Empire of Shadows

For some reason, people easily get sleepy in a swaying car.

Some scientists say it’s because the frequency of the car’s or the tires’ vibrations matches a certain switch in the human body, which amplifies fatigue and thus makes people sleepy.

Other scientists say that the slight bumps and sways are like a cradle in childhood, which will make people form a conditioned reflex that has been cultivated for many years in their subconscious, and start to feel sleepy.

But regardless of whether they were right or not, and whether it was really like that, many soldiers had begun to feel sleepy.

Life in the trenches was always difficult to sleep through. They were always worried that the enemy would attack, so everyone slept very lightly.

Maybe just one or two gunshots would startle a person awake, and then they would never be able to fall asleep again.

Pressure, anxiety, and even depression.

If it weren’t for those liquors, who knows what they would do with this damn life!

Paul took out a carabiner and hooked it onto the crossbeam of the troop transport’s canopy, then half-leaned and half-rested his eyes.

He planned to take a nap before they reached the designated location.He had gotten up too early this morning, and now it was too good to sleep.

There were already some snores around him. Perhaps the biggest change for the young men here after they had gone to the battlefield was that they were really sleepy. Even if a shell landed nearby, as long as it didn’t hit them, they wouldn’t wake up—

Whether they woke up or not depended on their sense of security. When they had a sense of security, the sound of the cannons was just a lullaby for them to have a good dream.

When they had no sense of security, maybe just the creaking sound of the wooden planks under their feet in the trench being stepped on would also wake them up.

A swaying car, the snores of comrades-in-arms. More people were trying to find a way to rest.

The driver was driving the troop transport a bit roughly. He looked back a couple of times and cursed, but it didn’t affect the people behind him.

Paul had a dream. In his dream, they had won this battle, and the entire war.

In the end, he was standing in the capital of the Dantra Republic, personally planting the flag of the Federation on the building of the prime minister’s office.

After returning to the Federation, he had retired as an officer and had found a very good job, had met a beautiful nurse, and then had married her, started a family, and had children.

Until he was old, he would lie in a lounge chair, holding the photo that had shaken the world, and tell his children how he had planted the flag of the Federation at that time.

He laughed heartily, full of pride. It was just that he didn’t know why, when he looked at the children and grandchildren around him, their faces were all blurry.

Just as he was rubbing his eyes and trying his best to see what these people looked like, a familiar sound suddenly came to his ear.

It was the sound of gunshots!

He turned his head in confusion and looked in the direction from which the gunshots were coming. He slowly opened his eyes.

The noisy environment in his ears and the panicked “enemy attack” sounds filled his ears, shaking every one of his nerves.

The next second, he was fully awake. He no longer had time to curse. He could see that the glass of the driver’s cab was already covered with a layer of fresh blood. The truck was crashing towards the woods on the side of the road.

There were scared cries of surprise all around. With a loud bang, there was no fire, only a small amount of smoke, and the car stopped.

All the people in the truck bed were rolled into a ball. Some even let out a mournful cry of “I’ve broken a bone.”

Paul, because he had hung himself on the frame of the car canopy, had not been “thrown” together with the others like a panel. He took a deep breath, looked at the soldiers who were getting up, let himself down, and jumped out of the truck.

“Enemy attack, enemy attack!”

“Counterattack, quickly counterattack!”

There were gunshots all around!

Their battle plan had been seen through. The enemy had ambushed them on the way.

Paul didn’t want to know where the problem was. It had nothing to do with him. Someone would be put on trial for this. He just wanted to live now.

If possible, he wanted to bring more brothers back alive!

He prostrated himself on the ground. His ability to recognize everything in his line of sight had a short-term problem. After he had caught his breath a little, he saw the enemy starting to come out from the woods on the other side.

The two sides began to fight around the highway.

The speed of the troop transport was faster than that of the tanks and infantry vehicles. These heavy firepower were still behind and would take at least twenty or thirty minutes to arrive. It was impossible to count on them. They could only fight on their own.

He pulled the bolt and released the safety. Paul aimed at an enemy with his sights and pulled the trigger, pulling once, pausing once, so that the muzzle of the gun would not fly up to the sky due to the recoil.

The enemy’s fire was very fast. He had only fired a few shots when he suddenly heard the “thump thump thump” sound of a machine gun firing.

He lay tightly on the ground. The muddy ground around him was being kicked up, along with the tender green grass blades, flying everywhere!

The other side’s machine gunner had also taken into account the troop transport that had not overturned. The machine gun bullets easily penetrated its not-so-defensive iron sheet guardrail. The soldiers who had just stood up and had not yet figured out what was happening soon fell down again in the truck bed.

They didn’t even know where the enemy was yet.

Paul’s whole person had fallen into a very strange state. He was fighting mechanically, doing the things he would do in every battle, reading the manual, and had even pulled two grenades and thrown them out.

The firefight came very quickly, and the fight was too sudden, but it also went very quickly. In less than fifteen minutes, the other side had taken the initiative to withdraw.

It wasn’t until the subsequent mechanized troops had caught up that Paul dared to stand up from the slope.

The first thing he did was to look at the truck bed. There were a dozen or so bodies lying in the truck bed, three of whom were from his squad.

In the morning, they were still talking about their confused future. A few hours later, these three had become corpses.

One of the two new recruits had already pissed himself and couldn’t even hold his gun steady.

Soon, the officer began to check the number of casualties. They had killed more than a hundred, but had lost more than three hundred. The company commander’s face turned pale.

Originally, the plan was a surprise attack, but now it seemed that the other side must have been prepared. The battle that was to come had become even more difficult.

Everyone simply cleaned up the battlefield. The bodies were thrown onto the troop transport and would be transported to the rear.

There was a high probability that they would not be sent back to the country. Only their ashes would be sent back, because the federal government did not currently intend to truly reveal how many people had died.

This number would make the public lose confidence in the war. They would only announce it bit by bit.

The chaplain with the army looked a little comical wearing a helmet, but he was always soothing people’s emotions. In front of the terrified new recruits, he was helping them overcome their fear.

In the words of the old priest, people will always die anyway.

When you die of old age, you still have to be judged to decide whether to go to heaven or to hell.

Now, to die for the interests of the country, you will definitely go to heaven after death!

In short, if you die, you win. The ones who should be uneasy are those who are still alive. Maybe they will go to hell in the future, if they can live to the end!

These things were indeed a bit useful. Some of the new recruits quickly walked out of their fear, but it was certainly impossible to be completely cured at once, but they had already tried their best to adapt.

There were also some who had not been persuaded.

For these people, as long as they didn’t run away and didn’t disrupt the plan, the officer didn’t care if they died on the battlefield in a panic, or if they died on the battlefield indifferently like the old soldiers.

But if they planned to run away, then what awaited them would definitely be the bullets of their own people.

This time, the troop transport did not continue to advance quickly, but coordinated with the tanks and infantry vehicles. Their actions had to be more careful.

The two new recruits were still shivering. After glancing at them, Paul took the initiative to walk over, took out his small wine bottle, and motioned for them to take a sip.

The spicy taste made the faces of the two new recruits turn red. Paul himself also took a sip.

Golden Lion Wine is really strong!

He pursed his lips and screwed on the cap. “Don’t think so much. The more you are afraid of death, the more likely you are to make a mistake on the battlefield.”

“If you make a mistake in the barracks, at most the instructor will give you a whipping, but if you make a mistake on the battlefield, the only thing that will teach you a lesson is a bullet.”

He patted the cheeks of the two. “Man up and pull yourselves together. Even if you have to die, you have to kill one of them before you die, understand!”

The two new recruits did not speak. Paul was a little annoyed and slapped them both again. “Are you cowards?”

The gazes of everyone around were concentrated. The gazes of those people were like sharp thorns, making it impossible for them to get off the stage.

After all, they were young men, full of hot blood. Once they were stimulated, they couldn’t stand it.

“We are not cowards!”

Paul nodded. “Very good. Prove it to me later!”

He paused for a moment. “There’s wine in your supply bag. If you’re not going to drink it…”

“Sir, report, we’ll drink!”

Paul cursed a couple of times with a laugh. “Keep it up.”

What he meant by keeping it up was to maintain that unyielding and resistant spirit, not to be a coward, not to be a wimp!

This was just a small interlude. The ambush they had encountered here had already been reported to the command. Soon they had feedback. The plan was unchanged.

The marching speed was once again accelerated. They went back to the trucks.

The bloodstains in the truck bed had not been cleaned, and there was still a strong smell of blood.

Someone grabbed a few handfuls of dirt, threw it on the fresh blood, and then stomped on it with their feet, rubbing it back and forth. This was a little better.

At 5:15, they had barely arrived at the designated location. But because they had already been exposed, what followed was a direct assault, not a raid.

The enemy’s defensive line had already been established. It was just a simple direction, and you could see the temporary defensive fortifications piled up with sandbags. Although it was a bit difficult, it would not be too difficult.

They had tanks, they had infantry fighting vehicles. The chances were still very high.

With the artillery positions in the rear beginning to show their power, the shells began to attack the enemy’s positions.

The sharp whistling sound of the air being torn apart was like the laughter of the god of death. Enemies were constantly dying due to the shelling.

They were actually the same as the federal people. They were all flesh and blood, and there was nothing terrible about them.

The battle had begun. Paul, according to the company’s request, was coordinating with a tank to advance. Their main job was to prevent the enemy’s soldiers from getting close to the tank.

And when necessary, to charge at those bunkers, or defensive fortifications at close range, or to pave the way for the tank to continue to advance.

The battlefield was full of flying bullets. To appear on the battlefield as the attacking side for the first time gave Paul a feeling he had never had before.

Greater pressure, greater fear, but he couldn’t retreat now. The only thing he could do was to advance!

The battle on the main battlefield was even more cruel. Every meter of advance had to be filled with the lives of many people.

When the collective consciousness dominated the individual consciousness, they had already forgotten their fear and rushed up one after another!

This battle lasted until a little after nine in the evening. There were constantly rising flares that illuminated the battlefield.

Although the enemy had made a response on the side, in fact, from the time they had obtained this intelligence to the time the federal people had arrived, it had still been a few hours, and there was simply no time to make any response.

So much so that they didn’t even have time to transfer troops!

The federal people, on their “main battlefield,” had launched a strong attack that had tied up a large number of troops. The soldiers on the side had fought to the death until almost 9:40, and had finally all been wiped out!

When Paul and the main force had rushed into the enemy’s camp and had shot dead all the enemies, the battle was not over.

They still needed to go south and continue to put pressure on the side of the battlefield from the side.

It was just that this one trip was not so difficult.

Some of the simple defensive fortifications could not stop their advance at all. Soon, the Dantra allied forces realized that their plan to put pressure on the Slad people through the side battlefield had not only failed, but on the contrary, they had been hit with a stick by the federal people.

Along with that, some changes had also taken place on the real main battlefield. These changes had prematurely detonated the battle on the main battlefield.

The Slad people were shouting all kinds of slogans and, under the call of the charge horn, had launched a charge against the enemy’s positions. The federal troops had also begun to close in on the main battlefield, and had already formed a pincer attack.

The front-line commander of the Dantra allied forces had decisively made the correct deployment and had begun to make a strategic adjustment and transfer to the rear. After leaving some troops to hold back the main force of the Slad people, the other troops had already retreated.

The battle around this location had basically come to an end. With the federal army entering the main battlefield, the battle was completely killed before dawn.

In the early morning, when the sky was just getting light, the summer time sky was like this, with long days and short nights.

At five in the morning, the sky was already turning white. The battlefield was full of the cheers of the soldiers. After the Dantra allied forces had advanced with devastating force, they had finally stopped the footsteps of one of their routes.

This was a great victory!

Paul looked at the cheering Slad people. He actually couldn’t experience this feeling, because behind them was not the Federation, not their families, and this was not their homeland.

He didn’t understand the meaning of the Federation’s intervention in this war. At this moment, he didn’t want to figure it out either, because whether he understood it or not, it was still meaningless.

He found a place, supported himself with his knees, and sat down, placing his weapon where he could easily reach it.

Then he lit a cigarette, slowly, with his head tilted back, and took a drag.

The thick smell of smoke seemed to cover up the smell of gunpowder on the battlefield. He tilted his head and glanced at the corpses all over the ground, at the blood that was sticking to the soles of his shoes. There was no sacred sense of mission in his mind, nor any glory, or excitement.

Only the calm of “having survived again.”

He took out his small wine bottle, shook it a few times, and then drank the remaining little wine in one gulp.

To hell with the war!

In the Presidential Palace, the manors in the suburbs of New Golden City, in the big mansions, people had already received the news from the front line and were clinking their glasses and singing in pleasant surprise!

A victory on the offensive end would completely suppress all the negative aspects of this period.

They didn’t care how many people had died, whether the casualty ratio had been reduced to an appropriate degree. They only cared about this victory, which was completely led by the federal army!

It wasn’t that the number of troops participating in the battle was large, and that you would definitely become a character with a say in the military alliance.

Some countries did not have a large number of troops participating in the war, but their combat effectiveness was super strong. They often had more say in the distribution of interests than the Federation.

Although the Federation had joined this military alliance, they had not yet proven themselves. It would be very difficult for them to, according to the ideas of Congress and Mr. President, become the leader of this military alliance.

If they could not become the leader of the military alliance, could not become the framer of the future world order, what was the meaning of their participation in this war?

So this offensive war had to be fought, and victory had to be obtained. No matter how many people were sacrificed, at this moment, their sacrifice was valuable!

Of course, not for the people who had already sacrificed, but for the people who were still alive.

For the gentlemen!

In the rear of the rear, another invisible war was about to be staged, a civil war, an internal diplomatic war.

They had just won a war, but the federal government could demand to obtain more international social respect, and a higher international social status.

Everyone was doing what they should be doing, but it always felt a little uncomfortable.

Lance was already on the train back to Golden Port City at this time. Under his interweaving, some cooperation had been reached between the state police department and the State Prohibition Committee.

For example, when the local Bureaus of Prohibited Goods were short of support, or when they considered that the law enforcement system might have been infiltrated, they could directly ask the state police for help.

The state police, if they were in a tight spot with some legal documents, could also go through a special channel from the various Bureaus of Hazardous Materials, or even from the State Prohibition Committee, and get the legal documents on the spot.

This would have a great promoting effect on the work of both sides. Of course, the only one who could do this at present was Lance. Anyone else would not do.

It can be imagined that soon the entire state’s prohibition situation would go up a level. Besides the ones authorized by Lance, no matter how big or small, they would not be let go.

It is worth mentioning that Golden Lion Wine was more popular on the battlefield, because its alcohol content was slightly higher than other wines. Whether it was for soothing the wounds of war, or for disinfection, it was better.

So much so that there were some soldiers who would trade other brands of wine plus cigarettes for Golden Lion Wine, which also gradually established the status and influence of Golden Lion Wine among the soldier group.

Not long after Lance returned to Golden Port City, he heard the news from Summuri.

The two people he had sent, as well as the bodies of Alberto and Fordis, had been thrown into the sea by Christopher and had eventually disappeared…

(End of a Chapter)