>>713210258
>It isn't.
It is
>Miquella's path of purification
Is irrelevant to Marika stealing grace from the actual goddess that is dead and covered in a funerary shroud.
>Yes, she's openly mocking him,
Again, headcanon. Her words are quite clearly implying to what exactly happens in game, them merging after shattering both.
>>713210317
>Marika created the Erdtree. Why would she seek the origins of it?
Because she communed with a God through stolen grace to obtain it. Marika's desire to selve deep is what allows her to become a true Goddess in the end and a vessel of Elden Beast. The law of Casuality and Regression study how things come from the divine and spread into multiple and then converge back together to ascend to the divine.
Marika and Radagon studied sorcery and incantations (both originated from the Greater Will in different forms), exactly to investigate the Elden Ring and become one