What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[linayar]

Same goes for you. You've tried to link this before. This is from 12k years afterwards, after the Sundering had fractured all souls on the star. By which point the plan had changed to glue the planet and all life upon it back together, as it had been fragmented. Given that the surviving ancients would've also been fragmented into what are now the sundered (and particularly Azem), of course the Ascian plan entails that as a component. Thus using this as any sort of evidence as to what the nature of the sacrifices was before the Sundering is a trifle disingenuous.

There's the fact that Venat and her group objected to it pre-sundering. In fact, the new life would have to be of such quality to be offered up as sacrifice to Zodiark in order to revive the lost Ancients.