What a magnificent god—tall and majestic in form, handsome and valiant, with a head of golden hair and those sacred eyes of pure gold, always wearing a sunny, warm smile, ever confident and cheerful, brimming with vibrant life.
As for power, no one yet knows how mighty He truly is; His might is unfathomable.
All that is known is that when He had just left the cradle and could freely fly across the sky, playing with the goat goddess Amalthea, He casually snapped her hardest horn.
Amalthea is a true deity, and a Mother-Earth goddess personally created by the Mother Goddess Gaia; her fleshly body is extremely formidable, and her horns indestructible.
Yet still, in play, one was easily broken—and the horn Zeus broke never regrew.
From then on, when there were many around, Amalthea was unwilling to take human form.
Her former human form was a human body and face, but with horns upon her head, and goat's hooves below the knees.
She had always taken the greatest pride in her beautiful horns; now there was only one left, which made her feel extreme embarrassment and shame.
Seeing the silly goddess who often hugged her broken horn and wailed, and those resentful, big eyes, Zeus felt quite abashed.
He solemnly promised to find a way to restore it, so the goat goddess resolved that until it was restored, she would absolutely not take human form again!
Zeus no longer worried that Kronos would "see" Him; once He could freely wield His own divine authority, He had no fear—His authority could perfectly conceal Him.
Zeus lifted His eyes to the infinitely distant heavens, then looked down at His broad palm. He knew the time had come.
The great goddess Rhea once more descended in secret from the infinitely towering Mount Othrys to visit the only child of hers who yet lived.
Her only hope.
The goddess Rhea's embodied form was that of an exquisitely beautiful, gentle young matron; unlike others, her hair was an ever-shifting cascade of a billion warm, multicolored lights, representing the world's flow and vitality—beautiful and full of life.
(Reference illustration of Queen Rhea's divine body in concrete form)
As the materialized world grew ever more complete, more variegated, and more beautiful,
So that the gods could experience the world's goodness and fully enjoy it, the embodied forms the gods now displayed were the best and most perfect shapes that the Mother Goddess Gaia, together with the gods, painstakingly created over countless ages with united effort.
That is to say, what later would be called the human form.
Strictly speaking it should be called the god-form, and the human form was higher than other creations precisely because it was modeled on the gods' appearance—thus humans were born with greater gifts and potential, and, because of the similar form, might even win the gods' favor.
Unlike mortals, the gods add a touch of their own essence to the initial god-form; what appears, in fact, is thereby different in each.
One may understand it as the gods jointly crafting a universal template, and then, when creating their own bodies, freely composing upon that template.
What the outward, manifested body looks like depends on each god's tastes and creative ability, displaying the god's personality and power.
For gods who are embodiments of laws, a body is important, but not paramount.
It is merely a crafted body, a tool by which they may better amuse themselves with the world; it is not their essence—their essence is the law itself.
So long as combat is not considered, it is very simple and may be shaped at will.
But that is not to say it is unimportant; the better the body is crafted, the better one can enjoy this world, and so one must take care in its making.
If combat is considered, then the divine body becomes extremely important; it directly determines a god's power and defense.
Repairing damage is easy; what is hard is the original creation—making something from nothing.
If it is utterly destroyed and one must start again from the beginning, that pains a god greatly—that means a long remolding.
Repair is easy; remolding is hard; original innovation and creation are harder still.
To put it less than precisely, it is like building a house for oneself and decorating it; the final result depends entirely on one's own ability, testing a god's creativity, wisdom, and power.
Those whose ability is lacking must ask other gods for help.
Though a law-god is the embodiment of a law, that is only the essence.
They are born with spirit from the law and innately possess the highest authority over that law, but that does not mean they can wholly influence everything.
Especially since many laws do not suit combat and contention; some laws require the cooperation of other laws to exert their greatest effect.
Moreover, even among laws, some are wholly unrelated; some laws cannot affect certain other laws at all. Of course, some can completely suppress others; there is intergeneration and mutual restraint among laws.
In practice, it mainly depends on how the law-god wields the law—whether they can bring its power to the utmost.
Many laws that are not suited to battle, or whose targets' laws are unaffected by one's own—or even suppress one's own—leave only the contest of bodies; then the importance of a robust divine body becomes clear.
And as gods—no matter what kind—in a world of materialized creation, they must take on bodies to fully enjoy the world's goodness and experience all things.
Law-gods are hard to destroy, but their bodies can be. Once the body is shattered, they can only merge dully back into the law and cannot enjoy the world; for gods accustomed to the world's delights, this too is extremely painful.
In sum, for law-gods the divine body is not a matter of life and death, but it is an extremely precious asset—the vessel by which they enjoy the world and exert their power.
When law-gods engender new laws, there are different choices: one is with an inherent body, the other without.
With an inherent body, under divine gestation, the engendering proceeds faster and more complete; most importantly, one can seize the law's seat the quickest and fully master its power.
Here is where Kronos's cruelty lies: He clearly could have chosen to engender a law in pure form and swallow it before it birthed spirit—cold-blooded resource consolidation, perhaps, but not too cruel.
But for maximal benefit He forced the goddess Rhea to create, together with Him, the best possible child.
A law-incarnation with an inherent body, endowed from birth with spirit and divine soul and consciousness.
To swallow this—hardest to digest, yet most perfect—form of a law is excessively cruel.
Among the gods, He alone did this.
Moreover, in the gods' unions, they may choose to bear purely living beings without attached laws.
The strength and ceiling of such children depend on the creators' embodied power, and on all manner of growth thereafter.
But such lives are easy to destroy, because they lack the support of a law-essence.
A law is not easily crushed; even usurpation is difficult. But a purely fleshly body is all too easy to destroy—there are many ways.
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