Netty Http Client Connection Pool

Question

I am trying to understand netty http client connection pool. If it is NIO and asynchronous, then what is the significance of this connection pool?

For ex: if service A calls service B and service A has the client connection pool count set as 50, then does it mean we can make only 50 parallel requests at the max?

UPDATE:

// remote server

@GetMapping("echo")
public Mono<String> echo(){
    return Mono.just("echo")
                .delayElement(Duration.ofSeconds(3));
}

// client 1 conneciton
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create(ConnectionProvider.newConnection());

WebClient client = WebClient.builder()
                          .baseUrl("http://localhost:8080/echo")
                          .clientConnector(new ReactorClientHttpConnector(httpClient))
                          .build();

// run
var start = System.currentTimeMillis();
Flux.range(1, 50)
    .flatMap(i -> client.get().retrieve().bodyToMono(String.class))
    .collectList()
    .doOnNext(System.out::println)
    .doFinally(s -> System.out.println("Total Time Taken : " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - start) + " ms"))
    .block();

I get all the calls get completed in 3.5 seconds. Ideally with 1 connection I should have got them completed in 150 seconds.