Munitions Empire

It was with great difficulty that he loaded the musket in his hands. The bandit with scars on his face fled into a dilapidated civilian house and watched the situation outside through the window.

He saw one of his henchmen, brandishing a long knife, attempting to fight desperately against an enemy, only to be neatly shot in the chest and die. He also saw someone kneel down to beg for mercy, who was shot dead all the same, even receiving an additional bullet.

By this time, he had confirmed that those madmen, who seemed to have come out of nowhere, were probably not intending to spare any of them.

The opposition didn’t even bother to ask questions and greeted them directly with bullets! What he could do now was to fight back. Fight back with all he had!

So, he reloaded a bullet into his pistol. His last shot had missed the mark and hadn’t hit the target.

This was an unavoidable issue; his flintlock wasn’t just out of date, it had also been used for many years.

It was good for scaring people at a two-meter distance, and could just about manage to kill within that range, but to talk about precision would be a joke. A smoothbore gun with a muzzle-loading design, firing spherical bullets with black gunpowder—talking about accuracy seemed absurd, didn’t it?

Moreover, as a criminal, he only ever fired a few shots during military training and usually used his gun to intimidate the common folk at close range.

With such a skill level, how could he guarantee the accuracy of his shots? Every time he loaded the gunpowder, it was different, completely based on feeling.

Therefore, just now, even though he aimed at a target, he didn’t hit it at all—not even he knew where the bullet ended up.

This time, after reloading his weapon, he planned to wait until the target was closer before shooting, in the hope of hitting someone! According to his plan, he would first injure the person, then take the injured person hostage to escape...

Hiding inside the building, he watched the situation outside through the window. When a Marine got close while cleaning up the battlefield, he poked the barrel of his gun out.

A crisp gunshot rang through the air, and a bullet struck the hand holding his gun by sheer coincidence. In an instant, bones shattered, tendons snapped, and blood splattered.

The man with the scar could clearly see his two flying fingers, the burst white bone, and the torn muscles.

His musket fell to the ground, and the impact of the gunstock on the flint triggered a misfire, raising a puff of white smoke in the room. The lead shot pierced through the man’s shoe, shattering his toe.

"Ah!" the man with the scar screamed in agony, falling to the ground. He clutched his right hand, which now only had a thumb with his left hand, and his shot foot curled up as his whole body trembled.

Eighty meters away, a sniper hidden behind a tree at the edge of the village still held his sniper rifle, aiming at the window from which the scarred bandit had just poked his head.

The scarred man continued to scream in pain as he rolled on the ground, the only action that slightly alleviated his suffering.

Hearing the gunshot and the screams, nearby Marines burst into the house, only to see the "salted fish" that was rolling near the wall.

"Now you know how to scream like a ghost, you know what pain is, huh?" a Marine soldier walked over, stepped on the rolling man with the scar, and asked with a sneer.

The man continued to scream, without any intention of answering the Marine, who glanced at the man’s injuries and pulled out his dagger to stab the scarred man twice more in the back.

"Letting him die quickly would be too kind for him, but this time, nobody can save him. Let him wait to die here," the Marine cleaned his dagger on the ragged Zheng Country military uniform of the scarred man and stood up to speak.

"Indeed! Killing these bastards outright would be too easy for them," another Marine who was unaware that he had been the scarred man’s target just moments ago nodded in agreement.

He didn’t realize that his agreement was almost like avenging himself across time and space. So, after glancing one more time at the scarred man who was now finding even breathing to be torturous, he left the house with his men.

Blood continued to spread along the footprints on the ground, eventually surrounding the unattended flintlock lying there.

The bandit leader, a robust man hiding in another house, had yet to think of how to escape when he started to hear the gunshots outside become sparse.

Once he confirmed this, the gunfire outside had already died down, signaling that the fight was over.

He had brought 40 bandit soldiers, a force to be reckoned with. Yet within a few minutes of combat, the 40 bandit soldiers he had brought with him had all turned into cold corpses.

No different from the people he had killed, the bodies were disfigured, their flesh mangled, killed while struggling, begging for mercy, and crying out, all just the same.

Clutching his long knife, he swallowed hard to calm his shattered composure and calculated how to find his way out.

In the mountain fortress, he still had over a hundred men. If he could escape back there, he would have room to maneuver, to figure out who had ambushed him, and why they wanted him dead!

He had never thought he would die here, so now his mind was preoccupied with planning how, once he got back, he would take revenge on these villagers and demand an explanation from the Zheng Country officials in the city.

"Just you wait..." he gripped the knife handle tightly and muttered through clenched teeth.

After a brief reflection, he had thought of a way to get out: he would stay hidden here, and whoever entered the room, he would use close combat to subdue them.

With his agility, as long as someone carelessly walked in, he could take the initiative with a preemptive strike. Highly likely, he could subdue them and then take the person hostage to make his escape.

If a civilian came in, he would simply slit their throat and kill them! If it was one of those soldiers, he would capture them to use as a human shield to save his life…

He muttered continuously to himself, waiting for someone to enter through the door.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he faintly heard voices at the door. The voices grew closer, and the bandit leader gripped the handle of his knife tighter.

Ready to pounce, as soon as someone barged in, he would leap out like an agile leopard and press the knife against their neck.

"This is the house?" the person at the door asked.

"Yes! It’s this one," another person replied.

"Didn’t he run out the window?" the first person continued to ask, sending chills down the spine of the chief inside.

"Impossible! The window is also in my line of sight!" The second voice answered affirmatively once again.

They had discovered him! The bandit leader realized that the people standing outside had known all along that someone was in the room.

Realizing the situation was bad, he immediately discovered that his position was somewhat awkward: waiting for them to rush in was clearly unsuitable, but it seemed not good for him to rush out either.

So, while the bandit leader hesitated, the door was pushed open slightly from the outside.

"Good!" He silently praised in his heart, feeling a renewed sense of hope: It seemed that the other side was inexperienced, so they wanted to recklessly storm the house he was in.

But before he could feel smug for even a second, a cylindrical tin rolled in. Soon, thick smoke began to billow incessantly from this palm-sized cylinder.

The smoke was unbearably choking; he couldn’t even open his eyes in the smoke, and quickly the accursed fumes filled the entire room, making it extremely difficult for the bandit leader to breathe.

His lungs felt as if countless little knives were stabbing inside, and breathing was like countless grains of sand pouring into his throat.

Uncontrollable tears streamed down, and every attempt to breathe ended in unstoppable coughs. He coughed so violently that he could not even hold onto the knife.

He was surrounded by pitch black, as he couldn’t open his eyes to see anything around him. Relying on his remaining rationality, he remembered the layout of the room, reached out to touch the walls, and tried to find the door to get out.

All of this was subconscious, even though he knew he shouldn’t be escaping so wretchedly. But apart from his brain, every part of his body was desperately searching for a way to leave.

In the end, he found the door and rushed out recklessly. The suffocating smoke seemed to thin out somewhat, and his breathing started to smooth out a bit, finally allowing him to lift his eyelids and vaguely see everything around him.

With great difficulty, the strong man could barely pry his eyes open a crack, only to see a boot rapidly enlarging outside the crack.

Only then did he realize that he had actually crawled out of the house and was still kneeling on the ground like a dog.

In the blink of an eye, his face was "kissed" by a military boot. The force was so strong; it flipped him over.

Then his stomach took a hit, and whether it was from pain or from the choking smoke, the villain spat out tears once again.

His arm moved instinctively as if to strike back, but was swiftly met by a powerful kick that shattered the bones.

Only after he started spitting blood did he manage to see through swollen eyes that there were at least five or six people beating him.

A group of soldiers surrounded him, giving him a beating with punches and kicks. Once the group had had their fill, the vile bandit leader lay on the ground with just enough breath left in him.

"It’s all yours…" The leading Navy Marine platoon leader stepped aside to make way, gesturing with a beckoning hand, "Damn, never seen a smoke bomb before… dumbass!"

The surrounding Marines also made way, watching coldly as the beaten bandit king lay like a lump of mud.

Behind them gathered the villagers who had knelt before, along with some women clad in raincoats.

Before they were like fish on the chopping block, like lambs to the slaughter. They didn’t dare to resist; they were at the mercy of others.

But now they moved, first spitting, then some relentlessly kicking with their feet, non-stop…

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I was supposed to make up for missed updates today, but I’m not in good shape, so I only finished two. Don’t worry; there’s one more update tonight, and everyone can read it tomorrow morning.

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