Martial Peak - Ch. 2339

[MangaDex]

 

[Kaarme]

Those rules will make people fight, but they won't rise the morale. Morale is born out of the will to fight. When you feel like you are fighting for something important and worth fighting for. For many, it's just money and their pride as a fighter. For others, it's defending their home and family. However, these folks are cultivators, so who knows what they care about. Maybe the only thing truly motivating them is the unwillingness to be killed or be demonised. Some of them haven't realised there's nowhere to run, but others would think they don't want to be the first to fight the invaders. So, if they run far away, maybe others will win the war before it has a chance to get anywhere near them. Now the demons are only in the western territory, so the more cowardly would envy the people of the other territories who are still living in peace while the western territory is suffering so much.

Honestly, Yang Kai is simply disgusted by those people and that is why he doesn't even want to understand their motives. He would rather just force them to fight under pain of death, regardless of their morale.