockwave and propelled to the edge of a cliff about ten meters from the road, ultimately falling dozens of meters down the cliff, man and horse together.
If a Quarter Horse sprints at 23 meters/second, it can run a maximum of 460 meters in 20 seconds. Moreover, there was a bend and a 30-degree slope, so running 420 meters would be impressive.
Henry had already rehearsed the possible scenarios more than a dozen times today.
This situation of being pursued was just one of them.
He actually didn't need to shoot; it was just for extra caution, in case there were any oversights.
With his Storage Space and bulletproof empty shell, he wasn't afraid of pursuit; in fact, he welcomed it.
This deeply embodied the principle of "When the enemy advances, I retreat" from the Grand Ancestor.
Conversely, attacking strongholds would give him a bigger headache.
Even if the ambush plan had any flaws, he had a strong capacity for error tolerance.
Henry put away the granite stone and slowly walked forward along the road, using two double-action revolvers to deliver finishing shots one by one.
At this time, Commander Tom and Fabio in the factory felt that something bad was happening after hearing five consecutive loud explosions.
When they then heard gunshots ringing out one after another, their hearts sank even further—if the cavalry detachment had caught the target, it wouldn't be like this.
Tom couldn't understand how he, a single person, could set up an ambush so quickly, as only a dozen seconds had passed from the sentry's alarm to the enemy's attack.
It was Tom's decision to ambush 96 cavalrymen inside the factory starting at 7 PM that evening.
He anticipated that the opponent might attack at the same time and had also arranged sentries on the hills.
When he heard the sentry say there was only one enemy, he immediately ordered Deputy Commander John to lead the attack, telling him to try and keep the opponent alive to clarify the whole situation.
"Rocky, go to the living quarters immediately and tell Finn to bring everyone here at once."
"The ten of you go together and see what happened. Be careful of the opponent's ambush, figure out the situation, and report back immediately. Do not pursue the enemy."
Tom waited for almost a minute without any cavalry returning, so he issued orders one after another.
Rocky immediately rode his horse towards the living quarters, over 300 meters away.
The other ten men quickly grabbed their guns and ran towards the road intersection outside.
More than three minutes later, the ten guards reached the corner at the top of the slope on the main road outside and looked to the left.
By this time, Henry had already finished delivering the finishing shots, as only cavalrymen within 100 meters of the slope's corner had fallen.
He had just joyfully discovered that his release life progress bar had risen to Level 3.
Before he could examine it further, he spotted several people cautiously peeking out from the bottom of the slope, about twenty meters away—he had been watching them all along.
"Bang bang bang"
As if shooting at fast-reaction targets on a shooting range, Henry got a perfect score—the five people who peeked out first were almost simultaneously headshotted.
The other five were so scared that they quickly ducked down. While still in shock, they suddenly found a tnt falling on their heads, exploding with a roar one or two meters above them.
The high-pressure, high-temperature shockwave from the explosion caused their internal organs to rupture, and they instantly fainted, then quickly died.
Henry walked to the slope and looked down, finding ten mutilated corpses and no one else.
This location was visible from the factory gate, so Henry temporarily ignored it.
After the release life progress bar reached Level 3, the Storage Space became a sphere with a radius of 3 meters, or 113.04 cubic meters.
Having used it for so long, he already knew that this sphere was just a visualization.
In reality, the space could conform to the shape of items, and the items themselves seemed to be separated by a thin spatial membrane, independent of each other.
The space utilization rate was almost one hundred percent.
Henry estimated that the factory people probably wouldn't dare to send anyone out to check again, but to be safe, he still ran along the road for 100 meters before turning around to collect the cavalrymen, horses, and guns one by one.
This way, if anyone came up the slope, he could react immediately.
Collecting corpses was much slower than delivering finishing shots, as he had to touch each one.
Most of the horses were still alive, but their legs were broken, and their internal organs were likely bleeding. Keeping them alive would only prolong their suffering, so Henry likewise put them out of their misery one by one.
During this time, he heard dense hoofbeats from the smelting factory, as if they had more reinforcements.
By the time Henry finished, it had already started to get dark.
Henry took out his Patek Philippe gold pocket watch and found that it had just passed 8 PM.
He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked towards the factory. His sharp gaze allowed him to see that the brightly lit factory was bustling with activity, with dozens, even hundreds, of guards.
However, the estimated distance was nearly 500 meters, and many places were obstructed by buildings.
This distance exceeded the effective range of the "one-thousandth" Winchester Rifle by about 50 meters. He could take a few wild shots, but it wouldn't be very meaningful.
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