Shooting from the tree would be difficult due to the need to maintain balance, and accuracy would be much worse.
After a few shots, the recoil might cause him to fall headfirst from the tree.
The rifle's effective range could barely reach this distance, with questionable hit rates.
Moreover, Henry could fire at most one round of 15 bullets before the enemy would react, charging on horseback to reach the nearby roadside, turning it into close combat. Hanging in the tree would make him a sitting duck - such reckless action wouldn't be worthwhile.
Even if the guards on the watchtowers weren't all dead, if they found his direction and fired a burst of machine gun bullets, Henry could easily be overwhelmed.
Henry took out his Patek Philippe gold pocket watch - 4:25:38 PM.
Still early, so he quietly continued observing from the tree.
Over an hour passed, with only three riders coming up from below - they appeared to be messengers or people returning from errands.
No one left the manor.
Henry also spotted Sean - a lean middle-aged man around fifty with surprisingly thick red hair.
He came out of the house to admire flowers for a while before going back in.
Henry noticed there were no children in the manor, nor did he see the lady of the house.
More than ten guards came out from the back of the house.
It looked like there were about 70 guards in this house.
Henry climbed down the tree and walked back toward where he came from. When he reached about 300 meters from the three sentries, the dogs started barking again.
Henry continued approaching, and the dogs barked more fiercely.
All three sentries held their rifles ready, facing the direction of the barking like they were facing a great enemy.
"Who's there?" one sentry demanded sternly.
No movement, only the German Shepherd's continuous frenzied barking.
Suddenly, the German Shepherd charged into the forest.
"Bang!" The German Shepherd staggered, whimpered, and collapsed.
"Bang bang bang!" The three guards were instantly shot in the forehead or throat and fell to the ground.
Under the cover of darkness with Henry hidden and them exposed, the men had no chance of survival against Henry's sniper attacks.
Henry walked past the German Shepherd and collected it - dog meat wasn't bad.
He emerged from the forest and searched the three fallen men, taking three money pouches, three Colt double-action revolvers 1878, three Winchester 1873 rifles, and three daggers.
Then he walked to a horse tied to a tree trunk, untied the reins, mounted, and galloped toward the manor.
By now, the manor guards all knew something had happened. The gate guards and sentries on the watchtowers kept their eyes glued to the only road up the mountain.
Another thirty-plus guards rushed to the stables, quickly saddling their horses.
In just over a minute, Henry reached the turning point of the final 400-meter straight section leading to the manor.
This final 400-meter straight was like a plaza - 20 meters wide and about 400 meters long.
To the left of the straight road were rocks, to the right was a cliff.
Henry pulled the reins to stop his horse, dismounted, and slapped the horse to make it leave.
The slope wasn't steep, about 30 degrees.
Henry took out a face mask and put it on.
Now he could only charge forward. Looking at his release pearl shells, they could withstand over 50 machine gun bullets - should be fine.
Current Gatling guns had a firing rate of 200 rounds per minute, though military versions theoretically reached 1000 rounds per minute.
But hand-cranked rotating Gatlings couldn't achieve maximum rotation speed, managing only about 300 rounds per minute, at most 400.
400 rounds per minute meant 7 rounds per second. Henry could last over 7 seconds, but machine gun bullets couldn't be that precise - they relied mainly on massive bullet spray, so he should be able to withstand two Gatlings for over ten seconds.
If they were civilian versions at 200 rounds per minute, he might last half a minute.
Henry switched to a "one-in-a-thousand" Winchester rifle, stepped out, and began shooting at the guards on the watchtowers.
"Bang bang bang bang." After four shots in about 3 seconds, 4 sentries fell from the two watchtowers.
His brow stung with pain!
Henry immediately hid behind the corner, moving out of the gate guards' and machine guns' firing angles.
The four gate guards also fired four shots, but at about 400 meters they were beyond their rifles' effective range. Accuracy was basically guesswork - all shots missed.
"Rat-a-tat-tat" - machine gun fire thundered.
Dense machine gun bullets struck the corner road, kicking up clouds of dust.
Gatling bullets in this era had initial velocities around 400 meters per second, taking about 1 second to reach their target.
This time might be useless for others, but for the current Henry, with dual talents of +20% agility and 5x reaction speed enhancement, it was enough for him to dodge several meters away after sensing danger.
Henry preliminarily judged these Gatlings were probably civilian versions - 200 rounds per minute firing rate.
After over a minute, the machine gun fire finally stopped.
Someone on the watchtower shouted loudly: "Only one enemy, not on horseback!"
Henry waited over two minutes before quickly stepping out from the corner. Bang bang - two shots killed two gate guards, then quickly ducked back behind the corner.
"Rat-a-tat-tat" - the machine guns resumed their thunder, but to no effect.
This time Henry didn't target the watchtower sentries because they were all hiding behind stone walls, especially the machine gunners who had been doing so all along - that's why he hadn't targeted them earlier.
The cavalry commander in the manor watched helplessly as six of his men died, fuming with rage. He roared: "Cavalry mount up and form ranks, charge! Only one enemy - kill him!"
This time Henry jumped out as soon as the machine gun sounds stopped, fired two quick shots, then quickly hid again.
These two shots didn't succeed - the two remaining gate guards hid behind stone sculptures on either side of the gate.
Henry put away his rifle and ran madly toward the road behind him.
From attacking the three guards below to now had been about 7 minutes. If the enemy was sending cavalry to charge, the timing was about right.
In less than a minute, Henry reached another corner over 300 meters below.
He stopped and turned around, taking out a complete granite block from his space that was level with his chest, then stood behind the rock to catch his breath and wait, while reloading the chamber of the rifle he'd just fired 8 shots with.
Soon the dense sound of hoofbeats striking the ground came from the manor.
Two parallel riders quickly appeared at the upper corner. Upon seeing Henry, they immediately raised their rifles to shoot at him.
Henry wasn't in a hurry to shoot, standing in place with his rifle raised, letting bullets fly past him at high speed.
After over 2 seconds, letting the lead two cavalrymen run down over 50 meters, Henry began shooting.
"Bang bang bang" - tight, rhythmic gunfire rang out.
The lead two cavalrymen were directly headshot, followed by their two horses, then the 2 cavalrymen behind them and their mounts, then 7 more cavalrymen behind them.
The four dead horses in front nearly blocked the road completely. The cavalrymen following closely behind began tumbling in chaos, while those further back fired at Henry.
Henry stood unmoved, steadily shooting from his position.
Gunfire thundered! Like death's calling cards!
(End of Chapter)
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