"Wait, how come mom is that old hag's sister? Aren't all laws part of my mom? Doesn't this mean she shares a similar connection to the rest of the unigins too?" Nimo tilted his head in confusion.
His questions were valid since all laws were considered part of Asna's core, which meant the rest of the unigins should be considered as her brothers/sisters too.
"Nimo, you are seeing just the surface."
Asna patted Nimo's head with a gentle smile...She finally understood her origins after awakening her memories and Lilith's memories.
"I am not the consciousness of the Origin of Laws Celestial Heart. I am the consciousness of the universe's seven virtues just like Lilith is the consciousness of the seven sins." She dropped a bombshell, leaving Nimo and some of the tenants stunned.
"How come..." Candace murmured in disbelief, "Didn't your consciousness awaken before you can unlock the seven virtues?"
Indeed, Asna was born as a little child without even knowing about the existence of the seven virtues. How could she be its primary consciousness?
"It's simple really." Felix clarified solemnly as he eyed the universe's consciousness, "Unlike what we have assumed, there is only one consciousness for the universe and it's the one we are staring at. The celestial hearts shouldn't give birth to their consciousness since it defied the existence of the one and only, universe."
"That's why the stone of reality, the elemental heart, and the universe's heart haven't awakened their own consciousness after spending just as much time if not more than the three celestials."
"If it's like this, then how come the three rulers' have awakened?" Thor inquired.
"I don't know, but I am sure it is something similar to Asna's situation." Felix replied, "The universe consciousness might have breathed life in them personally. It's the only proper explanation."
Some tenants agreed with Felix's theory while the majority were still pretty confused since this new revelation had flipped everything they knew about the celestials' origins.
They believed that the three rulers were born on their own after the three celestial languages gained their will.
This was the premise that even the three rulers adhered to and accepted. But in reality, it shouldn't make sense since it took billions of years for just elementals to gain their consciousness.
Foremother's Siamese Galaxy was the biggest evidence.
How could the three rulers awaken their consciousness on their own by absorbing energy while still being at the very beginnings of the universe's birth?
"It's true, the math isn't mathing." Apollo nodded, "We also used to believe that our birth was based on the laws awakening their consciousness, but then we discovered that the universe's heart handled it."
"Indeed, if the Origin of Laws heart gave birth to Asna's consciousness on its own, then the stone of reality should have its own consciousness by now." Fenrir said calmly, "It spent more time compared to all hearts combined."
"Interesting, really interesting..." Lady Sphinx murmured while tapping her finger on her elbow thoughtfully.
"What's on your mind?" Jörmungandr raised an eyebrow in intrigue.
"I am starting to think that the seven virtues and seven sins weren't supposed to be laws in the first place." Lady Sphinx remarked, catching everyone off guard.
"What do you mean?"
"Think about it." Lady Sphinx clarified, "The seven virtues and seven desires represent the universe's fundamental moral and ethical principles. They shouldn't be laws encompassing the universe's reality like the rest of the laws. Their existence is null in the grand scheme of things and does not affect the foundations of reality."
"How can Kindness, greed, wrath, patience, and the others be considered one of the universal laws that govern us? I can understand gravity, water, light, darkness, fire, etc, but those fourteen laws make no sense as much as their powers are overwhelming."
"This got me thinking..." Lady Sphinx pointed at Asna and Lilith, and then disclosed, "What if the universe's consciousness has extracted those moral principles from himself and turned them into laws, knowing that they are key for its rebirth?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Felix and the rest stared at each other in silence, their furrowed eyebrows expressing their turmoiled emotions after listening to Lady Sphinx's theory.
As much as they wondered about it, they always arrived at the same conclusion. 'She has a point.' That's right...All of them understood that without the seven sins laws, Felix's journey would have taken a much different path. A path that would most probably lead him to his damnation since those laws were simply too overpowered.
"Big sis is smart as always, you are the closest to the truth." Asna smiled bitterly, "But, merely keep watching and you will understand that the truth is more horrific than this."
Upon hearing this, everyone gulped a mouthful in dread and watched as Felix unpaused the memory orb.
They watched with Lilith as Asna's core brightened within the universe's heart, dimming to an unimaginable degree.
It was like the core was on the verge of death. On its surface, only a couple of inscriptions were written, representing creation laws, destruction laws, and lastly, the seven virtues.
But, the universe's heart kept feeding it with celestial energy continuously, and as more time passed on, new inscriptions reappeared on its surface.
When Lilith read them, she read them as the lost laws, which were sent away within their own cores.
"Does this mean the unigins' origin is this heart?" Lilith wondered with thinned pupils, all the new information she was receiving was too much even for her.
But, her assumption was met with a unanimous agreement from Felix and the rest of the tenants.
"The unigins' cores were all part of Asna's celestial heart?" Candace held her dizzy head, "I am starting to lose it, wasn't the universe's heart responsible for their birth?"
"I know what happened." Eris replied calmly, "The universe's heart has extracted the laws from Asna's core and placed them within cores before sending them away for their awakening...That's why there is no creation or destruction unigin. The universe's heart hasn't extracted them with the rest."
"My thoughts exactly." Apollo added with an astonished tone, "Asna's core is called The Origin of Laws by the prophecy tablet itself. Now, it makes sense that the naming was actually literal."
"But wait, how can the universe's heart help with the unigins rebirth without Asna's existence?" "I believe the universe's heart has extracted those laws for itself, leaving Asna's core to recover them through time." Felix interjected, "Since it is the one creating the cores, it no longer needs Asna to revive dead unigins."
"This makes a lot of sense." Lord Marduk mentioned, "I believe this is probably the reason Asna's consciousness came to life much later than the rest of the unigins. Her core needed to recover all of the lost laws before the implanted consciousness of the seven virtues can come to life."
The tenants nodded in understanding...They comprehended that after a unigin was born, they never awaken their entire powers or control at once.
Hence, the awakening stage came later on.
For the others, the awakening stage had happened while they were still in their first years, which didn't really change their lives drastically.
Lilith was in the same boat as she was born with the powers of void laws and the seven sins laws came later after her awakening.
This was a known knowledge for all unigins.
Nimo's situation was different since his entire existence was based on a wish, and while he followed the same steps as unigins, it was more or less to fool Felix and the others into believing that he was Lilith's replacement by the universe.
But, in Asna's case, her consciousness might be based on the seven virtues, but those laws were locked up and she had no idea about them.
That's because unigins figured out their entire laws only after their awakening, which was merely a process of absorbing enough energy to make the final push.
Since the three rulers had banished and made it impossible for Asna to awaken, fearing for the worst, she was left and everyone else to believe that her consciousness came from the celestial heart instead of the seven virtues laws!
This was the reason Lilith and Asna could potentially control each other's cores even with two different souls as long as they were given time to adapt to it.
It was also probably the best explanation for why the seven sins laws weren't resisted by her immunities since the universe considered her as their owner too!
The connection between their laws was merely too strong.
"This is all so messy and twisted, and yet, it doesn't seem like we even have gotten to the scary part."
Jörmungandr sighed as he watched Felix unpause the vision, understanding that the worst had yet to come...