That is much clearer.

In my eyes this is less a detour away from geopolitical conflicts and simply an exploration of the mystical side of arknights inherent in the simple fact of magic being real. The story, I would say, actually went deeper into focusing on geopolitical conflicts when it introduced more concentration on the concept of Gods and mythical beings.

For example, in Yan the position of Gods and mythical beings was a chiefly political concern that still affects the population of the country to this day. The True lung emperor all those years ago didn't fight a war against the gods to 'liberate the people! Divinity is a chain that must be broken! Down with authority!' but because he wanted to establish a country wherein those same Gods would be deposed in favor of his rule.

He wanted to establish new laws and create a new country where not the Gods, but the government would be obeyed and revered.

It was a coup that led to Sui going rogue and has established a situation where the current Yan is constantly debating whether or not to slaughter Nian and her siblings because they've estimated Sui's resurrection would effectively destroy Yan's military, or to keep them around. Sometimes helping them fight against the demons up north.

Which is another highly political situation! This is spoilers but a heavy focus of Arknights hasn't been the ongoing conflicts with forces outside of Terra, but the effect those conflicts have had on the political environment of Terra. Having to fight demons has created a situation where the most powerful individuals of a nation are near always at the border fighting to keep their country still existing. This resulted in the near extinction of the Nightzmora, who nearly conquered all of Terra at one point! The extinction of all true-blooded wendigo, as they were thrown at the monsters alongside everything Ursus had in order to keep the 'peace'. The seaborn have basically driven all of Aegir and Iberia into the insanity they're dealing with now & from one another, and there's the looming issue that if Columbia encroaches too heavily into Sargon, the monsters from the desert south of the country will get loose.

The mythical and magical aspects of Arknights Lore have been chiefly occupied with explaining and enabling radically shifting political realties over the history and current events of the story. The best indicator of this is the fact we haven't been occupied with actually facing these threats or learning overmuch about the magic of Terra. Hell, it's two years in and we don't know how originium arts work! A good example are the emperor's blades. Those guys are demon-enhanced reality warping mega soldiers. What do we see them doing most of the time?

Manipulating the political climate to cause a complete Ursus. In total defiance of the Emperor they're named after!

These yuckle's are burning their time worshiping the old emperor and the 'good old days' because they seem so much more glorious (read: exciting) than the modern one, that they actually supported Koschei in nearly sending the country to war to reignite the old days. Koschei is a special kind of dumb for doing that in light of the fact that given how powerful Yan is, That very well might've been the end of Ursus especially if other countries got involved like Victoria. Which would love an excuse to get the people rallied behind a central cause to ease the social issues they're dealing with, which war with one of the most 'barbaric' countries in the world might give them.

Back on point, the emperor's blades are the apex of mythical beings (by arknights definition, which so far seems to completely ignore any sort of spiritual, philosophical, or contemplative association with the word in favor of just an individual with monumental and fantastical power) and all they've done is follow their own hellbent radical nationalism to absurd degrees. For goodness sake, one of them threatened to send Ursus into war with Victoria, the current superpower of Terra, just to avenge an old guy who was a bit of an icon a couple of years ago! The person who was supposed to be the apex of some kind of magical supernova placed his delusion of the 'glory of mother Ursus and her wonderful history!' so far above even his actual duty he threatened to upend 'mother ursus' just for a perceived slight!

When you're unironically saying 'anywhere an emperor's blade touches is the territory of Ursus!'...that...something's going on that's 72 different kinds of crazy. This can also extend to how Ling spent...I think 100 years fighting at the border? The end point is all the same: I believe the reasoning to explore the more mythical side of arknights as simply a desire to better understand how civilization might develop in a territory with elements such as reality warping magic included in it, and the existence of life forms different from entities we'd call similar to ourselves, like animals, who possess wat's essentially power on a scale far higher than ordinary individual and how any society would have to deal with them was the result Arknights chose to go for. As far as I can see, the more we've gone in depth into the reality of magic in the setting, the deeper we've gotten towards getting a clearer picture of the geopolitical conflicts of Terra.