Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1552: Chapter 42: Shining

Just a few days after January 1st, the atmosphere of the New Year has already vanished without a trace.

For the people of the Fei Alliance, the New Year of 2064 hardly had any festive atmosphere to begin with.

Although the leaders of Fei Alliance countries still delivered New Year speeches as usual, zealously pledging that the government and military would use every effort to win the war, the grim situation in the major war zones did not change due to the president’s swollen chest.

The ever-increasing names on the casualty boards, the growing number of unemployed in statistics, the dwindling food supplies, and the increasingly exorbitant prices of necessities made this New Year even bleaker and more desolate than usual.

The stars have lost their peacetime brilliance. War, this monster fed by human blood, is rampaging across the entire interstellar map of humanity.

Since the Fei Alliance and the Western Alliance declared war on each other, marking the beginning of the conflict, nearly a hundred countries have declared war in just two years.

Countless steel giants with their formidable armor and cannons break through the Jump Points, swathes of battle aircraft rush into planetary atmospheres. Beautiful planets are scarred, and prosperous cities turn to ruins.

People in the war zones watch helplessly as their homes become shattered walls, as their loved ones die in a hail of firepower. Extreme pain turns into numbness, and before camera lenses, their gazes become empty, devoid even of despair.

Those outside the war zones watch all this on TV, silently, with hearts weighed so heavily they seem unable to beat.

They don’t know when their homes will fall, and they don’t know whether the scenes they see now will be the ones they might personally experience in the future. The black cloud of war hangs gloomily close.

Nobody cares about the New Year.

January 1st marks the start of a new year. In peacetime, it is a day of joy for everyone. But now, a day that should be filled with laughter is tainted by casualty notices and fallen cities, making people heartbroken.

Faced with the aggressive Western Alliance, faced with the invaders in their homeland, the people of the Fei Alliance need only one thing.

Victory!

A true and genuine victory!

This victory is not some minor skirmish reported with forced smiles by news anchors, nor is it an ”overwhelming victory” for a battalion that barely consists of a thousand ”main” troops amidst a retreating army, smoothly shifting forward.

What everyone needs is a victory that sweeps aside the war’s gloom, allowing them to see the dawn, a victory that lifts their spirits, allowing them to cheer proudly aloud!

That is their festival!

The wish for victory feels so pressing to the people of the Fei Alliance today. The more they hate and rage against those bastards from the Western Alliance who started the war, the stronger their desire for victory!

Every day they pray, praying for their warriors to become powerful, praying for their national forces to counterattack fiercely into the Western Alliance’s territories, to destroy the enemy cities, to occupy enemy palaces, to inflict a hundredfold, a thousandfold pain on the enemy.

This desire flows like an undercurrent among the people. All Fei Alliance country governments can clearly feel the enormous power contained within this undercurrent.

They know that in the hearts of those who endure hunger and grief, desperately working overtime to manufacture mechanical battleships, there is a volcano on the verge of eruption. If the situation deteriorates further, this volcano is bound to erupt sooner or later.

At that time, the anger of the people, far more terrifying than molten lava, can destroy anything.

What best proves this power is the towering popularity of John Lee.

Currently, he is the hero in the hearts of the people, the first successor of Military God Hastings, the idol of all passionate youth. And this status sprang from that victory in the Catalonia Star System.

Although it happened a long time ago, its impact is so profound that the shockwaves have yet to dissipate.

Now, within the Feiyang Army’s combat order, any unit under John Lee’s command gets priority in supplies, all are absolutely elite main force units. Their officers receive priority training, and rapid promotion. Soldiers enjoy better treatment, units equipped with more advanced Mecha, possessing stronger support.

Any restrictions on these units, any opposition to John Lee, will face fierce criticism from public opinion and legislators.

Describing these demands as what they desire, is not at all overstatement.

Indeed, many even hope John Lee can replace the sluggish Hastings, becoming the actual leader of Fei Alliance Army, leading the joint forces to launch a wild counterattack.

A single victory can raise John Lee to such heights, imagine the power of the populace.

Water can carry a ship, and it can also overturn it; as John Lee’s prestige grows, the pressure on the leaders of various countries’ military and political heads also increases. Facing such a severe situation, with the surging undercurrent among the populace, they dream of achieving a victory to appease public sentiment and lift spirits.

However, victory is not something that can be achieved just by talk. This, the high-level officials privy to intelligence know, and the ordinary citizens below also understand.

Currently, the Fei Alliance countries are still repaying the debts of their unpreparedness before the war.