Shadow Empire

Chapter 786: Continuous Victory and Continuous Defeat

"A great victory!"

The commentary coming from the loudspeakers in the stadium was full of passion and affirmation!

"Ethan defeated his opponent this time. He is now qualified to challenge the boxing champion. Next, it depends on his recovery and whether he can impress the boxing champion."

"If I were the president of the league, I would consider giving him such an opportunity now. We need a young fighter who is full of miracle power."

"We need Ethan. We need him to perform a miracle!"

The commentator offered his praise without hesitation. Although he did not say that he thought Ethan could also defeat the boxing champion, his words revealed his strong confidence in Ethan.

Ethan was completely covered by the flash lights, and people's praise made him feel a sense of honor from the bottom of his heart.

At this moment, he seemed to understand a little bit why Lance wanted him to stand on the ring instead of standing behind Lance with a gun.

Lance and the others also came out of the box and walked over.

Ethan pushed aside the people blocking his way, walked to Lance's side, scratched his head and said, "I hope I didn't disappoint you."

This sentence made Lance feel a little emotional. He walked to Ethan and put his arms around his broad shoulders. He couldn't even hug him with his whole arm!
"You haven't let anyone down, and you only have yourself to blame, not us."

"I hope you can take a different path. This is your life!"

He didn't take up too much of Ethan's time. Looking at the screaming girls and the enthusiastic fans around him, he smiled and patted Ethan's strong muscles. "Now, go enjoy your moment!"

Lance was in a rare good mood when he walked out of the stadium. Ethan's success in the ring proved that the imperial immigrants did not have only two options: being a low-level worker or joining a gang.

Being a boxer or an actor are both good choices.

"Mr. Lance!"

After Lance and the others walked out of the stadium, Ethan's coach trotted out after them. Someone blocked his way, but Lance gestured to let him come over.

"Mr. Lance, there is something I want to talk to you about."

Lance nodded, "About what?"

"Regarding whether Ethan will get the gold belt in the future."

Lance paused there, motioning for him to continue.

"Ethan's victory this time may not necessarily be a good thing. It will make his opponents treat him more cautiously than before."

"The boxing champion's requirements may be very high in terms of appearance fee."

The appearance fee this time is ridiculously high, but for Lance, it is not a problem.

To think about it another way, although the ninth-ranked gentleman participated in this competition with twice the appearance fee, what he lost here was much more than what he gained!

His ranking was replaced by Ethan and plummeted. Even if he could fight again, his commercial value would be much lower than before.

And as long as Ethan keeps moving forward and never stops, every time he is mentioned, people will think of his "background figures".

Even if Ethan retires from boxing one day, the celebrities he defeated will still be his background.

Unless Mr. Ninth can get a gold belt, he will never be able to wash away the shame of this failure in his life!

His commercial value will continue to shrink and his appearance fees will continue to decrease.

Maybe his appearance fee for the next game will be only tens of thousands of yuan. If he cannot win the game cleanly, his commercial value and appearance fee will further shrink.

There is no shortage of blue-collar workers in the boxing world. Since he can't do it, he can only mix in the blue-collar level.

After hearing the coach's ideas, Lance gave him a number, "You can agree to it directly if it's less than one million."

The coach smiled and said, "He can only offer 500,000 at most, 600,000 is the limit, there is no way he can lose 1 million!"

Lance is not that optimistic. Now a ninth-place player dares to ask for a price of 350,000, so it is not too much for the boxing champion to ask for a million, right?

After a brief chat, Lance and the others got in the car and left.

The coach, on the other hand, walked towards the officials of the boxing union.

For this kind of official competition involving noun changes, there will definitely be officials from the boxing union present.

Few people knew Ethan's coach before Ethan played well, but everyone believed that as the results of today's game began to spread more widely, he would definitely become a well-known person.

So the officials were not so unapproachable, they took the initiative to stop and shake his hand.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, the coach asked, "If Ethan wants to challenge for the gold belt, will the league give some support?"

The league officials found it a little funny, "You just changed the rankings!"

He wanted to remind the coach whether Ethan needed time even if they were going to play.

"We can build momentum first. People will like to hear this news, a poor boy's federal dream!"

“This is a great opportunity for the alliance to expand its influence!”

The official thought seriously for a while and then shook his head. "I'm sorry, I can't make a decision on this matter. After all, it involves the light heavyweight championship belt."

"We will tell the chairman about your idea after we return. We cannot guarantee whether he will agree or not, but we will definitely try our best to stand on your side and communicate with him."

The coach knew this was for the best, and he thanked the two officials profusely before returning to the gym.

Reporters were still interviewing Ethan. Although today's game was short, it was absolutely exciting. It was like a super bomb that exploded suddenly, and everyone was shocked and couldn't close their jaws!

Especially when both of them hit each other at the same time and fell down at the same time, but Ethan got up again.

These pictures form a super violent aesthetic art, the federal people will love it!

Everyone can foresee that a boxing star is rising.

The coach pushed through the crowd and came in from the side. He walked to Ethan and said loudly to the reporters, "We will challenge for the light heavyweight champion and the gold belt later. We will make history!"

The reporters, who had already cooled down a little, became crazy again. They wanted to blind the coach's eyes with their flash cameras!
This game made people know Jingang City and the "King Kong" in Jingang City!
In a place where people couldn't notice, Mr. Ninth and his team were leaving. They no longer had the confidence they had before they came, and they all had cold faces.

The agent looked at Mr. Ninth lying on the stretcher and couldn't help but say, "You said you could win."

Mr. Ninth just said calmly, "I said, I will try my best to win. No one can guarantee that they will win in the ring, not even the boxing champion!"

"It's normal to lose..."

As he spoke, his voice became quieter and eventually disappeared.

No one in the group continued to speak, everyone was thinking about his own things, because they all knew that this was not just a matter of losing a game.

Some people's life is on the ring, but some people's life is on the gambling table.

Of course, these have nothing to do with Ethan, Lance and the others. The next time we see Ethan in the ring, it should be a fight between him and the boxing champion.

Lance is looking forward to this day.

In September, something happened that was not so important to the Federation. The Slads suffered a heavy blow on the battlefield again. Dantra's three mechanics bypassed the Slads' defense line from another route at an extremely fast speed, beyond people's imagination.

Although the Slads organized their forces to counterattack in time and drove the Dantra people back, they also paid a very heavy price.

Originally, the Slade Military Alliance was still considering accumulating strength to launch an active counterattack. The Federals set a good example for them. After the Federals diverted the attention of a part of the Dantra people, they launched an attack from the front and south.

The people of South Trier (the main force in the south of the Slad Military Alliance) were also prepared to fight a beautiful counterattack, but the failure on the front battlefield ruined the entire plan.

The reinforcements sent by Sumuri to support the Slad Alliance were also shattered in this war.

The Dantra people never thought about advancing the front line. Their goal was only to break the defense line into pieces and then evacuate from where they came from.

There is a big gap between the two sides at the strategic and tactical levels, and the gap has begun to snowball.

It is said that war weariness has begun to appear in the Slade. In this environment where people are always being hammered, some people will definitely have some ideological problems. More Slade people began to hide or sneak into other countries to avoid being sent to the front line.

"Pig-like commanders" and "fishing net-like defense lines" are what they call the front-line commanders and their defense lines.

Subsequently, Slad's front-line commander was relieved of his post on the spot and escorted back to the capital for interrogation, and a group of officers were also arrested.

It is said that Prime Minister Slade believed that there might be a traitor within the army, otherwise they would not have been able to bypass some checkpoints so accurately and stab the enemy in the back.

The continued defeats on the front battlefield put a timely halt to the Federals' desire to attack, and a peaceful side appeared on the front line for a short time.

But everyone knows that this is only temporary.

Dantra's allies are continuing their invasion eastwards, and large numbers of coerced locals are being armed by the Dantra people and sent to the battlefield.

The federals dealt them a heavy blow with their human wave tactics on the northern battlefield. If we only look at the data on the battlefield, they are undoubtedly outstanding, excellent, and even victorious!

Each Dantra soldier could kill 2.3 federal soldiers. The nearly three-fold difference made it impossible for the Dantra people from top to bottom to find any fault.

But the problem is that they kept retreating and were constantly forced back. Although they had the advantage in statistics, they always lost positions because they had too few people.

Now they no longer pursue the policy of elite troops. They push more vassal troops to the front line to consume the federals, curb the federals' continuous eastward progress, and then withdraw their hands to deal with the pressure on the front battlefield, and then find a way to outflank the federals' retreat.

As long as these 200,000 or 300,000 federal troops are eliminated, the pressure on the northern battlefield will be greatly reduced.

All these actions suggest that changes on the battlefield are intensifying. The Slad people once again issued a mobilization order, requiring more Slad men to go to the battlefield instead of thinking about escaping to other places.

At the same time, they are also calling on the two small countries further west of Slad to contribute money and manpower. Once Slad is defeated, the Dantra people will definitely not let them go.

The impact of the "World War" continues to spread, and more countries are beginning to move closer to the center of the war, either forced or voluntarily.

The treacherous international situation makes everyone feel depressed and breathless.

On Sumurri Island, news has come back that Sumurri's reinforcements were directly dispersed by the Dantra mechanics on the front line, and crying people can be seen almost everywhere on the island.

Their children, husbands, and fathers became just a number, a cold number in this war!

They can never come back.

Even if they can come back, it may just be an urn, and they can't even be sure whether the ashes inside are those of their loved ones.

Imagine, with the tracks rolling back and forth on the battlefield, who the hell could know who was lying on the ground?
Not to mention tattoos, even a nameplate may not be acceptable.

Christopher followed Leonardo to attend the meeting of the four major families. This time, Leonardo was obviously not as "domineering" as in the previous times.

He sat in his seat, resting his cheek on his hand, without saying a word.

The patriarch of the family sitting opposite him, representing the anti-war movement on Sumurri Island, coughed and kept staring at Leonardo, and Leonardo could only pretend to be dead at this time.

"Slade's ambassador contacted the Prime Minister tonight and asked us to continue to increase our troops."

"The last conscription has already made many people very dissatisfied with our decision. If we continue to conscript, what will the men on the island think?"

"And how can we guarantee that the soldiers we send out this time will come back alive?"

This matter is indeed a headache. So many people died, and everyone was somewhat worried, including Leonardo.

But the problem now is no longer that he, the war hawk, wants to continue recruiting soldiers to fight, but that the Slads require them to recruit soldiers and send them to the battlefield.

The Slads may have realized that if they only squeezed their own war potential, even if they won in the end, they would actually lose.

They must ensure that they are not in a "full-strength" state at the end of the war, but at least in a state similar to that of neighboring countries.

This also means that surrounding countries must also join the war more.

They might be a little lacking in dealing with the Dantra people, but it would be a piece of cake for them to deal with people like those on Sumurri Island.

No one else in the room spoke. It was proven that the game of war was not something that the people of Sumul could play.

Not long after tens of thousands of people were sent out, more than half of them were gone. Although some of them might have gone into hiding, these people would definitely not come back.

"Leonardo, you have always advocated participating in the war. Now tell me what you think."

People's attention was focused on Leonardo. He waved his hands in annoyance, as if he was shooing away a fly in front of him. "Don't say that. Although I advocate joining the war, I have never thought of sacrificing the lives of the Sumurians to gain something for myself."

"And you can see now that even if I don't advocate war, we will be forced to join the war now."

"This war will affect the entire Tanfit continent, and no one can escape!"

"Whether it's us or anyone else, it's just a matter of sooner or later."

"We can take the initiative to join the war, at least we can take some initiative on the alliance side."

"If we were forced into the war, our situation would probably be worse than it is now."

He leaned back. "Not only do we not have the initiative, but we also need to send the children to the battlefield."

The old man sitting opposite him sarcastically said to him, "Now it's the children?"

Leonardo ignored him.

"Now we need to unify our thoughts and decide whether to agree to the ambassador's request to continue to increase troops to the front line, or reject him outright."

People in the room began to discuss, after all, this was related to the fate of Sumuli Island.

It seems like they are choosing, but in fact they don't have much choice because they have no choice but to support this demand.

Choose to refuse?

Maybe the Slaads would turn around and attack them.

Even if they don't take action, cutting off the supply of materials to the island will cause them huge trouble.

The population on the island is too large, and food has to be imported to meet people's needs. Once the transportation of materials is cut off, it won't take long for them to compromise.

So from the very beginning, there was nothing to discuss about this matter.

The so-called discussion is nothing more than providing everyone with a decent form and sharing the responsibility at the same time.

After discussing for a while, everyone's opinions were basically unified, which was foreseeable from the beginning.

Leonardo was about to leave, but the old man opposite said one more thing.

"We have to send at least 100,000 people to the front this time. The Prime Minister will take care of 20,000, and we will take care of the remaining 20,000."

The old man opposite stood up and said, "Anyway, let's do this."

After he finished speaking, he patted his butt and left. The other two didn't have anything to say now, so they said goodbye to Leonardo and left, leaving only Leonardo and his men.

He was a little crazy and scratched his head. It had not been long since the last conscription, but now they had to conscript again. In addition, the bad news from the front would surely spread in a short time. He could already imagine how difficult it was to conscript.

Back at the manor, he gathered all the family members and discussed the matter.

Everyone spoke a lot, and in the end, Leonardo's son-in-law said, "We can still gather the people, but the problem is, who will pay for arming these people?"

"If the government pays, we all know they don't have much money to pay."

"If the Slade people don't give us some support, will these expenses eventually fall on us?"

"Even if we only arm 20,000 people, this means we will have to spend tens of millions (converted to federal sols)."

"Can we afford so much money?"

"And whether we should take it."

(End of this chapter)