Yeah I have no clue why Niki keeps retconning and downgrading the power level of the PoMA world so much. If you go on his tumblr, the absolute range and inconsistency is staggering. Like bro says that YB clears Homelander and later confirms that YB can tank a nuke, and then goes on to say something completely opposite later.
There's no real justification for this either, since the wider cultivation world seems to be extremely powerful, and there's absolutely no reason to make the S's weaker in comparison when they are already much weaker than a CF cultivator or that going by Niki's statements (unreliable) even a genius Qi Sea cultivator can beat them.