Sacred Gear

**Sacred Gears**, also known as **God's Artifacts**, are items that have powerful abilities bestowed upon humans by the Biblical God.

## Summary

The Biblical God created the Sacred Gears as part of his system to enact miracles across the mortal world, especially on Earth. Originally, their existence was something only known among the ancient followers of his cult, but as time went on and the Great War among the Three Factions began to grow in size and enveloped the entire Creation, knowledge of the Sacred Gears became known across the supernatural world, among all the mythological factions and pantheons of foreign gods.

They have been wielded by countless mythological and historical figures since the dawn of civilization, who used their Sacred Gears to influence and shape the history of the world to their own wills, with some even being worshipped and recorded as gods and divinities. According to Odin, primordial gods or legendary monsters were actually ancient humans who possessed Sacred Gears that allowed them to be on the same level as the gods.

They vary from common ones such as Twice Critical to the rare Twilight Healing, as there can be multiple Sacred Gears of the same type, with the only exception by the Longinus, which are all unique in their own way. And while most people are born with one Sacred Gear, some can own two or even more Sacred Gears at the same time through irregular circumstances rather than through birth. According to Azazel, since Sacred Gears can be considered "crystallization of one's soul and desires", by doing so means causing immense changes within one's own soul.

Humans and human hybrids are the only species able to be born with Sacred Gears, as it could possibly be due to humans' natural desires to grow and evolve, and those who are reincarnated into devils or angels still keep their Sacred Gears after their reincarnation. No one is sure why, but many speculated that this is because the existence of reincarnation systems such as the Evil Pieces and the Brave Saints weren't taken into account by the Biblical God when he created the Sacred Gears.

The fallen angels of the Grigori were able to use their technology to devise a ritualistic artifact capable of extracting a Sacred Gear from the original owner and use it for themselves, which results in the death of the original owner. This, however, shows an even greater risk for supernatural beings, as all the thirteen fallen angels who merged the Sacred Gears into themselves turned into humans even after their death, as their souls didn't go to the Empty like most expected, but rather to the Third Heaven where they were accepted among the souls of deceased mortals.

## Appearance

The Sacred Gear System on the Seventh Heaven appears as a giant world tree with snow-white barks and silver leaves. It is estimated to be as large as the core within each of the Four Worlds of Creation.

## Abilities

Sacred Gears can have a variety of effects, such as Asia's Twilight Healing granting near-instantaneous healing and Yuuto's Sword Birth creating numerous demonic swords imbued with different attributes. They can also adapt and evolve based on their user's thoughts, needs, and feelings, gaining abilities or qualities as time passes. This is stated to be the source of Balance Breaker and suggested to be the source of the transformation into a Sub-Species.

### Balance Breaker

**Balance Breaker** (禁手バランス・ブレイカー, *Baransu Bureikā*) is the ultimate state of activation and is deemed the most powerful manifestation of the Sacred Gear. Once reached, the Balance Breaker can be entered again far more easily than the first time. An incomplete Balance Breaker can be reached by self-sacrifice on the part of the user, though this method does not count as a true activation of Balance Breaker, as reaching the full Balance Breaker can only be triggered by the feelings of its possessor.

### Juggernaut Drive

**Juggernaut Drive** (覇龍ジャガーノート・ドライヴ, *Jagānōto Doraivu*) is a special ability exclusive only to the Longinus Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing, and is considered to be a forbidden move. It temporarily removes the seal placed on the Heavenly Dragons, and for users that possess insufficient power the Juggernaut Drive will drain the user's life-force which is needed to fuel the power, and drive them insane in the process as they cannot handle it.

For other Sacred Geras that have creatures/supernatural beings sealed inside them, their Juggernaut Drive goes under a different name called "**Breakdown the Beast**" (覇獣ブレイクダウン・ザ・ビースト, *Bureikudaun za Bīsuto*).

## Types

### Longinus

**Longinus** (神滅具ロンギヌス, *Ronginusu*) are unique top-tier Sacred Gears, with each having multiple abilities compared to a normal Sacred Gear, which set them aside from normal Sacred Gears, in addition to their power to slay gods and immortal beings such as angels and fallen angels. While there are originally thirteen Longinus in total, due to mankind's natural desire to grow and evolve, the Sacred Gear System reflected this and "bugs and glitches" were born, causing several normal Sacred Gears to combine all of their variations together and become the **Neo-Longinus**.

### Sub-Species

**Sub-Species Sacred Gears** are Sacred Gears that have taken on unique characteristics because of the thoughts and feelings of its user. They are more powerful than the normal form of the same Sacred Gear and will sometimes gain a new ability as well. They can be manifested both intentionally and unintentionally, as there are many Sacred Gears who manifest Sub-Species base forms such as Siegfried's Twice Critical or Simon's Sterling Blue, though for some, only Balance Breaker will be a Sub-Species.

### Artificial Sacred Gears

**Artificial Sacred Gears** are Sacred Gears created artificially by the Grigori. Azazel, the Grigori's Governor-General, has conducted countless research studies on Sacred Gears and has eventually managed to create his own Sacred Gear, Down Fall Dragon Spear, These Artificial Sacred Gears, however, are inferior to the real ones and have several limits and side effects, such as inducing fatigue after using it for long periods of time.

## Categories

Sacred Gears, save for the Longinus, can all be categorized into multiple categories, such as:

* **State Change**: A type of Sacred Gears that change the state of a user or another person/object. It can vary from doubling one's own power to halving the power of others.
	+ **Recovery**: A subcategory of State Change Sacred Gears. It allows the user to heal wounds or restore another person's health. Due to their usefulness and rarity, users of these Sacred Gears are highly sought after by all factions.
* **Creation**: A type of Sacred Gears that allows the user to create matter/objects out of nothing.
* **Defensive/Counter-Based**: A type of Sacred Gear that focuses mainly on defense and countering the attacks of the opponent.
* **Attribute/Elemental**: A type of Sacred Gear that incorporates different elemental attributes in its ability.
* **Time/Space-Based**: A type of Sacred Gears that have the ability to manipulate time and/or space.
* **Barrier/Sealing**: A type of Sacred Gears that have the ability to create barriers or seal an opponent or ability.
* **Independent Avatar**: A type of Sacred Gears that takes the form of a living-like creature that moves and acts of its own free will and instincts.
* **Sealed/Contract**: A generic term for Sacred Gears that have sealed a powerful creature inside them. They are powerful, but if the creature inside the Sacred Gears isn't awake or if it's inactive, the user will only be able to use the minimal abilities of the Sacred Gear. As the user increases their ability, they will come closer to the sealed creature as they will be able to benefit from the sharpening of their senses and bringing them closer to resembling the creature sealed inside.
* **Vritra's Sacred Gears**: A special collection of Sacred Gears that have a part of the soul of the Evil Dragon, Vritra sealed inside of them. Vritra's Sacred Gears are considered Trap-type Sacred Gears.

## Enhancements

### Chaos Break

**Chaos Break** (魔人化カオス・ブレイク, *Kaosu Bureiku*), or **Artificial Demonization**, is a special doping for Sacred Gears made from the blood of the original demons, created by the Khaos Brigade with the help of the True Satan Faction, the remnants of the Old Satan Faction.

## Trivia

* Sacred Gear users are usually physically and magically superior to regular humans.
* All known Sacred Gear users descended from First Men, or at least, descended from biblical figures.
* Due to their numerous powers, Longinus Sacred Gears aren't categorized into any of the categories, but rather a category of their own.
* Recovery-type Sacred Gears are said to be the rarest type of standard Sacred Gears due to their power to heal individuals without paying a price, as healing magic is considered the most difficult to learn and master, as well as higher tier healing requiring a price for its use.
* Users of Sealed/Contract-type Sacred Gears often gain attributes and characteristics of the being sealed inside their Sacred Gears through time, though those who shared the same heritage as these beings tend to manifest these traits faster.
* When a Sacred Gear user dies, their soul and the Sacred Gear are often reborn together.
	+ First Men, however, don't seem to follow this rule, as their souls and Sacred Gears separated from each other after death, though when they are reborn into sages, they still retain all the abilities their Sacred Gears granted to them.
	+ Reincarnated users don't reincarnate alongside their Sacred Gears, but rather their souls are permanently erased out of existence due to being "irregular anomalies" deemed by Metempsychosis while the Sacred Gear is connected to another soul.
* Balance Breaker and the Longinus are believed to be "bugs and glitches" within the incomplete system by the angels and fallen angels.
	+ Gods such as Loki or Sun Wukong, however, believe them to be a deliberate choice by the Biblical God, to prepare humans against incursions of other mythological factions.