The impact of humanity's godslaying feat in the Battle of Winterfort... perhaps ran deeper than anyone had imagined.
Gawain gazed deeply at the fragment of the God of War resting on a nearby platform. Under the laboratory lights, the divine remnant gleamed iron-gray. It looked like nothing more than a twisted piece of broken metal, yet an aura that had never faded, almost as if it were alive, still lingered around it.
This apparent "armor fragment" was, in essence, part of the God of War's own "physical structure."
Gods were entirely unlike the material creatures humans understood. Depending on the ideological currents that shaped them, they took on all manner of forms—Nature God Amun was a sacred giant stag of flesh and blood; the Goddess of Magic was a phantom lady formed from Arcane Energy and mist; the God of War was a suit of armor forged from steel and unknown materials; and according to Veronica, the God of Holy Light took the form of a massive crystal with an irregular reflective surface that constantly altered its optical properties. These bizarre forms reflected how the earliest mortals had imagined those gods, and that "depiction" had become a source of divine power, utterly fused with their "mythological images." Even after their deaths, that power remained within their remains for a very long time—perhaps for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.
The flesh sample from Amun once sealed within Fortress of Defiance had undergone three thousand years of gradual decay, yet when it was unearthed, it still carried deadly Mental Corruption.
Yet these fragments of the God of War... were now completely "harmless." Even testers who handled them without protection suffered no harm whatsoever.
After a moment of thought, Gawain slowly asked, "Other than the changes observed here, has there