This world had gone far, far too long without experiencing a large-scale war. There had only been small-scale extermination campaigns, with even the largest involving no more than a thousand combatants.
The direct result was that battles on the scale of ten thousand could only be seen in books, learned from books, and imagined. Yet imagination alone was not enough to command a battle.
With the mobilization of vast sums of money, the Imperial Family successfully gathered an army of over ten thousand ordinary soldiers and Source Mages. They marched toward Pingkong City beneath the slogan of wiping out the evil cult known as the Radiance Society in one stroke.
But reality was cruel. The inexperienced commanders were leading an army of ten thousand for the first time, and all kinds of problems arose the moment they set out. Before they had even reached Pingkong City, the force was already on the verge of collapse. Forget combat strength—it would have been impressive if they could reach Pingkong City in one piece.
The Radiance Society naturally did not let such an opportunity slip by. They proactively dispatched a two-hundred-man Source Mage unit for probing raids, tossing skills from afar and fleeing before the enemy could give chase.
Yet many Source Mages in the Imperial Family's army, spurred on by money, howled and charged after the enemy at first sight. They were beaten to a pulp by troops lying in ambush, disarmed and captured, then joined the Radiance Society after one of Zhi Peng's "ideological mobilization meetings."
After several rounds of this, the army organized by the Imperial Family stopped moving altogether. It was a complete mess. Many Source Squads, seeing that things were going south, slipped away in secret under cover of night. In just a few days, the Imperial Family's