From the perspective of their ultimate goal, the new army and the old army were actually the same: both sides were trying to build a bridge.
And if one looked solely at the ultimate objective of "weakening the Void Cataclysm," it seemed to make little difference whether the new army or the old army succeeded. As long as the bridge was built, the imbalance between the two shores of the Void would fall below the critical threshold, and the Void Cataclysm would occur in a relatively mild form. Though it would still be accompanied by countless apocalypses, it would at least not cause total extinction, and many worlds could be preserved. This was precisely why the New Empire had decided to put aside its past grievances with Abyss Shilin and build the bridge together.
There was only one difference between the new army and the old army, but it was precisely this difference that made any compromise impossible: the new army's extremism. They had elevated "Imperial interests" to a paranoid and twisted level, even attempting to secure the Empire's position at the top of the pyramid by exterminating all life other than themselves. Even the God Race was among their targets.
The new army would not share the Void bridge with anyone. They would not allow any civilization other than themselves to successfully build a bridge. Those lunatics would pay any price to become the first super-civilization to accomplish it, then use the Void bridge's special properties for offense and defense, permanently cutting off the possibility of other civilizations building bridges, including the super-civilizations on the opposite shore.
Abyss Shilin, meanwhile, was clearly much more moderate. She was willing to share the knowledge of bridge-building with other civilizations. To ensure the bridge could be established sooner, she was even willing