Winning an empire was easy; holding on to it was hard.
Xu Cheng keenly felt the truth of that now.
The Far North was vast. By a proper reckoning, its area exceeded even that of the Star Dou Great Forest. Setting aside the extra expense of frontier subsidies for Sun Moon Empire troops stationed there, stopping Heaven Soul and Shrek from sneaking around and making trouble again would require a considerable military commitment.
Did the Sun Moon Empire have too few troops?
Certainly not. The five corps of the Hand of National Protection alone numbered nearly six thousand elites, and with almost a hundred thousand lower-ranked soldiers added in, their numbers were no less than those of the Original Continent's empires, such as Star Luo and Heaven Soul.
The problem was that, now that the pie had grown bigger, those soldiers were starting to fall short.
The Royal Soul Engineer Corps was the true imperial army. Unless there was a major war, it would not be deployed lightly, and its camp stood near the Imperial Family in Mingdu. Of the other four corps of the Beast Soul Master Corps, at least two had to remain to guard Mingdu.
Now the Fire Phoenix Corps and Royal Dragon had been dispatched to garrison Star Luo, coordinating with their inside allies in the Star Dou Great Forest. As for holding the fort in the Far North...
Forget it. When the time came, he would pull two battalions from the Evil Lord forces stationed in Mingdu, then another two from Royal Dragon stationed in Star Dou. At least that would scrape together the fighting strength of one Soul Engineer Corps.
For now, the situation was stable.
The Clear Sky Sect had been cowed. It had two ultimate-level combatants, but both were firmly pinned down.