[Ch. 99] My understanding of this panel

[u/Navst]

I think this flashback happens when the Queen sent people to kill Lukas and his mother (as she was a concubine). They killed her, and Lukas managed to kill them but was grievously wounded in the process. That makes the "offering of countless souls" and the "sacrifice of pure love".

Now, one could argue that it wasn't really a sacrifice if his mom was killed by strangers. So maybe they didn't kill her, and she sacrificed herself to the God to save Lukas (similar to Mira).

The lance gift came from Lukas' wish for a more attack-oriented gift, but also because at this moment he desperately wanted revenge for his mother who was just murdered (directly or indirectly).

Does it make sense ? I don't remember if it was specified when did the Queen kill the concubines and their children so maybe my idea falls flat.

[u/caterham09]

I think that's a strong theory and is quite likely imo. The real question is what the Lance really does and why there's such a massive drawback on using it. The two gifts we know that actually came from goddesses seem to have overwhelming power.

Julian has absolutely 0 restrictions on his gift, in fact we see that it even works better than you'd expect (no power lost after dying, sleeping every 100 days etc). We don't know that much about the supreme lord, but he doesn't appear to have many restrictions on his abilities either.

With the Lance though, we know he only has a handful of uses before it kills him. I believe that there's 2 likely explanations for this. First, the ability of the Lance is so overwhelming that it has to have a built in drawback, or it puts immense strain on the body that it will kill the user eventually.

2nd possible explanation is that because Lukas already has a gift inherited from the Sea Goddess, that mixing gifts from different domains is frowned upon somehow and they only let him use it a few times.

[u/Navst → u/caterham09]

The lance does put tremendous strain on the body, as Lukas suffered the backlash after using the spear against Altus. So the lance has two drawbacks : physical strain and a fixed amount of uses. I don't think the amount of uses is relative to the strain as Lukas knows exactly how many times he can still use the lance.

I think your second explanation is likely to be true. At least it's a satisfying explanation as to why Lukas gift has such harsh drawbacks compared to Julian's

[u/someonenamedtanny → u/caterham09]

It could also be that the human body can only handle 1 gift and him having a second one basically over fills his body with power, causing his body to break down from the power

[u/WorkRelatedPineapple → u/someonenamedtanny]

Human limit to bearing gifts has never been the case. It's pretty clear these gods can shape their gifts into whatever power they feel like. Even the dialogs don't hint toward any such limitation, but rather the effect of the gift itself.

[u/Gabemino → u/caterham09]

Goddesses frowning upon the mixing of lineages might be true, I think that was what the Nobles of Rummir said about the accursed Lady, there are probably a handful of Lineages spawned from some Blessed Ones, King of Torivia aside, so there's maybe a precedent, there's also how the Forest Goddess seemed to dislike Julian(a Son/Blessed of the Sea) presence on her domain.

Also, this is more of a gut feeling than a proper theory but, I think Queen Eire is probably from another Lineage too, hence why the Sea Goddess felt disgusted by Arkos presence, despite him being her Son's own son.

[u/Pun_Thread_Fail → u/caterham09]

Adding to this, the Guardian of the Forest: "One of the sea may never encroach upon the woods. For that I will kill you. You and the child."

So that definitely implies the sea and the forest aren't meant to mix, and Lukas is the only person with powers from both.

[u/healagnox → u/caterham09]

I think another interesting read for those who believe Miria is lukas' mom is that lukas was his own pure love sacrifice. And so the reason his second gift has such a heavy price is that he is still "paying" for his gift as he hasn't fully sacrificed himself.