The troops of both sides stood facing each other. The combined forces of the Hephaestus Kingdom, the Echo Dominion Empire, The Storm Isle Dynasty, and the Thera Kingdom exceeded more than 20 million, of which more than 10 million were just duplicates. Meaning there were more than 10 million 5th-order cultivators on this battlefield.
One 5th-order cultivator can change the tide of a battlefield. 5th-order cultivators are not like potatoes that can be grown in large quantities. To raise a 5th-order cultivator, an Empire needed to spend years, if not multiple decades, and almost countless resources. Sometimes it was totally normal for a cultivator to take more than a century, if not multiple centuries, to reach a 5th-order cultivator. Not every cultivator can reach the 5th order. Due to the limit in resources and their own talent, not everyone can reach the 5th order in their lifetime.
