Outnumbered? I'll conquer America with an unlimited number of suicide soldiers.

As time ticked by, the gunfire from the manor on the front lines grew increasingly intense.

The footsteps and shouts coming from behind the side fence were also rapidly decreasing.

It's now!

"Explosives team, go! The rest of you, provide suppressive fire!" John waved his hand sharply.

Dozens of assassins immediately opened fire on any remaining guards that might be behind the wooden fence, giving them no chance to fire back.

Five suicide soldiers carrying explosive packs rushed out like a gust of wind.

They moved with incredible speed, crossing the barricades in the blink of an eye and rushing to the base of the heavy wooden fence, where they successfully secured the explosive charge to the bottom of the fence.

"withdraw!"

The assassins began sprinting back at the same frantic speed.

Ten seconds later.

With the detonator handle pressed.

Boom! Boom boom boom!!!

Five consecutive loud explosions shattered a wooden fence dozens of meters long, along with nearby barricades. Huge fireballs and thick smoke shot into the sky, carrying wood chips and dirt, creating a muddy rain.

"The breach has been opened! Second team, follow me!"

John was the first to leap up, leading 150 men straight towards the smoke-filled breach.

The guards of the manor were clearly stunned by the huge explosion from the side and rear. Sharp whistles and distorted shouts rang out from all over the manor. The firepower that was originally concentrated on the front became obviously chaotic and hesitant, and some guards began to rush back to reinforce the direction of the breach.

The battle instantly intensified.

John had just rushed through the gap when he was met head-on by seven or eight armed guards.

He didn't even have time to aim; he instinctively raised his revolver and fired a rapid-fire volley. Blood splattered from the chests of the three guards opposite him, and they staggered to the ground.

Almost simultaneously, scorching lead bullets came from the opposite side. Two assassins next to John groaned as they were hit in the shoulder or arm, blood splattering as they fell to the ground.

Fortunately, reinforcements arrived in time and killed all the remaining guards.

"Spread out and take cover!"

John flung out the revolver's cylinder, and six spent cartridges fell to the ground.

He grabbed six new bullets from his belt, quickly loaded them, and then shot a guard who was peering out of a stable window in the head.

The team quickly carried out the order, breaking into smaller groups and rushing towards the nearest sheltered building.

The guard, who had been stunned by the attack, also came to his senses.

Brannan's guards were, after all, ruthless characters who had experienced battles. After the initial panic, they chose to abandon the outer fortifications that were difficult to defend and began to retreat towards the core of the manor, relying on the buildings to organize layers of defense.

Bullets came from all sorts of tricky angles—windows, corners, rooftops, and behind chimneys—making them impossible to defend against.

"Where's the machine gun?! Bring the machine gun up!"

John, unable to lift his head from the gunfire, roared, urging the men behind him to quickly push the machine gun over.

At the breach, the smoke had slightly dissipated. Three suicide soldiers struggled to push a heavy machine gun in and quickly adjusted its firing arc.

"Fire!"

The hand crank began to rotate at a steady speed, and the ten barrels of the machine gun, arranged in a circle, began to spin, spitting out tongues of fire. Bullets rained down on all the firing points inside the building.

Da da da da da!!

A continuous stream of gunfire rang out.

In an instant, bricks and stones shattered, wood chips flew everywhere, and cries of agony echoed from inside the building.

The machine gun didn't stop; instead, it roared incessantly, firing repeatedly until there was no more sound from the building ahead before it temporarily ceased.

Without any instructions, the assassins began to occupy and clear the building area, and then, in the same manner, they advanced into the buildings further inside, compressing the space for the guards.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Inside the fortress.

Samuel Brannan stood in his study on the third floor, looking out through a corner of the window.

He saw his estate, which he had spent a fortune to build, burning down; the vineyards in the distance were trampled into ruins by horses' hooves; and black smoke billowed from the warehouses and stables.

His defenses were pushed back by the enemy's offensive, and gunfire and shouts of battle were closing in on the fortress.

"Has the distress telegram been sent out?" He turned to look at the butler beside him.

"Master, it's been sent out."

The butler nodded nervously, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his forehead. "According to the list you provided, it has been distributed to the sheriff's office in San Helenia, the sheriff's office in Napa County, and the governor's office in Sacramento."

"What did they say?!" Brannan asked.

The butler smiled wryly, "Their replies were all very polite, expressing shock and sympathy for your situation. But regarding support, they all made excuses, saying they were short-handed and needed several days to gather manpower and go through procedures. They suggested we hold our ground with our fortified positions and wait for reinforcements in a few days..."

"Three to four days? Hold out as best you can?"

Brannan roared, "To hell with it! Those bandits outside broke into my manor in half an hour!"

A few days later? A few days later, those uniformed idiots will only be able to come and collect my corpse, and while they're at it, tally up how much of the inheritance they can claim!

Henry, the butler, remained silent, too terrified to utter a word.

Brannan exhaled a breath of stale air, forcing himself to calm down.

He looked out the window again, his gaze sweeping over the figures of the attackers moving nimbly through the manor, taking turns providing cover as they advanced. Their clothing was not uniform, but the tacit understanding and ruthlessness they displayed were far beyond that of ordinary robbers.

"Henry, do you really think these people outside are just ordinary robbers?"

The butler, named Henry, hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Sir, please forgive my bluntness."

With hundreds of members, such superior equipment, and such disciplined operations, this gang is impossible to find in California or even the entire West; it's more like a private army.

"Yes, these bastards didn't even bother to loot the scattered items when they charged; their target was clearly my fortress."

Brannan gritted his teeth: "I don't know which of my political or business rivals is hiring someone who wants to kill me and then devour everything I have."

"You son of a bitch, don't let me find out about this later, or I'll pay you back tenfold, a hundredfold!"

He paused, a hint of pain flashing across his face, and made up his mind: "Notify all guards to abandon all outer buildings and fortifications and retreat into the fortress."

The walls inside are thick enough, and we have enough food, water, and ammunition. We'll slowly wear them down and see if reinforcements arrive faster or they take the fortress faster!

Making this decision meant that he completely gave up his property outside the home.

"Yes, sir! I'll go right away!"

Henry hurried downstairs to tell the guards to inform his companions to retreat into the fortress.

The order was quickly relayed through shouts and whistles. The guards, still putting up a sporadic resistance among the manor buildings, heard the retreat signal and fled at almost their lives, scrambling and stumbling towards the fortress.

After the last guard rushed in, the heavy oak door covered with iron slammed shut with a screeching sound, the thick bolt fell down, and it was then pushed up from the inside by two logs as thick as bowls.

Brannan came down and took a look, and instantly felt a little dizzy.

It was only because he previously had a guard force of over a hundred men, but now only a little over eighty men had gathered here.

This means that in that less than half-hour engagement, he lost more than a third of his elite forces!

"Vincent, tell me, what the hell is going on?!"

He looked at a burly man with a scar on his face in the crowd. That was his bodyguard leader, a trusted confidant whom he supported for several hundred dollars a month.

"How could we have suffered such heavy casualties? Were you all just holding firewood sticks?!"

Vincent directed his men to disperse to the firing ports and tower positions on each floor for defense, his voice hoarse: "Boss, we've done our best, but the enemy's firepower is just too intense."

"The rifles they used looked a bit like Sharps, but they were definitely not ordinary Sharps; their rate of fire was astonishing. Often, the time it took our brothers to fire one shot was for the other side to fire three or four bullets at us. Their firepower density was several times that of ours."

"And they also had a repeating weapon that I had never seen before, with several barrels, that could spray bullets continuously like water."

Our outer wooden fortifications and brick bunkers were like paper in front of that thing. After a few sweeps, the defensive line was breached.

"Let's put it this way: aside from lacking artillery, the firepower these guys can unleash at the same time is definitely no less than that of a main infantry regiment of the Federal regular army!"

Outside the fortress, the gunfire subsided temporarily.

Arthur quickly traversed the chaotic manor buildings and arrived at John's location.

This place was originally a warehouse, but because of its open view, it is now being used as a temporary command post.

"John, how's the battle going?"

John stood in the shadows of the building, observing the fortress through a monocular telescope, and replied, "We took out forty or fifty of them. The rest abandoned the second line of defense and all ran inside the fortress to hide like cowards."

"It was probably that old bastard Brannan who gave the order directly, otherwise they wouldn't have retreated so quickly."

"They're all inside?"

Upon hearing this, Arthur also pulled out his monocular telescope. "There aren't any tunnels inside the fortress; they're probably planning to escape through one, right?"

John took out his cigarette case, lit one for himself, and then casually offered one to Arthur.

"Tunnels? There must be. I bet there's more than one. But they probably won't run away right now."

There are still eighty or ninety able-bodied men inside, and they probably have plenty of ammunition and food. Their morale hasn't completely collapsed yet. That old bastard is definitely hoping for reinforcements, or that he'll retreat on his own if we can't break through.

Running now would be tantamount to handing our backs completely to us for pursuit.

Suddenly, a furious shout came from behind: "Arthur! John! You two brainless idiots! Don't fucking smoke next to the bomb! Do you want us all to go to heaven together?!"

The two men were startled at the same time. Looking down, they saw, less than half a meter behind their heels, a dozen tightly bound dynamite packets, each with detonators and fuses, piled up like bricks.

They exchanged a glance, gave an awkward smile, put away their cigarettes, and continued discussing the attack as if nothing had happened.

"What's the next step in the attack?" John asked. "There's a large open area in front of the fortress; charging straight in would make us sitting ducks."

"Even if we tried to get there, the thick stone wall and that iron gate would be a problem."

Arthur paused for a few seconds, then slowly said, "I don't have any good ideas either. I can only use machine guns to suppress the enemy and create gaps in our firepower."

Then send someone over with explosives, either to blow up the door or to find a weak point in the wall, such as the corner.

John nodded: "Then I'll take my men and go."

He bent down and, without hesitation, picked up a heavy explosive charge, then called out nine more people.

"Prepare to begin suppressive fire."

Arthur patted him on the shoulder, everything was understood without words.

Then he turned to look at the crowd behind him and said:

"Now follow my instructions."

Machine gun crew, fire at all the firing ports on the first and second floors of the fortress, keep their heads down!

"The rest of you, fire freely. Take out any guards who dare to peek out. Don't give them a chance to fire!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

After a brief silence, the machine guns began to roar again.

A storm of metal swept across the fortress, forcing any figure daring to peer in to retreat hastily.

John and the others, carrying explosives and shovels or hoes, rushed forward.

The guards inside the fortress clearly sensed their intentions. Several flank firing ports, not fully covered by machine guns, attempted to adjust their angles, but were immediately suppressed by precise rifle fire from the outside.

Soon, all ten people rushed to the corner of the wall.

Following John's gesture, they quickly began earthwork, digging a pit in the ground at the corner of the wall.

Half an hour later, a large crater large enough to hold all the explosive charges appeared next to the fortress.

John pressed ten explosive charges against the deepest part of the wall, installed the detonators, and then gestured to Arthur and the others in the distance.

Under the cover of gunfire, the ten men successfully retreated.

Without hesitation, the assassin in charge of the detonator gripped the wooden handle of the detonator with both hands and pressed it down with all his might!

Boom!!!

An explosion even more terrifying than the previous one rang out, and the dust it kicked up instantly engulfed a large part of the manor.

Several tens of seconds later, the smoke and dust dissipated slightly.

What appeared before everyone was a shocking, huge gap in the southeast corner of the fortress, more than three meters in diameter, through which the corridors and rooms inside could be seen directly.

"The breach has been created!"

Arthur yelled, "Machine gunners keep firing! The rest of you, charge!"

He dropped his spear, drew two revolvers, and charged toward the gap where rubble was still falling.

The moment he stepped in, Death Eye unleashed its full power.

His attention was focused to the extreme, and only he could hear the ticking of a clock, a countdown to death.

Arthur raised his arms to the sides and fired twelve bullets in two or three seconds.

Before the arriving guards could even fire their guns, or even see who it was, they were covered in blood and collapsed to the ground.

The assassins followed Arthur into the fortress.

The two sides exchanged fierce fire in the confined space, so close that they could see the ferocious expressions on each other's faces.

A guard rushed out from around the corner of the corridor and collided head-on with Arthur, his revolver pointing directly at Arthur's head.

boom!

John fired from the side, the bullet piercing the guard's temple, and the body slumped to the ground.

"Thanks, John."

Arthur continued his charge without stopping. John didn't respond, but quickly moved to his flank, forming a simple cross-cover.

Soon, the guards on the first floor were cleared away.

But they didn't stop; they began to advance little by little along the stairs and corridors.