But only half a year had passed, and they still hadn't fully recovered from their injuries.
They could only muster a little over fifty thousand elite troops now.
Van Helsing and his people had been disheartened when Lynn called a halt to the extreme vampire hunts.
But Lynn had treated the people so well that Van Helsing and the others had nothing to complain about.
Lynn wasn't planning to ask those fanatics for help now, either.
As for the Church, he only needed to call on the Saintess Faction.
The three Saintesses were on his side, so he could use their names to invite whomever he wanted.
So, in the end, he really could only muster fifty thousand.
That was the true meaning behind Lynn's claim that he lacked a solid foundation.
He could mobilize all of Olesian's resources through his position as heir. It was entirely legal, and the knights were willing to serve him.
With the demi-humans, he needed to keep winning them over.
He also needed to keep persuading the people of Ivreya to serve him.
The same went for Ukmak: he had to keep winning their support.
To put it plainly, he had no core force. It was like in a wuxia novel, where the various martial arts sects in the land had no desire to serve the imperial court.
They couldn't unite, and each was too weak to fight the court or compete with its armies.
But together, they were powerful; scattered, they were still a collection of influential and unstable elements.
It wasn't that they rejected the court's rule. They accepted it and even praised the court.
But they couldn't be enslaved, so they had to choose to serve of their own free will.
Faced with this situation, Lynn finally made up his mind.