Henry's progress bar now read Level 3, 19%. He had enough pearls to upgrade another talent.
But the risk-reward of another direct assault was too low. His shields could only withstand a handful of howitzer blasts, and the sheer number of machine guns was still a problem. It was time for a new approach.
He took a shovel from his space and began to dig a pit in the road, just behind the corner.
Every fifteen or twenty minutes, he would step out, fire two shots at the manor to keep the guards on edge, and then go back to digging.
In response, the commander, Cian, fired a signal flare every twenty or thirty minutes, fearing the enemy was trying to set up a cannon under the cover of darkness. He had nearly a hundred flares in the armory; he could keep it up all night. He also hoped a patrol might see the flares and come to their aid.
The strange, intermittent battle was noticed by many in the valley below. The sounds of gunfire, explosions, and the periodic, ghostly light of the flares told a clear story: the McKinley manor was under siege.
When the governor of Colorado, John Evans, received the intelligence, he did nothing. He was a Democrat; the McKinleys were staunch Republicans who had forced their way into the state's lucrative mining industry, a traditional bastion of Democratic power. He was happy to let them bleed.
With the governor silent, no other faction had the strength or the will to intervene in a battle of this scale. Just as Henry had predicted, he and the McKinleys were left to settle their affairs alone.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency, however, dispatched three of its best detectives to investigate.
It took Henry over three hours, but by 1 AM, the two-meter-deep pit was finished. He had paced himself, taking breaks for hot coffee and periodically harassing the guards at the manor.
He took out all 6,900 pounds of dynamite he had acquired, including the two 500-pound charges he had already prepped. He bundled it all together, connected it to a single electric detonator with a 180-second fuse, activated it, and dropped the massive bomb into the pit.
Then he ran.
He didn't bother with a horse; on the winding, treacherous mountain path at night, he was faster on his own two feet. He ran at a steady, ground-eating pace, and in three minutes, he had covered over 1,300 meters and rounded eight bends in the road.
BOOM!
A titanic explosion erupted behind him. The ground beneath his feet bucked and rolled, and a moment later, a wave of hot air washed over him, harmless at this distance.
6,900 pounds of dynamite was equivalent to nearly 4.5 metric tons of TNT. He figured that would be enough to keep the McKinleys busy for a while. He had simply returned the dynamite he had taken from them.
They wouldn't be bothering him any time soon. He made a mental note to acquire a couple of cannons for his storage space.
He rounded the final bend in the road. Two hundred meters ahead was the main turnoff. Through the darkness, his enhanced vision picked out three figures hiding behind a cluster of aspen trees.
They had no night vision and hadn't expected anyone to be coming down the mountain at such a speed. Their cover was sloppy.
Henry slowed to a stop, caught his breath, and then raised his "One of One Thousand" Winchester.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Three shots in two seconds. The three dark figures collapsed.
To lurk in the shadows in the middle of the night in the West, spying on a powerful man, was to have a death wish.
He walked over to the bodies. A badge on one of the men's chests confirmed it: Pinkerton detectives.
He put another bullet in each of them, stored the bodies, then summoned a quarter horse and rode for the Mellon estate. The Pinkertons, being elites, had yielded three new white pearls.
As for the devastation back at the manor, he didn't look back. A real man never looks back at an explosion.
He returned to the Mellon estate, changed his disguise and his horse in the woods, and was let in by a grateful Owen.
Back in his room, he locked and barricaded the door. He used the white skill pearl he had acquired.
Instantly, the warm current washed over him. He was flooded with the phantom memories of a lifetime spent in the ring, of ten years of brutal, bare-knuckle fighting, of becoming a champion who knew no equal.
A minute later, his Boxing skill had jumped from LV 1 to LV 4.