2244 - The Origin
"..."
After Blokan left to begin his great mission, Robin continued staring at the battlefield with two steady, powerful eyes for a long time.
The Law vortex that Althera had unintentionally created greatly aided the defense forces. The death toll among the beasts increased, and attempts to flee were almost nonexistent. There was no chance to catch a breath in the presence of the Imperial Guard, let alone escape!
"..." Morgana sighed as she saw Robin focused on the battle, ignoring everyone around him. "Your Majesty, I will return to the Other Side. The young space beasts must have started gathering again."
"Morgana..." Robin murmured while watching the battle. "What do you know about that thing lurking within your spiritual domain?"
"Oh, you remember..." Morgana showed a wide smile, then her expression turned embarrassed. "Oh... you remember."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, Morgana." Robin smiled. "That thing made the Executioner think twice before killing you. You should be grateful to it... and I am grateful to it as well."
"..." Morgana's face flushed with joy.
"What do you know about it, Morgana?" Robin smiled and returned to the subject.
"I don't know much..." Morgana shook her head. "It's the same Abomination that wanted to kill me. Your Majesty used your own methods to purify it back then. But afterward, I began to notice a change... it didn't disappear. After a while, it reappeared, but it no longer wanted to kill me. Instead, it started whispering thoughts to me, talking to me. Sometimes it says good ideas, sometimes foolish ones. Sometimes it encourages me to kill, and other times it rejoices while I teach the children and gives me ideas for the next lesson."
Then she looked to the side. "Only once, when I was on one of my private planets gathering Spirit Emeralds for the training of the Burton Family children, a large number of Ghosts attacked me. At that moment, it appeared before I could do what I do best, and it killed them all, displaying immense power—stronger than me personally—and it didn't consume any of my Spirit Units while doing so!"
"I wanted to come to you many times to find an explanation for it and investigate the matter, but..." Morgana lowered her head. "It hates you deeply, and I didn't want to see you get hurt by it if I forced a meeting between you two... Even at this moment, I can hear it cursing you inside my head... I'm sorry."
"Nothing to apologize for." Robin chuckled. "I don't blame it for hating me. It suffered a bit when I was purifying it."
"But if it weren't for what you did, I would be dead now, and he wouldn't have survived alone either. The Abomination that controlled him deluded him into thinking he could survive without a body, but that's impossible!" Morgana raised her voice in reply.
"Hmm, he's certainly listening now, and the fact that he hasn't come out to try to kill me means he's somewhat convinced that I'm not that evil." Robin chuckled, then looked toward Morgana. "But judging by your words now... it seems you know what it really is, don't you?"
"..." Morgana nodded. "And how could I not, when it has dwelled in my spiritual domain for nearly a million years? I know its origin, but I don't know what it has become."
"Hmm, that makes sense." Robin nodded. "That thing... it was the first consciousness of the first royal star you compressed, wasn't it?"
"...?" The Royal Spirit Masters of the Burton Family exchanged glances.
They had heard about what happened beyond the Gate—about a massive white-and-black ghost that appeared and fought thousands of Nascent Space Beasts alone. Of course, they were all curious about it, but this answer was far too strange!
Simply because the first royal star does not generate a complete consciousness that can be reasoned with or given independent tasks, as happens with the consciousness of the second, third, and subsequent stars.
The function of the Consciousness of the First Star is to strengthen the original consciousness residing in the Primordial Spirit. It multiplies thinking speed and elevates casting and learning speed to staggering levels. This nascent consciousness can be considered merely a tool for amplifying intellectual abilities, but it does not possess true independent existence.
That is why it is said that a Five-Star Royal Spirit Master has five different consciousnesses, not six.
“Mm-hmm.” Morgana nodded, “That is indeed the case.”
“…?!” Everyone’s astonishment grew.
Was this truly real?!
“The First Star contains a consciousness like the others, but it is weak, neither manifesting nor thinking independently. It remains trapped inside the First Purple Star, so it is usually overlooked… yet it exists.” Robin began to explain as he watched the battle, “And you, Morgana, obtained a strand of the Specters Shepherd, and then the Abomination struck your Soul Domain from a very young age. At that time, you had not yet formed your first star.”
“…Then a miracle occurred. With your extraordinary talent, you managed to compress a star within a Soul Domain that was corrupted, collapsing, filled with the Abomination, and where Ghosts danced… And within that first star, that dormant consciousness was born in a strange environment—an environment where it was never supposed to appear in the first place.”
Then he chuckled, "I still remember that day on Ghost Valley Planet when the Abomination invaded me because of Arkalon, and I saw my spirit creatures suffering, and I saw Evergreen and Neri running around screaming... I can't imagine what it felt like for that nascent consciousness to be born in that environment in the first place, without any real chance of survival."
He then looked toward Morgana, "And it lived inside that polluted environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The star and the consciousness both merged with that filth day after day, night after night... The effect was so powerful that that nascent consciousness, which was supposed to merely assist you, gained the ability to think independently because of all the negative thoughts surrounding it, and then tried to escape from there in its own way... by killing you. Even if it meant its own death afterward!"
"...." Morgana remained silent.
And more importantly...
The endless stream of curses within her spiritual domain had also fallen silent.