What were they resisting?
Loyalty to their country and monarch, the survival instinct that compelled them to cling to life, the reflex to go with the flow—each explanation might fit, and perhaps they all did. But it was not just that.
In the face of "absolutes," akin to natural disasters, that could change nature and the world itself, loyalty and such proved insufficient. People don't harbor anger or question tsunamis or earthquakes; they accept them as an inevitable fate, a part of living in the world, and silently endure the pain disasters bring. Li Lin, with his might surpassing even these, should have symbolized an "irresistible force"; no one should have been able to resist him.
Yet at this moment, the insignificant, dust-like humanity was defying the will of the "Divine Agent."
Why?
For what?
(...If one must ask why, then one must be fighting against something.)
